The Empire State in Fall Shroud

(but it turned out to only be a celebration of China)

The sun sets over Times Square, which is indifferent and refuses to accept dependence. It glitters right back, brighter yet and sparkling. Other skyscrapers face the last glowing rays and inhale deeply, go to rest in the night. Or maybe that's me.

In the same way that the view of Times Square didn't elicit any joy in me the other day, today it makes me smile again, giggle even. Tourists stare upwards and bump into me, I forgive them. Take a good look, take it in, I dare you to see if you can resist falling in love. I am bound to have ups and downs, to want to slam the door and run away from the city. But like with any persisting love, that doesn't mean giving up. A fight isn't the end of the world. I roll with the punches and end up on the side where every sunset over the City makes me smile. It sounds like the kind of relationship my therapist could only dream I would have.

If I'm in it for the long run, I don't need protection, I think to myself. Whatever comes of it will be okay. Everything else I can leave, against everyone else I can close up my heart, but not New York. I just have to remember that, when the dark clouds of despair roll in and cover the tops of the tall buildings. Soon enough, they will pass, and I can walk with my back straight again.

I walked out to the pier and saw the Statue of Liberty in the Distance. I don't know how I got to be so lucky.

Blistered Bliss

I collapse on my bed.
It's the same old city, after all this time, where feet are always tired, countless miles covered on that pavement, day in day out regardless of footwear. On my way home down University Place, I crossed a film set, wardrobes, catering, cables taped to the ground. I scoffed and said, New York, honey, you ain't fooling no one. The entire island is one big set. One day we will take a train under the Hudson and appear on the Jersey shore, blinking and staring into the sunshine of the Real World, and wonder what happened and can we get a refund.

But for now, I happily go along with the charade. Helter Skelter in my ears and a sway in my exhausted walk; dusk darkened over Union Square traffic and I smiled. In this same old city, years later, somehow it's different. I see my roots starting to take, starting to break through the concrete and dare to settle. If I could embrace the entire city, I think I might.

Even if 30 dollars won't pay your rent
on Bleecker street, anymore.

If My Train Falls off the Track

pick it up pick it up pick it up

Twenty-seven years of keeping my head on my shoulders and suddenly it's rolling off in all kinds of directions. Suddenly I'm fifteen and crazy in the way I never was when I actually was fifteen. Suddenly I let my emotions take the wheel and steer, and I lean back in the passenger seat, pleased as a baby, and watch the countryside rush by.

Storms rage, as they will. Great waves roll and I am washed along, sometimes pulled into the undertow, slammed into the rough sands at the bottom and landing along the shoreline with salty breath. But for those moments when I catch the surf, when I coast along and am pushed into ecstatic winds and my very toes tingle, for those moments it is all worth it. So I stay in. I let my body get tired and my fingers get pruny. What's a little chill, against the ecstasy of the ride?

Hell I still love you, New York.

Jag får liksom ingen ordning

...på mitt liv

Projects turned into margaritas in the Village. Into silly giggles and afternoon intoxication. By the time China went to bed, Sweden went out, I went home. Circumstances turning into excuses. Lewd behavior and the paintings on the wall suddenly crooked. The unexpected somehow expected, in the aftermath. Painted fingernails and planned brunches ahead. The hangover will pass, when no one is watching.

Familiar Tingles

My fingers are restless. A familiar sensation runs through them, courses through my veins and my mind races. Words, words, new projects flash past my inner movie screen as I mill about the apartment, in cleaning mode, and a cool September breeze rustles through the Morton street trees and into my room. Books appear in my head and beg to be written, scraps of poetry trickle past and giggle. I write lists, make plans, all the while grateful that I am nowhere else but here. How I fought to get here, how seemingly impossible now to ever want to leave.

I find old notes from Peter about my writing, my heart swells and smiles. I find the business card of my old therapist and get a yearning to write her and say I am here. How I went on and on about this City with her. But then, I went on and on about this City with everyone. Thank god I am here or they would never hear the end of it.

