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THEY CALL IT A NEW YORK MINUTE
They
call it a New York minute. But really, it's a New York moment,
and it doesn't necessarily have to do with rushing. Having
less to do with time, it has more to do with density.
This city is a living organism; its own force of nature, with
rivers of energy that run through it, carrying particles that
accumulate, disperse and regroup again in varying patterns
of nexus. It is a gestalt, a riot of the tiniest moments of
humanity that mesh into a constant massive movement. As rivers
run, blood flows, and molecules glide, so it is in the streets
of New York.
I'm working my way through what I call the Dorothy Syndrome.
Fresh off the boat. The new girl. One woman warned me that
I'd have a nervous break down during my first year here, but
afterwards I'd be fine. It is in fact, a paradigm shift, but
I'm not traumatized. I kinda like it.
I've lived in Colorado, Arizona, California, and Georgia.
In all those places, there is a degree of solitude, an insular
pocket of space around each individual that becomes a part
of their consciousness. It's a kind of delusion of grandness
that is reinforced in this culture in which people feel safe
in their distance to strangers. They feel singular. I think
what scares people about New York City is that they are afraid
that this sense of domain will be taken away from them. It's
too competitive, too crowded, too hard. They're afraid that
they will feel too small, too insignificant, and too overwhelmed.
But the fact remains that when each one of us takes a breath,
billions of people take a breath with us, at the same time,
no matter where we are. So really, what is the difference
between taking a breath in one place or the other? We're all
still here. I breath, just as I always have, but now I do
it in New York City.
My amended sense of proportion is actually a liberating reality
check. I walk down Sixth Avenue, among a sea of people, wait
for and ride the train among an ongoing rush of every cross
section of the humanity imaginable, and I rather enjoy being
a speck. Everyday, one New York moment folds into the next,
and it fills me up. I do not feel diminished or flattened
by being one among thousands. In fact, it's company.
I am constantly touched by strangers, in little outbursts
of repartee...or just in the passing hits of what I witness
on the street. My definition of a New York moment is a moment
of connection. Sure people give eachother a rash of shit,
but it's just dialogue.
"I'm fuckin' walking here asshole! I'm fuckin' walkin' here!!!"
instinctively came out of my mouth one day. I even slapped
the car. At first I was startled by my response but then I
felt gratifyingly amused." Geez, I'm startintaget duhangadis."
This is a city of bodies and perpetual, overlapping interaction.
Compressed into music, the terrain between public and private
space becomes alive and fluid. It is not a cushion; it is
a threshold of negotiation. Everyone from everywhere lives
here, and everyone puts up with eachother because they have
to. In this way, New Yorkers are very nice people. Their tolerance
for diversity is unceremonious and pithy. Rough to the touch,
direct because there is no latitude to be otherwise, it is
a permeable skin, easily pierced to reveal a subrosa of tenderness,
humor and light, seasoned by a knowledge of what it takes
to survive here and what the shit is about. Unfettered by
affectation, unprettified and real, it is its own state of
grace. And if you step up to the plate, you're in. My friend
Sari succinctly calls New York what it is: the city of tough
love.
A Hasidic Mom is struggling to get her Town Car equivalent
of a baby carriage up the stairs as people shuffle like sardines
in micro steps to the next train. A huge homey, in full Nike
regalia, seamlessly lifts one end of the carriage to help
her. "Thank you". she whispers. "You're welcome" , he nods,
and moves on.
The thing that I have come to understand about what makes
New York hard is not that New Yorkers are hard but that the
density is demanding. If you want your life here to work,
you have to navigate and stay focused. You godda know the
schedule, your route, when offices close, which side of the
street to park on and when, how to rapidly read the signs,
if you remembered your receipt, and if the shop is open on
Saturdays. You have to stay on top of it because there ain't
no slack. It's nothing personal, it's just the way it is.
Everyone accommodates with the 411, but if you still don't
know what you're doing, then get the hell out of the way and
don't block traffic. New Yorkers do rank and file without
even thinking about it. The push of these daily stampedes
is the small stuff. Getting mad about a long line at the Post
Office is ridiculous. Around here, everyone carries something
to read.
I'm walking to the corner store past these guys in a parked
car . One yells out, "hey you're sexy baby". I ignore him.
