Struggles: An Appreciation

A favorite pastime of many New Yorkers is kvetching and kvelling about daily struggles and comparing them to people around us. Often, the comparison becomes a competition. If you are not familiar with the Yiddish vernacular that is peppered into the conversations of New Yorkers, Jew and Gentile alike, I will teach you the necessary terms.

Kvetch - verb: to complain habitually : gripe

Example: “Rachel is always kvetching about her nephew who won’t get a job and find his own apartment.”

Kvell - verb: to be extraordinarily pleased; especially, to be bursting with pride

Example: “Rachel won’t stop kvelling over her son who was recently accepted to law school, much to the dismay of her knitting club.”

As odd as it may seem to outsiders, these two actions are usually performed in tandem, and sometimes applied to the same topic. There is a subtle art to master in complaining about a thing while also turning it into an object of pride.

Maladies and Ailments

Among friends and casual acquaintances, discussions of physical discomfort are as common as commenting on the weather. New Yorkers delight in sharing war stories about the realities of living. Such conversations can escalate into competitions to see who can claim the worst affliction that was suffered in “silence” while life went on as usual.

As an example, I meet with my good friend M every Thursday, and we reserve at least ten minutes to discuss our current bodily afflictions over a drink. If we can’t fill the time with our own afflictions (which is rare), we will invite the bartender to join the conversation. In doing this, we gain new stories to share in future conversations with others, so if our own ailment isn’t applicable, we can at least borrow from a friend; thus earning credibility by proxy.

There are levels to which conditions are appropriate in a given situation. Below is handy reference that will aid in avoiding a mis-step.

(A) New or Casual Acquaintances and Co-Workers

• Cold, flu, stomach virus (without gory details), minor injuries, minor genetic/hereditary defects, dental procedures, optical problems, ravages of aging (without gory details), rumors of upcoming pandemics and unusual cures.

(B) Outer-Circle Friends, Extended Family Members and Significant Others of Friends

• Section A, plus: Gastro-intestinal distress (in limited detail), parasites, minor medical procedures and socially-acceptable mental health problems (i.e. Seasonal Affective Disorder).

(C) Inner Circle (choose wisely!)

• Sections A and B, plus: Gastro-intestinal distress (in full detail), colonoscopies, sexual dysfunctions and/or other related health concerns, weight struggles, substance abuse, taboo mental health problems (i.e. suicidal/homicidal thoughts), documented allergies, full details of medical procedures, incurable or terminal illness and favorite medications.

There are also certain topics that are never appropriate and best kept to oneself.

(X) Nobody

• Self-diagnosed allergies or gluten intolerance, veganism or any other voluntary food restrictions, aromatherapy, involuntary weight-loss and humble-bragging (i.e. “I can eat whatever I want and never gain a pound”).

Transit Woes

In a metropolis of five boroughs connected by trains, ferries, bridges and tunnels, getting from one place to another is often a process fraught with strife. Between signal failures, track maintenance, re-routes, unscheduled police investigations and “passenger emergencies,” it is common to experience delays multiple times in a day.

Even though these struggles are universal and common, we never tire of sharing the horror stories. They transform even simple tasks, like going to work or picking up groceries, into epic adventures and heroic tales, the best of which should be retold in three minutes or less (because who has time?). Unlike our suburban counterparts, mundane things like buying milk, stamps and laundry detergent in one outing might require three separate stops and more than one method of travel (i.e. bus to subway to foot).

Rather than feeling deflated by the extra effort required to live our lives, real New Yorkers are energized by the challenge and feel triumphant. This reality of metropolitan life inspires us to kvetch over the conditions of our struggles, and kvell over our resilience and determination. There is also a hidden bonus to the constant unreliability of our transit system, which is the socially-acceptable practice of blaming one’s own tardiness on the Metropolitan Transit Authority, when in reality: you just overslept.

Expenses

Thriving in New York is not cheap. This is evident in the astronomical prices of generic pain relievers at Duane Reade pharmacies throughout the city (who are they kidding?). Everything from french fries to electricity is set to its own inflated value that hovers high above the rest of America (with the exception San Francisco). This lead to the formation for the “Rent is Too Damn High” party founded by folically-memorable Jimmy McMillan in 2005 (Google it, you won’t be sorry). Although nobody likes relinquishing their hard-earned money, we do take delight in talking about it whenever possible. This gives us a chance to practice kvetching and kvelling simultaneously. Below are a few common expenses that are discussed frequently by New Yorkers.

Real Estate

In most places, discussing one’s rent is taboo, but not in New York. It is perfectly acceptable to go to a party and ask the host what they pay for the dwelling in which you are consuming free booze. New York landlords and realtors are a whimsical tribe, imagining that anything with four walls and a toilet above the first floor can be listed as a “loft.” A bathroom sink in the living area accessorized with a hot plate and microwave is imaginatively called a “kitchenette.” A fire escape constitutes “outdoor access.” Contact paper newly adhered to the bottom of a drawer counts as “renovation.” Each of these “amenities” has a price tag, and each of these added living costs give the New York tenant more to discuss in mixed company.

Dining

New York is a city of restaurants. New Yorkers, as a group, tend not to cook very often (see description of kitchenette above), so there is a beautiful marriage of supply and demand that makes a true capitalist smile. Restaurateurs throughout the city have devised ways of arranging very small portions of food on very large plates to make diners feel like they are being served a work of minimalist art, when in reality, they are just paying for “negative space.” Although the substance of the meal may be minimal, the bill is anything but.

Mental Health

Many New Yorkers have therapists. I think the only other American city that rivals New York in the amount of psychiatrists per capita is Los Angeles, for obvious reasons. If I were a smarter man, I would have become a therapist myself since I believe the only appealing reason to listen to someone discuss their feelings is for profit. Luckily, I am too poor to acknowledge my feelings, so I do without the luxury of mental health. If I were one of the many New Yorkers that throws their money into the black hole of the mental health establishment, you bet I’d bring it up every chance I could!