The thing is, if I wasn't here, I have no idea where else I could possibly be. Lost, rambling about in the Great Unknown and all the more confused. Even when it's got me kicked to the curb and mud-sloshed from taxi drivebys, this City gives me a purpose, a lifeline. Sometimes the waters get rough. I have to hold on.

I saw the gooseflesh on my skin. I did not know what made it... it was the poetry... I had fallen into a new way of being happy.
S. Plath

Upkeep

I would like
to be one of those people
who update regularly
so here I am.

Way past bedtime, not tired. Two days of sweltering heat, of sticky humidity and a woman leaned against my arm in the subway today, sweat made the back of her shirt damp, warm moist cotton pushed against my skin. Stepped into a near-empty train car on the upper west and the AC was busted in there, it smelled just like in a sauna. Not of sweat. Of material slowly fizzing in combustion.

The dark days come. Eventually, they pass. Suburbia beckons with its quiet calm, its placid satisfaction. But over a 5th avenue lunch, my friend said he was done with this City and its expensive callousness, and my heart fired up in protectiveness. It is still my sweet love of a city, after all.

Howl, 2006

Sometimes, all it takes is a little reminder, a voice from your own past to speak up, to make Hope beat, a little stronger, in your heart.

Journal excerpt, September 2006:
I sat at B&N reading beat Poetry. And it all changed. I wanted (desperately) to do drugs and ramble about the streets of the East Village in a crazy rush (I sat down for coffee instead).
I wanted to be up all night with no goal in mind but being just where I was.
We went to a classical piano concert in Harlem (Harlem! Piano! Free!), which blew my mind, teared my eyes, tossed my soul, all the while full of delirious words rushing through me, beyond me, hitting my every nerve, my every vein like a jelly shot in the dark.
Pang
Pang
Pang
with Madness!

It isn't so difficult, my dear! You need only spend some time inside yourself to Remember your Soul's Sadness, and therein its ecstasy,
and once you've done that, the words are there.
The Word is there.

Ginsberg wrote of Union Square, just as I was sitting on it. Me! on Union Square with Ginsberg! I am in New York. I have arrived. Wooee.

Familiar Territory

I realize what it is. Reality sinks in slowly, reluctantly, and I am forced to glance at it and consider.

Perhaps I expected too much change; that the airplane, like a cocoon, would carry me across the water and I'd emerge in a brand new skin, metamorphosis complete. Instead, one day I woke up and was the same old insect as before. For months I could keep up the illusion that my attributes were glossy, shiny, that anyone who saw them would know that here was a person who'd found home and who possessed the streets as well as could only be done by those who belong. But the gloss begins to be tarnished, the slick leather scuffed, I am tired. My body fills up with unused potential; what used to drive me now amasses like an unending to-do list under my cheap manicure.

I retreat to comforts tried and true. Making friends with Sylvia Plath on the hard, carpeted floor of the Bookstore. The world is easier in poetry. You envy them their leaps off the edge and into literature. You are afraid of heights.

Smoke fills your room, you've been told to stay low in case of an emergency and now you're crawling blind, searching for exits. But the moments still come when you see the flickering of lights and the mad sparks flying. You are not ready to give up on them yet. One hand on the doorknob, you can still turn around. Dive head first, into the flame.

Fake It till You Make It

Apathy reigns surpreme.
At the glimpse of Times Square from the office bathroom windows I feel nothing. Usually it makes me smile at being here.

The days pass, all seemingly alike. I am indifferent.

Even my need to rant about it dissipates. I am left with mere morsels of words, they trickle out as i feign interest. Not nearly bed time, I tuck myself in. Perhaps tomorrow I will let myself get swept away again.

the Nearness of You

Long lazy Sunday in the park, unexpectedly contemplating mortality. Youth providing no immunity against it, as it turns out.

The September sun radiated its warmth over the park-goers. The runners, the children, the lovers, and sweltering heat. Moving to the shade and suddenly fall sends shiver down the spine. The afternoon turns into a constant move between the two and nothing satisfies the restlessness. Finally waiting for the local at 81st, and though the platform was warm, the train car was cold, and the AC brought goosebumps to life.