On the heels of my pause of no response, the guy retorts"You're
welcome. ...Ya walkin away from ya feootcha baby, ya lookin
atcha feootcha!" Finally succeeding in cracking me open, we
both burst out laughing, and then I walk into the store.
Nowhere but in this city would such a miracle occur as what
happened in the stairwells of the World Trade Center. Surrounded
by choking smoke and chaos, hundreds of New Yorkers' lives
were saved because they were exactly that...New Yorkers. As
the towers burned, people descended the stairs slowly and
in silence. Noone shoved or knocked anybody aside. No mayhem
ensued. They just took their steps in line, like particles
of light, gently and in order, to the ground floor. It is
this automatic ability to cooperate, with an ingrained periferal
vision and awareness of others, that set a spark alive in
me. Coming to terms with the image of people filing quietly
down the stairs together during such devastation was the moment
that I fell in love with the people of New York.
For days after, in Lower Manhatten, a defiant refusal to extinguish
the life that New Yorkers cherish burst forth as everyone
took to the streets. The eery state of siege below Fourteenth
Street, saturated by haze, sirens, and peircing sounds from
the air failed to squelch the tenacity of people's need to
be out and together. Union Square, the gateway to the isolation
of no motor traffic other than official vehicles racing towards
Hades, instantly became a celebration of life, shimmering
in the light of ten thousand candles. Street performance,
shrines of stunning magnitude, and poetry attached to every
surface erupted overnight. On September 12, 2001, as my body
merged into and floated through this swarm of raw human incantation
and outcry, my heart began to swell. My feelings kept expanding
with every step towards the quietude of the the West Village.
It was there, under a canope of trees and the waft of resilient
domestic tinkle, somehwere on Tenth Street just off of Fifth
Avenue, around 9:30 PM, that my heart finally snapped. . "That's
it"....it said. "I love this city, I love these people, and
I'm not leaving.
" I'm standing in line at Puerto Rico Coffee on Bleeker and
Christopher street. This kid turns to his mom and says,"Hey
Ma, can we buy some candy? I don't want it now. I can have
it later, after we get home." "You want candy?" "Yah. I'm
hungry" "But sweetie, we're going home to make dinner. Don't
you want to eat dinner?" "Well yes, but eating candy is my
hobby." "It's your hobby?" "Yes, I'd say so. Eating candy
is definitely one of my favorite hobbies."
For all intensive purposes, I am now a New Yorker . I have
a New York driver's license, a New York Public Library card,
voter registration, a lease, a studio...and... I no longer
walk the wrong way off the train. My landlord Richard and
his family live upstairs. He refers to me and my roomate as
"yoosguys", but to me, well, he calls me "Deah". He's NYPD
with a son also named Richard, who is an 11 year old Lenny
Bruce in the making. The day I moved in, they were having
a 40th Birthday party for big Richard's brother in law. With
Salsa music and laughter blaring from above, this cluster
of half pints, niņos y niņas, ranging from 3 to 5 feet tall
met me at the gate. Ordered by their dad and uncle to help
me unload because otherwise they'd just be playing Nintendo,
I was graced with my own small battalion, and I was inside
in under fifteen minutes. At Christmas, the doorbell rang,
and there was Little Richard Lugo with a huge box and a speech."This
is a gift from myself and my Mom and Dad to wish you a happy
holiday and thank you for being our tenants." It turned out
to be a DVD player and two tickets to a hockey game:The Rangers
vs. Pittsburgh at Madison Square Gardens.
Hey
Welcome to South Fifth Street, to the Barrio, to Billyburg,
DUMBO, Brooklyn, the East River, the spray of bridges radiating
from the bend of Lower Manhatten, LoLita, Noho, Housten Street,
Tribeca, the East Village, Central Park, grit and polish in
every scoop, goofy little dogs in sweaters, packs of girls
who let it all hang out, slide guitar coming up from vents
in the side walk, the old guys playing dominoes on the corner
with their mangy feline mascot snoozing at their feet, grabbing
a slice everytime you're the slightest bit hungry, the boiler
man on South Roebling that says, "Good morning sweetheart"
every single time, and every goddammed thing in the world
imaginable packed into a ten square miles.
ŠSono Osato 2001
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