Dating and Romance

As in any other city, many New Yorkers are looking for love. Dating in the Five Boroughs is like going to a Sizzler. There’s an endless buffet, constantly replenished with new fare, but the more you eat, the sicker you become. Common challenges of dating in the city are the following:

Location, Location, Location

It is just as dangerous for someone to live too close as it is for them to live too far away. Although New York is big, it can become a very small town in relation to unwanted contact with an old flame. If you date someone in your neighborhood, you risk running into them too easily if things don’t work out, and it’s a big ordeal to find a new grocery store, dry cleaner, pharmacy, local bar and subway route. On the other hand, if the object of your affection lives on Staten Island and you live in Harlem, traversing the New York Harbor on a boat to see them, regardless of how charming they may be, is too much to ask. My ideal relationship would take place on opposite sides of the park, two days out of the week with the stipulation of keeping separate friends and private bank accounts indefinitely.

Too Many Fish

Due to the abundance of options to choose from, many singles in the city become too choosy (myself included). Knowing that there are more than twenty million people in the New York Metro Area (including places accessible by commuter rail), it is difficult to overlook even small flaws in a potential mate. This makes for a culture of flaky singles with the nagging belief that they can always do better. It is for this reason, among others, that many singles in the city remain single, which is typically a much wiser choice.

Cultural Differences

One of the perks of living in New York is the opportunity to encounter new and exciting cultures. If you date someone from an exotic culture, what seems like a fun novelty in the beginning can quickly devolve into constant arguments over food preferences, media consumption and incompatible world-views. Unrealistic fantasies of meaningful cultural exchanges are usually tempered by the reality that past one’s early twenties, we become set in our ways. Rather than acknowledging that fact, it’s easier to find the other parties’ ways intolerable, and call it a day. These are not always insurmountable challenges, but the success rate of long-term union is not promising.

* * *

Struggles make us who we are. They reveal our inner strengths and weaknesses, they steer us on our path of life, and they ultimately distill the “purest” versions of ourselves from the disjointed mess we begin with. People who don’t struggle enough are insufferable, which I know from experience because I have been to California. Rather than lamenting over our struggles, we should appreciate them, hold them dear to our hearts, perhaps even sit with them sometimes and tell them that they’re pretty. If all else fails, our struggles make good conversation starters, which anyone who spends time with the elderly, knows very well. So take pride in your life’s heart aches, love your past regrets and always remember that without them, you’d have nothing to fall back on when you’ve run out of witty repartée.

The Forlorn Elephant of Broadway

My tragic looking new friend standing watch outside of a shabby little midtown shop.

There is a small diagonal stretch of Broadway in Manhattan between Koreatown and the Flatiron which is home to a street bazaar of peculiar wholesale establishments. Most contain bins full of unnecessary plastic knick-knacks that can only be purchased in minimum quantities of one hundred. The adjacent Fifth and Sixth Avenues are a tourist wonderland full of souvenir shops, hot dog stands and a legion of salesmen offering  "lowest price" guarantees to get to the top of the Empire State Building. This little stretch of road, however; is strictly for folks in the business of doing business.

Sometimes unsuspecting tourists will wander in to one of these shops and bring a single item to the salesperson only to be directed to read the "Wholesale Only" signs hanging rather unnoticeably in yellowed plastic coverings above the door. Some will try to plead their cases to uninterested store clerks for several minutes before giving up and continuing on their way without their coveted treasures. This anomalous zone feels like a relic of dead epoch that will surely be discovered by savvy real estate developers before the decade is over. Until then, the streets are still buzzing with merchants chattering away in a melange of Chinese, Arabic, Hebrew, North-African French and a peppering of languages my dull American ears are not yet tuned to pick out.

Recently I've been enjoying the summer weather and taking long walks during my lunch breaks. This helps restore remnants of sanity that my day job holds captive during business hours. I usually buy something along the way, and eat on a bench in Madison Square Park under the shade of stately old trees that have seen many generations of the midtown workforce before me enjoy a moment of daily respite, just as I do now. I like to sit and enjoy an over-priced sandwich while watching the traffic dance around the delicate intersection below the Flatiron, and enjoy being un-tethered from my desk for a few short minutes.

By the time I've finished, and I'm compelled to return, I say hello to Seward's statue perched above the flower beds, and pay my respects to General Worth resting beneath his forgotten obelisk before continuing back up Broadway. Each time I navigate my way through the narrow traffic crossings and construction zones that define this part of town, I try to keep my eye out for details that stand out among the swirling crowds going about their weekday business.

Recently I came across a rather worn out looking figure of a baby elephant made of papier-mâché chained outside of a chintzy looking shop that sells plastic costume jewelry. The poor little character looks as if he's seen a heavy share of life's injustices. He once had a dark vinyl skin which has peeled away around his face and trunk, revealing untreated wounds. Innumerable seasons of hot and cold have made their mark in the materials exposed. One of his font legs was broken and crudely taped back together causing him to lean unevenly on the gum-speckled pavement. Children with ice cream stained fingers assault him with regularity. Tourists use his back as a resting spot for their bags as they rummage to recover misplaced guidebooks and cigarettes. Mostly, he is overlooked.

In my sentimental mind, this little elephant represents so many of the pieces of old New York that have been cast aside and allowed to crumble, even though I know that I am probably over-reaching a bit. I don't know the real history of this object or how it came to be placed outside of a shop in this odd section of the city. I don't know how it received its many scars, but I do know that it has become an enchanting detail that I look forward to seeing. There is something behind the layers of decay that conveys a simple and sweet sentiment given freely to anyone who stops long enough to notice. Part of me wants to rescue the little elephant and take him home to be repaired, but there is something more genuine and powerful about his presence on the street. Who knew that bits of paper and glue molded into an animal would provoke such a reaction in me. Perhaps he has that effect on others as well. I hope so.

