When thinking back on the past few years of your life, you likely jump from snapshot to snapshot of notable moments. Some might be magnanimous ones like a graduation, a new job, a new person or a new thing. But some might be lingering moments when you heard something, saw something, felt something. When you knew something was happening in your heart or mind, but nothing that you could attribute to a particular event.
For me, a major one of these less tangible moments was while traveling through Dublin. We had gone to the Guinness Brewery for a tour and came across a wall with these words painted on it:
Home is not where you're from. It's where you're understood.
At the time I remember thinking how London, the place I had been studying abroad and falling in love with, was that place. The place where I felt like my existence made the most sense, my humor was best appreciated, my life rhythm and day-to-day interests best accommodated.
But this morning, as I walked to work from my parents' apartment where I've sought refuge from the darkness of downtown Manhattan, I was overcome with home-ness in this city. In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, I am born again.
At first, my awakening was brought on by the perfect autumn weather: The sun reflecting off the undulating metal panels of the Chrysler Building, beaming down onto the masses heading to work. The beautiful ballet of a work-day morning. The subtle orchestra of homeless men laughing, car horns honking and dress shoes knocking on the sidewalk pavement.
And then it was the unspoken air of empathy that I felt swirling between me and my passers-by as we swept from block-to-block on Lexington Avenue. The smirk of reluctant resignation to reality that I saw on my fellow New Yorker's faces as we all did our best with what we had to get where we needed to be this morning. To get to where we belonged at this hour.
Then I approached the hub of the temporary shuttle bus from Brooklyn's Barclay's Center to Midtown Manhattan, 57th and Lexington. Lines upon lines of people wanting to work, waiting for work, looking for any possible way to even just GET to work (let alone do work) stood patiently. And I felt proud that nobody could ever claim that the people of my city are waiting for hand-outs, looking for any way to get by without working. Because this week, we'll do anything to get to work, to be able to get out of bed and have a place to go and feel fulfilled. We'll do anything to keep moving. To keep earning. To keep this city going.
Because this is our city. It's not just a series of avenues, streets, parks, bridges and tunnels. We aren't 5 boroughs divided by class, rivers and transit lines. Because every morning, as soon as we step out onto our stoops and find our ways to the nearest subway or bus stop, we become part of a New York morning. And we weave in and out of bodegas, up escalators and through train stations. We slide through rotating doors, we peer out windows down onto the streets festering with business, and we vent to each other about the smallest of city woes. We hold doors for each other, we troll in and out of bars and absorb the varying rhythms from within as we jaunt past restaurants and storefronts.
It's not a deliberate effort. There is no choreography to this movement as we go about our days. We're merely living in this city, fulfilling our role as residents of this great metropolis. And when we see water breach the avenue that houses our favorite brunch or cocktail spot that our parents wouldn't be caught dead in. When we see our friends' cars floating in the parking garages below the buildings we hate to meet them at. When we walk outside to find that those trees that so subtly framed our streets, but weren't enough green for our out-of-town friends, have been everything but eviscerated. When our streets go dark and all the charm that we've loved to hate and loved even more to defend is gone… it's jarring.
And only then are we reminded that this city isn't just a bunch of isolated strangers. We may be dancing to the beat of our own drums, but when the rhythms harmonize they create the most beautiful dance in the world. And this is where I need to be. This is where I'm understood. A place that I can be my own person, do my own thing and have my own way. But when I go to sleep and when I wake I am never really alone. Because there are 8.2 million people out there who are there for the exact same reasons.
This is a promise to those who don't have a place to go above 39th street in Manhattan, who want to get to work and make money to feed their families but can't. Those who are squatting in bank lobbies and local gyms just to get a charge on their phone and warm shower. Those who did have a place to go have not forgotten about you. Those who don't need the subway to get to work, who already lived in midtown or simply never go downtown anyway. We're suffering too. Because when you aren't moving, we too are stuck. When you aren't working, we too feel idle. And when your lights are out dozens of feet above the city street, we too are crawling in the dark.
Because this is our city. And without each other, we're all just a little bit off.
I love you, New York City. Get well soon.
