salience
August 26, 2006
Hard to believe I’ve been in my Roosevelt Island apartment for almost three months. Summer is ending; you can feel it in the way the air is changing. A movie is being filmed here with Jodie Foster, The Brave One. Don’t ask me what it’s about, all I know is I hardly to take the island bus anymore, it’s easier just to walk around all of the trucks and camera equipment and people. Nevertheless, I don’t regret the move one bit.
I walk every day with hurried NewYawkas and agonizingly slow tourists who insist on taking awkward pictures with disposable cameras on any street intersection. I smell the sewage and the homeless, intensely putrid in the summer heat. I see tragedy and heroism in a subway car when a passenger threatens violence after his sneeze prompted a “God Bless You” from the woman sitting next to him. I no longer have to commute 20 hours for a multi-faceted job which warrants four separate titles but only one meager salary. I’ve met musicians who perform with the Opera at The Met. I’ve seen concerts in the basements of crowded jazz clubs on the lower east side of the city. I’ve spent hours walking and watching people in SoHo and TriBeCa. I can honestly say the MTA Subway no longer overwhelms me, even if I don’t know exactly where I am, I am never lost. This is the beauty of a densely populated city with a very simple layout. I’ve driven to and walked through downtown Brooklyn. There are so many museums I still want to visit. And as easy as it sounds, stalking Philip Glass is no simple task. I wake up early on Saturday mornings to go to the Farmers Market under the Motorgate Bridge from Queens. I sit in my living room window with Sphinx to watch the colorful tourist ships pace up and down the West bank of the River. I play piano badly and clarinet sorrowfully in my music room. I read The Main Street Wire, the independent bimonthly magazine of the island. I cook elaborate meals for my friends who never seem to want to leave. No, I am glad I moved.
My brother amuses me, he and I understand each other more now and are even closer than before. Pre Wake Forest, he couldn’t understand my loathing any return to GA, specifically Alpharetta. It’s a place that feels very isolated with a demanding sense of entitlement at every corner Starbucks you pass by. Now that he has moved away and created a new life with new people in a new place, he understands that there is more to life than a Hummer and some ordinary coffee with an expensive label.
I am a wanderer by default, I like going to new places. I like to feel the Texas sun, the dry heat in Vegas, the eternal rain of the San Francisco Bay and the wind of Chicago. I hate the perpendicular precipitation of a Boston winter and never again want to smell the industry of the state of New Jersey. But Cape Cod does have a charm to it and New York City is a children’s pop-up book of inspiration.
I can’t see myself living here forever, as amazing as the views are from my desk on the 29th floor with a view of the south eastern corner of Central Park and from my apartment on the 12th floor. And while it is temporary, these images and memories will live quietly in my heart for the rest of my life. No matter where I go or what I do next. I can’t wait to tell my children about working in midtown Manhattan, of watching and experiencing life in a Metropolis of America.
I walk every day with hurried NewYawkas and agonizingly slow tourists who insist on taking awkward pictures with disposable cameras on any street intersection. I smell the sewage and the homeless, intensely putrid in the summer heat. I see tragedy and heroism in a subway car when a passenger threatens violence after his sneeze prompted a “God Bless You” from the woman sitting next to him. I no longer have to commute 20 hours for a multi-faceted job which warrants four separate titles but only one meager salary. I’ve met musicians who perform with the Opera at The Met. I’ve seen concerts in the basements of crowded jazz clubs on the lower east side of the city. I’ve spent hours walking and watching people in SoHo and TriBeCa. I can honestly say the MTA Subway no longer overwhelms me, even if I don’t know exactly where I am, I am never lost. This is the beauty of a densely populated city with a very simple layout. I’ve driven to and walked through downtown Brooklyn. There are so many museums I still want to visit. And as easy as it sounds, stalking Philip Glass is no simple task. I wake up early on Saturday mornings to go to the Farmers Market under the Motorgate Bridge from Queens. I sit in my living room window with Sphinx to watch the colorful tourist ships pace up and down the West bank of the River. I play piano badly and clarinet sorrowfully in my music room. I read The Main Street Wire, the independent bimonthly magazine of the island. I cook elaborate meals for my friends who never seem to want to leave. No, I am glad I moved.
My brother amuses me, he and I understand each other more now and are even closer than before. Pre Wake Forest, he couldn’t understand my loathing any return to GA, specifically Alpharetta. It’s a place that feels very isolated with a demanding sense of entitlement at every corner Starbucks you pass by. Now that he has moved away and created a new life with new people in a new place, he understands that there is more to life than a Hummer and some ordinary coffee with an expensive label.
I am a wanderer by default, I like going to new places. I like to feel the Texas sun, the dry heat in Vegas, the eternal rain of the San Francisco Bay and the wind of Chicago. I hate the perpendicular precipitation of a Boston winter and never again want to smell the industry of the state of New Jersey. But Cape Cod does have a charm to it and New York City is a children’s pop-up book of inspiration.
I can’t see myself living here forever, as amazing as the views are from my desk on the 29th floor with a view of the south eastern corner of Central Park and from my apartment on the 12th floor. And while it is temporary, these images and memories will live quietly in my heart for the rest of my life. No matter where I go or what I do next. I can’t wait to tell my children about working in midtown Manhattan, of watching and experiencing life in a Metropolis of America.
lasaliente, 18:21