A Daily Reminder

The other day, I got off the subway at Herald Square, as I now do each morning. I was consciously ignoring my inappropriate weekday hangover, which is not necessarily an unusual occurrence. Wobbling through the obstacle course of stairways and turnstiles that leads to the exit of the “Manhattan Mall” building, I finally made it to the street after being poked, pushed and stepped on by the groggy mob around me. I’m fundamentally confused by the attempt to have a condensed version of a suburban shopping mall in the middle of Manhattan. I have decided that it makes the commuters feel more comfortable once they show up in the city for work. Sure, you may have JCPenney out on Long Island or in New Jersey, but the feeling of superiority that can be earned by waiting in much longer lines and paying higher sales tax in the city makes all the difference. There are certain cultural activities that unite the bridge and tunnel crowd, which I am unable to comprehend, and this is definitely one of them. At 8:30 in the morning though, nobody is shopping yet. Everyone is in a mad dash to find a source of caffeine before beginning the daily self-betrayal of long-term employment.

There is a certain peacefulness that exists in the act of being carried along in the current of human beings rushing down the sidewalks of Midtown like a steady stream of water. At this time of the day, everyone is determined and united with a common purpose. This enervated singular mindset prevents much of the unpleasantness that is possible after several cups of coffee and a street-cart danish. Unlike the chaos that comes at other times of the day when everyone has energy, the pre-9:00 rush is a sacred time reserved for the workforce of the city in which a universal objective unites us. The key to a peaceful coexistence is chronic fatigue and the hope that no matter how late we left our apartments, we will somehow make it to work on time and perpetuate the illusion that we are, indeed, responsible adults for at least one more day.

I started a new job recently, which means the creation of a new routine. For the past three years, I had my set path from the train to work. There were the familiar strangers I not only expected to see, but looked for in the mornings. There was the donut cart on the corner outside of Penn Station, the one that always charged me a different price for the same Boston creme donut depending on who was shut in behind the glass. There was the window full of fancy cupcakes on 8th Avenue that I always meant to try, but never did. There was the old man that stood barefoot smoking his cigarette in the same doorway every day who I named Fred. There was also the smiling green-eyed Halal meat seller who would sing cheerful songs in Arabic while chopping vegetables and heating his burners for another day’s crop of gyros. I’m sure they’re all still there, carrying on as before, but I am not. I wonder if anyone misses me as part of their own little morning inventory of strangers. Was I part of someone’s tally, or did I just blend into the clockwork mechanism of the Manhattan mornings without making a mark? I wonder.

When I was younger, I never thought of myself as a person who could be comfortable establishing such predictable morning rituals. I used to fancy myself an unapologetic “non-conformist” who would rather die than get caught get trapped in a pattern. Such arrogant thoughts are common in your early twenties. Although I’m not too much further along in my own timeline, now that I look back on it, I’m not quite sure what I was so afraid of. I’ve learned that it’s never wise to spend too much time considering the logic of post-adolescence. Now, I have come to enjoy discovering the patterns that will repeat and form the memories that will become my nostalgia that is cherished later on in life. All of these little things in our routines become part of the stories that we tell, and the stories that we tell become the larger parts of us that extend further beyond our own limited existence, and perhaps for some of us, they will outlive us when we’re gone. A story always becomes richer with repetition, and so does the experience of seeing the same series of things again and again over time. They somehow become more “your own” that way, and I’ve learned to value that phenomenon.  

Now, each morning, as I march into Herald Square with the legions of Midtown, I’m greeted with a view of the Empire State Building reaching far up into the sky, sometimes even gobbled up by low-hanging clouds near the spire. After living in the city for a few years, some of the magic of things which express the canned technicolor ideal of New York-ness have faded a bit for me, but I still get butterflies in my stomach when I walk in the shadow of that building. To me, it’s a firm reminder that no matter what discouragement may befall me, I’ve already come this far, and that alone is reason enough to keep moving upward. You can see the building’s silhouette poking out of the horizon from almost anywhere in Manhattan, watching over everything, keeping it all together. All the the pieces of my routine; the anecdotes, the high notes, the minor disasters and the rhythm that comes with the repetition, they all revolve around this glistening tower, watching over me like God. Sometimes, we all need a reminder of our purpose, and I am lucky to see mine every morning as I trudge forward in the mundanity of my little office job that allows my self-delusions of being a starving “artist” to move onward, and my own New York story to continue ... at least for another pay period.

Le petit New Yorker...

"Quand j'étais un petit garçon, je voulais être un New Yorker/
When I was a little boy, I wanted to be a New Yorker"

When I was growing up, my perception of media was somewhat warped. For the majority of my childhood, my family had a small black and white screen TV with no knobs and no cable to bring us the magic of brain-rotting consumer entertainment. We were the only family I knew of not to have a color TV set, and one of the few still using rabbit ears to bring fuzzy incomprehensible images of late 80's/early 90's broadcast network programming (primarily Star Trek the Next Generation and ABC's TGIF lineup). My parents were quite proud of this. We were more of a radio family, listening regularly to our local NPR affiliate station out of Paonia, Colorado for the majority of our news and "cultural enrichment." Our one window into a wider world of media was our primitive VCR, equipped with a remote control attached to a three foot long chord. I remember walking to the "Q and T" gas station a few blocks down the street from our house which had a small video rental service, boasting of dusty titles mostly from decades past. Ironically, the bulk of the films my mother would let us rent were originally shot in black and white, so the limitations of our colorless television set didn't pose a problem. By the age of five, I was enamored with the personalities of actors like Cary Grant, Kathryn Hepburn, Fred and Ginger, Clark Gable and so many others who I thought of as familiar friends. I had also developed a love for two cities that provided a backdrop to many of the stories that played out on the screen: New York and Paris. In my imagination, I would place myself on the Art Deco balconies of New York or the street cafés of Paris, never thinking that these were places that actually existed in real life. Now that I have made a life for myself in one of the cities of my childhood daydreams, I feel that I owe it to the little boy inside of me to experience the other.