At 50th, a young man carrying a copy of the New Yorker sat down next to me, and he brought with him an air of body heat, that thawed my shivering arm. It was all I could do not to lean in. On such a sunny day, this being something else, as though no amount of sunlight can replace human contact. It's another lesson learned. Reluctantly.

Roller Coaster Riding through Life

It's still the same old me from yesterday you wind up with tomorrow.
(Kate, French Kiss)

Run run run as fast as you can. You can't catch me, I'm.. oh wait.

I don't know who it is that the City was trying to impress today, but I'm sure it worked. Awoke to a beautiful, sunny day of clear skies and mild temperature. The Hudson River Park a seemingly endless stream of runners; the high line packed with slow strollers and cameras. Everywhere the sun gleaming, off the cast iron bars, off the high rise windows, off the sparkling waters around the pier. And somewhere in there, me; a collapsed star slowly gathering more blackness, a ball of darkness, stoically keeping out the beauty and the brightness of the social saturday.

Some days, I stand at the precipice of the downward spiral and simply walk away. But today, I was completely unable. I walked through the City in search of a lifeline, but it was powerless to help. The fire escapes offered no consolation. The water, the random glimpses of the Empire State between buildings. To cure my solitude, I forced myself to squeeze into the Union Square Farmer's Market madness, but I was as if in a cocoon. Softly feeling ripe tomatoes and picking through unshucked corn eased my troubled soul slightly, but my mouth still tasted of cotton. When surrounded by so many thousands of people, how is it possible to feel so alone? Like all the other people melt together into one collective experience of Manhattan, and I remain, the singular black pearl of resistance, the hard shell.

Walking home down West 4th softened me a little; the stoops, the lush canopy overhead, the cobble stoned calm. So glad to return to the Village. But I crawled right back into my little room and thought, it's you and me. The City cannot save you from yourself. It probably won't even bother trying. Or, as you always do, you wouldn't let it, if it tried.

Safe Haven

The sun set over the tall buildings. The day had turned beautiful just when you'd given up under the rainy clouds, and now Washington Square park was full of mumbles, a guitar solo, old men reading newspapers. I pushed through the college kid crowds and walked up Broadway in its noisy traffic bustle, to slip through the doors of the silent sea of the Strand.
From the craziness, it's a whole other world. It can be crowded and still so calm. Mazes of books, that old hardback smell. I ran my fingers along the used copies. Upstairs there was a reading, people drinking something bubbly in plastic glasses and nibbling on pretzels and pretense. I roamed around the ground floor and in an obscure corner found a biography on Hunter S. Thompson; I leaned against an ancient radiator and sank into the foreword. For a moment, I was all alone in that bookstore; I saw no one, heard no one, it was many twists and turns before I was out in the open space of the store again.
Slowly I trickled downstairs, where even fewer people milled about in the review copies. The basement of the Strand is like a cavern, a catacomb under the notre dame, that underground scent in the lighting. Fans instead of ventilation. I followed the old philosophers to the far wall and ended up in the A:s of Psychology. Remembering dear feelings for a W, I repeated my ABCs silently in my head, following row after row of books. By the time I got to the end of the alphabet, I was in the tiniest corner of the store, with barely room to move around. No fans got here, and it was still, the air warm and soft. As I stood there, one of the green trains ran by on the other side of the wall (below? nearby? there was no way of telling) and made the floor, the books, tremble slightly.

And at that moment, I was softly washed over by such a feeling of comfort and serenity. In this small, tight space, so humbly lit and protected from everything, rocked by the lullaby of underground railroads, I felt at peace. I thought, this is the magic, of the Strand. Firmly holding on to Sylvia Plath, I stepped out into the Manhattan night, and smiled.

When the Universe Speaks

You must listen.

The fog has lifted from my indifferent eyes. The fort of paperwork and office chairs I hid myself behind to avoid the questions I didn't want to see still existed, has crumbled. The questions do not scare me, and I should've trusted myself to know that all along.

