New York

Upon arriving in New York I didn't know what to think.  I knew that I was either going to love it or hate it but that there would be no middle ground.  I had the same feeling in my stomach as you get on the up down up down sections of roller coasters; either vomit or a big smile is coming very soon.  Being born and raised in Nebraska did not prepare me for the old school feather pillow that hit me in the kisser.  I was expecting more memory foam.  I had always told myself that I have traveled.  I have been in bigger cities.  Delhi.  Mexico City.  Despite all of this I had never experienced anything so intensely urban.  I had always heard the term "concrete jungle" in rap songs and other pop culture mediums, but I never understood it to mean pavement and iron and brick so deep that it writhes around your ankles and makes your body feel over-sized and incapable of motion.  I wondered how so many people managed to walk down the street every day because I had the urge to look up at the stone and steel and glass monoliths that are everywhere.  As with everywhere, people become used to their surroundings and jaded to the impressiveness of it all.  I recently told a born-and-raised Californian he needed to move away from the ocean because he didn't even notice it any more.  He has lived here his entire life and hasn't been to a beach in at least three years.  Somewhere there is a New Yorker who thinks of his/her daily 60 floor elevator ride as annoying.  That person desperately needs a dose of Kansas.

Being me I noticed oddities that I'm sure others miss.  People keep their trash cans on the street because there's just no other place for them.  A fact of their life but a blemish on my daily sojourns.  Everybody reads.  The awesomeness of the subway is that it takes all of the commuting part out of commuting.  Yes, you spend 30-60 minutes each day riding this metal earthworm but you're only requirement is to step onto and off of the thing at the right time.  And then you read, or work, or sleep.  I couldn't help but think of how better read and better informed most New Yorkers are, even those you want to stereotype as non-readers.  The city seems to be ESL.  Everywhere I went there was a rich blend of tongues from ports the world over.  My ear became more nimble in my week outside of SoCal.  I noticed the quality of neighborhoods by taking note of the amount of graffiti on walls and the amount of gum on the sidewalk.

It was only day two when I realized I was in love.  There are certainly things that I would dislike about living there but I left the city with that same hungover feeling that lingers after a one night stand.  The next day your head hurts and your body aches but you wear this wry smile that won't go away because you lost yourself for just one night.  Dangling were the severed strings of responsibility, ambition, failure, consequence, doubt, reality, and sadness while the warm embrace of pleasure and enjoyment pushes you onward.  New York and I are not lasting companions, destined for love eternal, but I will keep my eye open for a possible fling or affair.