Somehow, last summer I had accumulated a slight savings surplus in my bank account. I am still in shock that it happened, but in late July, after all of my bills had been paid, I had several hundred dollars sitting there, just staring at me, daring me to make some sort of choice. I stewed and I pondered and I turned over the possibilities in my mind of what could be done with the money. It wasn't a large enough sum to even pay a month's rent in my Manhattan apartment, but it was too large to just ignore. I thought of a number of very sensible things that could have been done with the tiny little gift I'd accidentally given myself, but then the little boy inside of me began tugging on my shirt sleeve reminding me of my life-long hope to someday see the "city of lights." I remembered the passport that I gotten six years ago and had never used, and then without even thinking, I was looking up airfares and plotting which cheeses I needed to try. I wasn't about to grow another year older without having at least a stamp in one of the empty pages of my little navy blue travel document, so I booked a ticket that happened to be just the amount of my savings, landing me in Paris 5 days before my next birthday.

For the past six months, I've been dreaming of Paris. I've been revisiting many of the old films that I watched as a child and reviewing museum catalogs for the Louvre. I've gone to many of my favorite museums in New York to brush up on the French painters and sculptors I hope to see while there, and I've even been reaching deep inside of my brain to pull out my dusty college French class vocabulary. I suppose I've always been a bit of a Francophile, which was no easy task to become while growing up in a rural mountain town of Western Colorado, but I am as I am nonetheless. The majority of the fun has been in the hope itself of fulfilling a dream and making it a reality, but a strange thing occurred in my process of indulging in my Paris daydreams, that I had not expected...

For these months that I've been trying to connect with a city across the ocean, I've found more reasons to embrace and experience and love the city in which I live. I have always loved New York, but in searching for Paris, my own city has become so much more alive to me. Whether I've been listening to French language audio programs while on the subways, and taking more time to contemplate the world around me, or sitting in coffee shops and cafés, making time to meet with friends and discuss plans, I've been making more time to slow down and be open to the wonderful things happening here and now. I've even been taking time to sit by myself in public places and make new drawings with no particular objective in mind. I've been taking more frequent little weekend walking excursions with my camera to capture the lovely things I see every day in the city, and becoming giddy over the possibilities of more New York adventures to come. The main new discovery for me has been that now I've lived here for nearly two years, I am finally beginning to feel like this place is my own and that I really do belong to it. There have been many places I've loved, but nothing has ever penetrated deep into the core of my being like this place has. For the first time in my life, I know I am right where I need to be.  If I could ever love a person in the way I love New York, I would be content for the rest of my days.

At the end of this month, I will finally take my long-awaited journey to a city I've hoped to know since I can recall. I am certain that I will find a great deal to love in Paris, but I feel confident to say that my heart will always belong to New York. I am sure while there, I'll be thinking of Josephine Baker, the archetypical American in Paris singing "J'ai deux amours, mon pays et Paris" (I have two loves, my country [America] and Paris), only in my case, I'm a man in love with two cities.

Life and death in the city that never sleeps...

Central Park after the First Snow of 2012

When I was growing up, my mother always did her best to explain the concept of life and death, trying to make it digestible and less abstract, so that when we encountered the passing of a pet or a friend or a loved one, we could be as prepared as possible to deal with all of the feelings surrounding those losses. Being that my mother is a very social person, she probably had more friends and acquaintances than most. With such a large circle of friends and family, we seemed to encounter inevitable losses more frequently than many people we knew. I was one of the few children at school who had attended funerals quite regularly throughout my early childhood, or had seen a corpse. It never felt morbid to me to participate in services for loved ones, because my mother always presented it as a way to celebrate their life and give them a "good send off" to whatever comes next. Although the cold sting of losing someone wasn't any less real, I am grateful that I was taught to embrace the experience and taught not to fear it.

As time passes for me here in my life as a relatively new New Yorker, I continue to encounter a lot of "firsts." I've been fortunate to have met a number of dear people in this great city, and as always, when gaining something of value, like a friendship, one is more vulnerable to the loss of such a dear thing. I am experiencing a new "first" now; the first death of an important friend made in the city, here in my new life. In a city of eight million people, death is all around us in the news and on the lips of strangers overheard in fragmented conversations while passing by. It's another beat in the rhythm of "the city that never sleeps." With so much variety of life co-existing so close together in one tiny space, it shouldn't come as such a shock that not all of the lights twinkling in the beautiful city skyline can stay lit forever, but I still find myself taken aback at the absence of a warm glow that I had grown fond of.

I keep thinking of his little studio apartment on the Upper West Side that he had lived in for at least a decade. He had imbued so much of himself in the little environment he had created, that to separate him from it and have it emptied, painted over and all traces of his life erased from this space seems like such a cold and sterile conclusion of an existence that was vibrant and colorful. I always wondered how he could fit so much "stuff" into such a small space, but it suited him and he was happy there with his menagerie of colored lights, shiny nick-knacks and photos of old movie stars posted proudly next to the images of his mother who had passed away many years before. I wonder what will become of his guitar that he used to play while singing lovely songs in Portuguese, reminding him of Brazil and a home far away. Individually, they are all just  "things," but clustered together, they painted a picture of his little life, which seemed to be a happy one. As with the unexpected conclusion of anything, thinking of the "what-if's" always follows. There's nothing like regret to remind us that we're alive, and I now find myself haunted by a number of feelings of how I could have been a better friend.

The day he passed, was the first snow we'd had in the new year. Having not had any snow yet this winter, it created a great deal of excitement. Although I'm not fond of the cold, I do love how snow in the city causes everything to slow down a bit, and makes the noise seem to lessen and a beautiful glow to be cast on everything. In the quiet of that evening, there was a peace that I had not felt in quite some time. I was walking through Central Park, taking photographs and embracing the beauty of the sun setting, at the same time my friend was transitioning into the beginning of his next great adventure. I didn't know it at the time, but I found out later that the images I had captured during that quiet night in the park were very near the moments when my friend was leaving us. Somehow, they captured a peace and a softness in the snow that felt very tangible. He was a deeply spiritual man with a belief in a beautiful after-life waiting for us all. Whether there is a connection or not between his passing and the beauty of the twilight in the park, I would like to think that if there is a heaven waiting for him, it was reflected in the warmth I felt on such a cold night.