I was tired; I'd stayed too late; and hungry. I just popped my head in to the other office to say good night when the older, wise man who sits there began to regale his tales, the way people do when they have amassed mounds of experience. And they are always interesting, so I listen and smile, but I really was aching to go.

I guess sometimes the Universe just has to slap me upside the head to get my attention.

He told me of learning about Zen Buddhism in Los Angeles in the late 40's. Of taking that knowledge with him to school in Oregon and sharing it with another student, who had never heard of it before but was thus introduced. Turns out, the student went on to become a Zen Buddhist monk himself, and this the man told me humbly and as just another bit of the story. And as I stand there, in the doorway, poised and ready to go, completely unprepared, he asks me if I know of Jack Kerouac. Because this young kid sitting next to him in the college classrom, this budding mad man, was none other than Gary Snyder, in my world more commonly known by Kerouac's moniker for him: Japhy Ryder, zen poet, the original Dharma Bum.

Shivers ran up and down my entire body, my feet went numb, tears welled up in my eyes. It sounds silly now, but that was my reaction. It was just so Big. I had reread the Dharma Bums just weeks ago and been reminded of its beauty, of Japhy's sweet love for the world, of the Bigness and Simpleness of it all.

Jack is the reason I am in this City in the first place. And here I was, talking to a man who was to this day a good friend of a person Jack admired so. It was too big, it was too untouchable. I rambled home through the village and giggled madly inside. On this day when I seemed to lean into the downward spiral, when I was ready to ask what hell I was doing, the Universe reminded me. We get so few chances to live our dreams. I have been allowed to come this far; there is no reason for me not to dive head first into the flames. My heart smiles, I go gladly.

...as I was hiking down the mountain with my pack I turned and knelt on the trail and said "Thank you, shack." Then I added "Blah," with a little grin, because I knew that shack and that mountain would understand what that meant, and turned and went on down the trail back to this world.

Surreality

ça continue.

Today, Manhattan cool and gray, indifferent. White puffy clouds roll by in search of greener pastures; they can't even be bothered to stick around and amass, turn to floods.

Peter says time slips by, not like sands in an hour glass but like rocks in a landslide. He is brilliant. Already it's veering towards late afternoon and all I've done so far is scour the electronic world for tales of other people's misery. I pretend it helps me feel better, when in reality it opens up entirely new words of heartache.

I write lists. They make me believe in the Potential of tomorrow. The truth, and I've learned this too many times to ignore it, is that it merely allows for procrastination. Again I feel like I sway at the fork in the road; it's becoming clear to me that this is where I stand, and have been standing for months. It explains why I feel like I am walking around in a dream, why I am invincible on these streets but also a little numb. I don't feel my usual masochism, my self-doubt and fears, and I thought New York was being my buffer. I realize now that perhaps it was because she is a Shadow, walking around and pretending to be me, while in reality I stand at that fork in limbo. You must commit, dear, if you want to live.

Human, human of the year and you've won.

Across the street in midtown, at the top floor of what looks like a hotel, with the facade so colorful and floor-to-ceiling windows, is a space that is being used for storage. Cardboard boxes, mattresses, dust. All I keep thinking is, god, the opulence of allowing stuff such a view. My fingers smell of nicotine and weariness.

Is That All There Is?

The days pass by. The sun rises sweetly over the water tanks and sets over Jersey. Lights come on and off and A/C units are neglected one by one as fall seeps in through the foliage. I, meanwhile, am none the wiser.

Most days it is enough to revel in the beauty of being here, the simple bliss of existing where your dreams wished for you to be. But in the moments where I stop to catch my breath, I inevitably falter. Some days, the concrete underneath me isn't as sturdy, isn't as safe.

Those are the days when I glance behind me and see ghosts of doubt in the corners of my eyes. They whisper all the unanswered questions I haven't cared to answer; they remind me of the impermanence of my current state. Who are you, and what is it you have come here to do? The straight and not-so-narrow needs you to commit yourself, to take your education and your skills into the 9-to-5 and be done with it. Get a grip. The crooked and less beaten path beckons, reminds you that you have come this far by throwing caution to the wind and wouldn't it be silly to give up now?