Dating and Other Natural Disasters...

A happy couple I saw one evening on the Subway

When I was 19 years old, a young art student with long beautiful locks of hair (golden like the sun, I might add), I received one of the best pieces of advice that I have ever come across. I was casually seeing someone in some undefined artsy bohemian co-mingling of lives who I felt was way out of my league. He was a very well educated, well groomed and well built man who took me out for Tempeh burgers one evening (back in my Vegetarian years) at this little hippie café decorated in macramé just off the university campus, and in my wild naïveté, I was smitten. I couldn't understand why such a dreamy guy would ever have any interest in an awkward, skinny little ne'er-do-well like me, but he did. This was in my younger, more unsophisticated days - before I had blossomed into the wildly saucy and vivacious individual that I have now become, and I was often perplexed that he enjoyed my company as he did. One night, in a lavish moment of brutal self awareness (or perhaps just graceless angst), I asked him what my appeal was to him. I wondered if I was part of some social experiment he was conducting, or if he genuinely found me attractive. I will also point out that he was a bit older than me, and perhaps wiser, and he responded to me saying, "we all have a target audience, and it's just a matter of finding it..."

To look at me, you wouldn't assume I'm a person who gets out very often, much less on dates, but it's just not true. Although throughout my teens and early twenties, I was a perpetual loner aside from a few rare blips on the radar (one blip lasting for two whole years), when I arrived in New York, I found myself in a new world. It could be just the vastness of the population and the unfathomable variety of people from every situation imaginable that have all been crammed together in this one little space, but suddenly my "target audience" seemed to have expanded. Before I knew it, I was going on dates and meeting new people at a pace that I had never before thought was possible (I realized this is what life must be like for pretty people in the normal world outside of the city, only I am neither conventionally pretty nor very normal). For the first time in my life, I was five feet and six inches of "Grade A" eligible dork, and people other than me were noticing. I went through some sort of brief re-adolescence, only this time without curfews or watchful eyes noting my every movement until after about two months I realized what a drag dating actually can be.

After a while, I feel like meeting new people is very similar to going on endless job interviews. You both show up on your best behavior, generally dressed nicer than you would typically care to be, putting on a very one-sided show, selling an image of  yourself that is far from accurate. You both tell bits of a memorized and overly rehearsed monologue highlighting a very brief summary of your general life story, one which you've told before and will probably tell again. Just like a job interview, you can often tell within the first five minutes that the position is really not right for you, and then you spend the rest of your time making polite small talk, forcing a smile of courteous interest and hoping that you'll make it through without breaking character and revealing your true and dismal feelings about the situation as a whole. At least half of the time, one or both of the members of the party feels this way. The worst is when it's not you, and you're actually buying the act the other is putting on.

Although I feel lame for admitting this, I mostly date online. I've never been good at talking to new people at bars or in social gatherings. I believe the last time I was set up on a date by a friend, I seriously contemplated leaning too close to the candle on the table, just so I could "accidentally" catch on fire and have a reason to leave. At least with online dating, you can weed out the folks who list interests like World of Warcraft, Romantic Comedies or the Republican Party on their profiles. You can politely judge them from any number rubrics (I often choose written grammar and photographic lighting to start), and then fill in the gaps of what isn't said with your own imagined version of who this person may be outside of their collection of words, pictures and categorical taxonomies. Even with my very skeptical eye, and my overly cynical imagination, I sometimes make complete misjudgments and realize that I've stepped in something worse than dog mess on the sidewalk. Some folks are really more photogenic than they ought to be, and some must have aspiring fiction novelists writing their online profiles. I try not focus too much attention on appearances, remembering the Sunday School lessons of youth like "Judge not, lest ye be judged" (and I probably "be judged" quite a great deal as it is under that adage), but there is a big difference between saying you're 37 and actually being 50, or showing an image from before you discovered the extra 63 pounds that found their way around your belly. If one has obviously lied about such noticeable things, how can one be trusted about anything important? I'm not actually expecting a response to that question, but I feel there is a difference between leaving out things like your dislike of children or your secret collection of Friends DVD's (both of which I'm guilty of), as opposed to fabricating a completely artificial person who doesn't really exist. I'd much rather be disappointed by "the real you," than a psychotic delusion.

I have been fortunate enough to meet some very dear people and I've even made some great friends as a result of my delayed foray into the world of dating, but ultimately, I go on a lot of first dates that are left at just that. Some people have had potential, and some I genuinely liked, but often the stars just don't align themselves as one's romantic heart would hope. For being such a misanthrope, I am always surprised at my drive to meet new people and see what is out there. I know that I'm no easy pill to swallow - I'm often too harsh, too critical and too eccentric for my own good, but the irrational thought of finding someone to share all of my rantings with who may even show me new things to over-analyze is a pleasant little brain morsel that occupies the realm of demi-thoughts that occur somewhere between sleep and wakefulness. I just need to keep on burning through that "target audience" of mine I know now is out there until I am either satisfied that I've exhausted my supply, or I've finally found what I didn't even know I was looking for to begin with.

When Autumn Leaves Start to Fall...

The Bethesda Fountain in Central Park in Autumn

There is an air vent in the sidewalk just outside of the stairs on one of the subway exits of Penn Station at 34th Street which is situated in the shadow of Madison Square Garden. Droves of people pass over it every day while coming and going, most-likely not taking the time to look at the gray dirty ground with glistening sights like the Empire State Building, the New Yorker Hotel and the great cylindrical mass of "the Garden," standing tall overhead. Down in the cracks beneath the metal grate, there is a lovely little patch of green leaves growing under the surface, surrounded by a sea of concrete and footsteps. They have been sheared off to be precisely level with the surface of the ground by the loafers, sneakers, boots and stiletto heels of the 8th Avenue work force and all of the others who pass by. In this rather unlikely environment, a little patch of green plants decided to make their modest home, when they could have just as easily lived by the river or in a park where sunlight would have been easier to come by and there may have been more room to sprawl out and relax. It seems that this particular plant colony desired something unique out of its short existence. Perhaps these leafy little fellows had a desire to be in the middle of something bigger and greater, seeing life first hand, rather than hearing about it from a distance. I'm sure that many of their green counterparts looking at their cramped quarters and small rations of sunshine might think the very idea to be rather silly, indeed. Every morning on my way to work, I walk over this little community of brave weedlings and smile a bit, but then I continue on with my own little weedling day...

Once again, Autumn has taken over the city, and everyone is surprised that the days are getting progressively shorter and colder (as though nothing like this has ever happened before). As a child, my parents would load us all up in our little Subaru wagon for long drives in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado to go "see the colors" every year in the Fall. Although containing three children in one back seat of a rather small station wagon for a drive that would often last all day long was no simple task for my parents, they would diligently suffer through endless streams of words that would spew from us, especially as my sister Ginny would always become motion sick after the first five minutes, every single time. Once we finally reached the highway out of town, and the mountains came into full view, slowly the streams of consciousness flowing from our open mouths would diminish as our eyes took in the sights before us. Driving up high into steep and rocky back roads, we passed abandoned little mining settlements from Colorado's days of legend, and found ourselves in places where the world seemed to be frozen in time, or perhaps outside of it completely. We would get out and take little hikes into meadows and along streams, my father pointing out which plants were edible and my mother collecting herbs and flowers to be dried and placed in jars for purposes never revealed. I remember walking through cascades of yellow and orange aspen leaves, illuminated by the sun above like a heavenly canopy with jeweled specks of the deepest blue skies peeking through the cracks. When the breeze would pick up, the leaves would float gently to the ground in a lovely dance, as if orchestrated by God himself. Of course time has probably amplified these images in my memory and inevitably aggrandized them, but I remember waiting for Fall every year just for those drives high up into the Rocky Mountains to see the world so briefly transformed.

Just as Autumn would transform the mountains of my childhood, it transforms the city into something even more beautiful than usual. The Autumn light seems to bend and hug the concrete and steel surfaces of the buildings and streets in such a soft and gentle way, while the trees put on great shows for passersby, much like the ladies walking along 5th Avenue in their in their tweeds and colorful woolen sweaters. The whole town seems to be making one last triumphant dash into the light, taking one final step out onto the stage before the ice and the blackness of winter shut everything away in blues and grays as the final curtain closes until Spring. Walking through Central Park in these last weeks of comfortable beauty is quite an experience. The Park, in general, is always an experience, but the colorful trees and the romantic feeling of the season make it even more of an attraction for tourists, families and ferrel children from the Bronx and New Jersey who seem to run about shrieking with the leavings of cheap hot dogs all over their sticky little hands, just waiting to run into a stranger's dry-clean-only wool coat with atomic force. Cameras seem to flash upon every leaf and every tree branch, trying to document the ephemeral majesty of a state of being that seems to ache with its own urgency to express and then expire. Everything in the park seems transformed by this deluge of vibrant color and light that signifies the end of one thing and the start of another. Like the sap that I am, I always think of the old jazz song "Autumn Leaves" (originally "Les Feuilles Mortes"), and hum it to myself as I walk the streets of New York during this time of year:

"...Since you went away,
The days grow long,
And soon I'll hear,
Ol' Winter's song,
But I miss you most of all, my darling,
When Autumn leaves start to fall..."

 Though the Autumn has been lovely, it has brought about the demise of my little weed colony outside of Penn Station. Each morning as I walk on the sidewalk and look down the grate below, there are fewer and fewer little patches of green. Once the last of the leaves has withered away into the darkness of the cavernous hole below, I will know that winter has come and will stay for longer than we ever feel should be possible, much less legal. I can only hope that the spring will revive them like Lazarus in the Biblical tale. Until then, I shall enjoy the last days of color and beauty that will be afforded to me before my balance is spent and my winter debt will inevitably be owed until paid in full.

Summer in the city...

Seventh Avenue in Midtown on a hot July afternoon...

There is a strange sense of joy that is produced by the smells of ripening garbage baking in the sun mixed with taxi exhaust and the aromatic smoke dancing about in the air from food carts along the streets of Manhattan. When the air is heavy with moisture and you can actually see the heat waves bouncing up from the sidewalk, the thought diving headfirst into the pollution of the Hudson River seems like the happiest of retreats from the sun overhead. It begins in late May and lasts through September. Generally by the second week of June all of the stores are sold out of window air conditioner units and herds of dejected looking sweaty wanderers can be seen staring at their empty spaces on the shelves in disbelief and utter devastation. Now that summer in New York City is drawing to a close, I feel my heart sink ever so slightly when thinking about all things I will miss as three seasons must come and go before she returns again. New York is a town that embraces all seasons, but summer above all...

My last summer in the city, or rather I should say my very first, was so frantic that I hardly had time to stop and enjoy it.  Being that I had just moved to New York with no job or prospects, my main goal was survival. Between finding three different bizarre jobs and inventing my "I'm too poor to pay rent AND eat multiple meals a day" diet, the hot summer months quickly melted by as a very strange and colorful blur. When I think back, although it was chaotic and difficult, I can't imagine who I would be now without all of the craziness of that initial adjustment period. This summer, now settled in and a bit more well-nourished, living my glamourous Manhattan lifestyle from paycheck to paycheck, I found myself much more aware of my surroundings and all of the lovely summertime experiences the city has to offer.

One evening in June, I was visiting with a friend in Central Park. He's a very lovely and very peculiar sort of fellow. Partially French and partially Californian, he devotes a great deal of his time to the study of Eastern philosophies and meditations. I think in his "legitimate life" he's some sort of lawyer, but I am horrible with remembering such things. Generally when other people talk about their jobs, I just sort of glaze over and ponder things like, what kinds of dreams might cats have, or what would the world be like if humans were amphibious. By the time someone has finished explaining their profession, I have successfully nodded along while absorbing absolutely nothing. I think that this, by some definitions, may make me a "flake," but I can't be bothered to really care. In any case, I met my friend of unknown profession in a meadowy part of The Ramble while he beat some sort of animal skin drum made specially for him by a member of a Native American tribe with whom he was trying to become affiliated for the purpose of ritual spiritual practices (I think he met up with them sometime before of after Burning Man one year, but I sort of glazed over for that story as well). It was a beautiful evening, and I enjoyed meandering about barefooted in the grass while my friend drummed away in some sort of trance, communing with the "nature" in Central Park. Once I had stepped on one too many cigarette butts in the grass and my companion had finished speaking with the trees, we decided to walk through the park and enjoy the setting sun. We strolled along the winding tree-lined paths of the ramble, up and down the rocky hills until me reached the lake and the Bow Bridge, which then lead us to the Bethesda Fountain and up into the Central Park Mall. Upon passing all of the stoic stone statues of the Poet's Walk under a canopy of stalwart old trees, we began to hear lovely and strange music playing in the distance. As we drew nearer, we could see a large crowd of people moving about in beautiful motions ahead, swaying around like flowers in a breeze. They were all dancing to Argentine Tango music, some dressed in fine clothes and others wearing shorts and t shirts. Under the pink light of the sunset, the swirling mass of people of all ages and colors dancing on that summer evening was a hypnotic scene to behold. It's not often one stumbles upon hundreds of people dancing the tango in public, but it's just one example of the many unexpected happenings that are so easy to come across in New York. It was like viewing a piece of a dream, only the dream was simply one of many realities of the city in summertime.

There are other less pleasant realities of the summertime, such as the amount of tourists crowding the sidewalks and the sight of exposed sweaty cellulite on the subways, but they are all manageable when mixed with the number of outdoor farmers' markets, musical performances, street fairs and bizarre parades from cultures you would  have never known existed. On holidays like the 4th of July, Gay Pride or the Puerto Rican Day Parade, an influx of overly tanned young people with an abundance of hair products find their passages through the bridges and tunnels on the west side of Manhattan from their native New Jersey and they graciously stink up the city with the sounds of elongated vowels and the smells of cheap caffeinated booze. They run about the streets, throwing litter and tragedy along their path, and eventually go back from whence they came, somewhere in suburbia, leaving New York in shambles. In August, Europe comes to the city in droves, enjoying the generous vacation time granted to citizens by their social-democracies and labor practices that would make members of the Tea Party shutter at the thought of the taxes that support such a human-friendly system. Walking about neighborhoods like SoHo and Greenwich Village or the shopping districts of midtown, one can hear a rainbow of languages spoken by strangers in posh sunglasses and sporty shoes (Europeans always have the best shoes for some reason, and it makes me jealous). I always find it curious to see a large group of Italians or Brits completely enthralled by the squirrels in Central Park. Don't they have squirrels in their own countries? Then this line of thinking gets me to wonder if they mentioned that at some point in high school biology class, but I was too busy glazing over and pondering the dream life of cats or the thoughts in the heads of those monkeys they used to send into space before they allowed humans venture that high into the atmosphere...

Now the summer is drawing to a close, and the feeling of change is in the air on the streets. Billboard advertisements for fall sweaters and snappy jackets are popping up everywhere along with window displays in shops incorporating images of colorful trees and smiling porcelain white mannequins in tweed. My second summer in the city has come and gone, but I feel like I embraced it this time around. Now, as the days become shorter and school children with grumpy faces pass me by on my way to the train in the morning, I am beginning to look forward to the crisp mornings to come and the opportunities to wear my favorite cardigans again. I am anxiously awaiting another beautiful autumn in New York, but not without a tiniest bit of mourning for the lovely summer gone by. The summer of 2011 was a very nice one, and I feel very lucky to have spent it in such a wonderful place.

My closest and dearest of strangers...

Anonymous portrait, captured somewhere underneath New York City...

I have said, on many occasions, that riding the Subways of New York is a much richer source of entertainment than one would ever find from cable television. Being that I do not have access to cable television, I see the inherent reasons to question my credibility in making such a statement, but I would argue it to the death, regardless. I have recounted stories of humor and woe, mere moments in the lives of others witnessed while moving from one place to another, and I've told narrative tales of things which people are willing only to divulge to strangers in moments of vulnerability, happiness or anger, but the truth of the matter is that the best tales are those untold by the folks who seem to just blend in to the background...

Moving about the city via the Metropolitan Transit Authority is a mess of sensory chaos that closely resembles the lunch room of a junior high school on the day before Spring Break, amplified by one million impatient people trying to get to work on time using a system designed to best-accomodate a significantly smaller population. Getting everyone on the train in the morning is much like trying to squeeze toothpaste back IN to the tube. With so many sights, sounds and smells (yes, smells of every sort) occurring simultaneously, it is a wonder that transit passengers are able to even remember where it is they were going to begin with. Generally when the homeless man is screaming and ranting about his missing foot and all of the people to blame for life's inequalities on one corner of the train, an obnoxious teenager is blaring intentionally-offensive music on a loud speaker at the other, and in between are the haggard and frazzled folks just trying to keep it all together so that they don't murder anyone by the the time they get to work. It is generally in the faces of these people, forcing themselves to disconnect from the massive orgy of events going on around them, that I find something very real and beautiful; perhaps something more human that is expressed when the pressures to engage with others around them are taken away.

A few months ago, I jumped on a certain chic and electronic bandwagon and purchased a mobile device, which needs not be named lest everything in the world eventually become branded, but this unmentioned gadget (for which I have great affinity) has allowed me the pleasure of capturing images relatively quickly, easily and, in many cases, "on the sly." Prior to obtaining this new tool, I would always look about the train on my way from here to there and see the most captivating scenes of the most mundane of life's available moments, and wish for a way to share them. I have found in life, that my inability to easily connect with others has only increased my fascination with watching them from a safe distance and making observations. With as much time as I spend eavesdropping and staring at strangers, one would think I could write an anthropological study, but I've yet to draw any solid or insightful conclusions about my fellow human beings. In my quest for understanding, my prize is generally just additional confusion, however, without a full understanding, there has been at least an acquired appreciation for the aesthetic of the strangers I see around me, just passing the time until they are required to be productive again.

Now, each time I get on the train, I'm looking more intently than ever before, because I've started to document the beautiful nothings I see all around me. I take portraits of people I don't know, people who don't know me either and who are (most often) unaware of my presence. Discretely, I snap silent images of other passengers who strike me during these moments in limbo when we're together. Some are happy and hopeful, others look like the most sorrowful to ever have been thrust about underground, but many are just trying to get through their days with as much pleasantness as life can afford them. In these moments when people are so inwardly focused, it's like seeing them in a state between sleep and wakeful life. For whatever reason, I feel such a strong attraction to these moments and I can't stop my compulsion to capture whatever it is that I find to be so lovely. There is a comfort in being a part of this phenomenon. To be a part of a big swirling soup of the most diverse of human experiences all stewed together inside of a moving train for minutes at a time before the next scene change is something I hope never to take too much for granted.

Although my ethics have been questioned and issues of privacy have been brought forward, I feel like my anonymous portraits of my dearest and closest of strangers on the train have been one of my most effective ways of embracing my city and my love for its citizens. Perhaps I'm deluding myself to think that they're anything more than a mere annoyance brought forth out of sheer boredom, but I feel like my intentions can hopefully be felt in the images produced thus far (be they as low quality as they must, given that I am in no way a real photographer, nor will I ever claim to be). I'm just a friendly subway stalker who steals moments of the lives of strangers. I'm sure one day I'll have grown tired of paying attention to the others around me, but for the time being, I can't help but explore their beauty.

To see more of my subway portraits, click the image below for a public album:

A Year in New York City...

Self Portrait; One year in New York City and still going...

At the end of my street there is a little café on the corner complete with warm red-bricked walls, canvas awnings, a lovely wooden patio and windows that look in on candle-lit tables dressed with warm meals and cool drinks all year 'round. I walk by this little café nearly every day on my way to and from the train. It's one of the first sings I see in the morning, and one of the last things I see at night. This little corner establishment at the bottom of my little hill tells the story of each season. In the summer, the long narrow windows open wide, the tables are set out neatly on the patio with umbrellas and the patrons sip on drinks with lemon garnishes. In the fall, they decorate the exterior with pumpkins, gourds and straw bails while the windows slowly close and the tables eventually disappear from the outside, leaving a warm cozy scene behind the glass to be viewed in passing. In the winter the patio is covered with snow and ice while warm light glows from the within the frosty windows as guests hold tightly glasses of mulled cider and hot buttered rum, toasting the the year's end and the new beginnings ahead. Then, finally, the spring comes and the windows begin to open again, flowers begin to appear in the window boxes and a hopefulness fills the air as the tables and chairs return outdoors on evenings when the rain decides to take a short rest. I have witnessed the passage of each season on my street corner as I hurry from place to place. A year has come and gone, and like this rather insignificant genre scene that I have grown to love in my daily life, I am still here, a tiny little piece of the big city, with no sign of eminent departure...

A year in New York City, and what a year it's been. Although it's been a difficult year in many respects, I never knew I could love a place so much. From my humble beginnings in the rural mountainous American-West, to my now even humbler lifestyle in the heights of upper Manhattan, I have learned that even a year in the Big City can't change the fact that on the inside, I'll always be a just a scrawny little ne're-do-well from the sticks, and happily so...

In my first year as a New Yorker, I really feel like I've packed in a great deal of that good "character-building" life experience that teachers in high school always warned me about. My search for steady employment, having no skills or useful education to offer, lead me to a number of rather peculiar occupational adventures throughout the city. I managed to be both hired and fired in the same month by a pair of narcissistic old queens living in Liberace's meth-addicted playland (a.k.a. their lovely home) where I had the distinct task of recording the quantity, frequency and consistency of their dog's bowel movements, and helping them reorganize their collections of sequined fabrics and other bedazzled costume accessories. I learned that one can survive on little more than hot dogs and water for extended lengths of time, and still look like a million bucks. After working for several months as a receptionist for very wealthy clients in a very "zen" environment, I was able to appreciate my mother's old saying that "money don't buy class" is shamefully very accurate. Through my stint in holiday retail on Fifth Avenue, I learned that just because one comes from Europe, doesn't necessarily mean they have any more taste, manners or good breeding than trailer park housewives in rural Florida (in which case specimens from both locales were available for empirical observation). I learned that working 75 hours per week for three months in a row between multiple jobs can easily make any person lose their grip on reality. Most importantly, I learned that any ruts one may fall into in terms of career or any other facet of life can easily be transplanted to a new situation, and even after promising oneself never to work in a certain field again or repeat any other sort of habitual behavior, sometimes it's easy enough to creep back into old familiar places, temporarily of course, just to find oneself there 9 months later with no end in sight... (strictly hypothetically speaking of course).

Even with all of my apparent character flaws and personality defects, I feel like the city has been good to me. Even on my worst days here, there is always some moment when the clouds seem to part and something wonderful is illuminated, reminding me why I came here and why I love it. There is an energy to the city that is so easy to become wrapped up in like a warm blanket, and there is a comfort in knowing that you never really can be very lonesome with 8 million other people all around you (many of whom are much more miserable than you will ever be, so really, just get over yourself and enjoy life!). I love that if there is anything you could possibly want to experience in the world, there is at least some little piece of it available in New York. After my first year here, I feel like I've only just begun to see and know all of the things I want in this place, and I still have so much before me that is just waiting to be discovered.

I am very grateful to be in a city that I find so inspiring. Although I do miss my mountains and my big blue skies of Colorado, and the rustic and bizarre way I grew up with my hippie parents out in the middle of nowhere, I'm learning that many analogous rules can be applied in both the wilderness and in the city. Learning to make something from nothing really has proven to be useful as I'm poorer now than I can ever remember being, and so I'm grateful to my parents for raising me so uniquely. I now feel it is appropriate to raise my glass and toast to my first year in the city, and to as many more as life sees fit to give me...