This is the moment when I must define myself. When I am no longer safely nestled in a university institution or a steady job. When none of the ties that held me together can guide me and give me purpose. This is the time when I must make my own choice, whatever that is, and go with it. Around me, people are getting married, having babies, setting up the next phase. They move effortlessly to jobs and new tax brackets, while I kick and scream and do anything to resist.

But if you choose not to follow one path, you must choose another. I stand at the fork in the road, longing desperately for a map, a flashlight, I hesitate. I was so sure, so long, and now I am letting the dark woods scare me. New York holds my hand reassuringly but I feel my grasp slip, I am undeserving.

On the uneven cobblestone street, she tripped on her high heel. Recovering, I take a deep breath and carry on.

Quote of the Day

I miss the fuck out of you

First Day of School

When the alarm rang it was still dark out, despite summer barely having ended. Walking to the subway, it was still black, and only on the avenues were there any cars; residential Leroy Street was completely silent and everyone slept but the rats, who scurried to their corners as I snuck by. West 4th was quiet, the express train still running on the local track, and class showed up quickly when i was the only white person on the train until midtown. Leaving the subway station, there were a few more people. All men. Unloading vans, setting up food carts, and many that were harder to define and classify than during the day. Why would this guy be up? As I walked down a sleepy 52nd street I realized that I was all alone on a dark street and that maybe that wasn't so smart. I got tricked by my daytime attire.

At the apartment with big windows, dawn was approaching, the sleeping City at its most beautiful. Out of the inky void came little stars of office lights turning on. Great silhouettes of buildnings reaching for the skies emerged, and the backdrop turned purple, blue. I sat in awe and looked at it. By the time the little girl had woken up, the sun had burst through and made all the buildnings brown, the glittering lights of Times Square no longer distinguishable. She yawned and stretched like a kitten; when I asked what was special about this day, she said, "Today is the day for feeding the Frogs!" Not until later did she mention that it was her first day of school.

And so it was, that I, not her parents, took her to her first day of preschool. The closer we got, the tighter she held my hand. In the playground, her nervousness made her run around crazily but all the time coming back and nesting in my lap, when it got too scary. Once in the classroom, she held on tight when I tried to leave her on the carpet with her new teacher. But then, she got asked to sit at her new seat at the table, and she got to pick a paper to write her name on, and suddenly, she was in her new world. She wouldn't speak this strange language they spoke, but she knew what the teachers said and nodded diligently.

And I stood in the doorway, and couldn't leave. I felt my heart expanding in my chest and wanting so much to hold her hand, to tell her that everything would be okay and convince her that she'll make friends and learn so much and love every minute. But I can't tell her. She has to see it for herself, and I know she will. I had to be the patient one, the strong one, and walk away. I've no doubt she's having a great day now, that I am far out of her mind. But it became painfully clear that she now occupies a large part of my heart, and that I am glad she is there. I always was a sucker for children.

By nine o'clock, my work was already done. I trudged toward Columbus Circle and was nearly swept away by hoards of people going in the opposite direction. What's so great about 58th street, I thought, until i realized that all the office people were simply beginning their work day, when mine was done. It's like there are different universes going on in the City, and for brief moments they overlap. I clock out. You clock in. The City inhales and exhales without interruption.

Life Inside a Music Box

Heavy clouds over Manhattan. The Empire State nowhere to be seen, but you don't look for it anyway because your head is kept down to avoid being washed over by the floods pouring from the skies. Turn a corner and get swept off in a wind gust. Pay too much attention to opening the broken umbrella and drop the envelope in a huge puddle, mere minutes before reaching the post office and now the stamp glue won't stick. Of course today is the day the Give-Money-To-Poor-Children Canvasser gets me at Union Square, and my head lined with fever cotton I can't interact appropriately. He stands just a little too close to me while enthusiastically talking, and all I can think is that he doesn't know how many germs are making their way from my breath to his at this moment. That'll teach him to try to save Children. Return home with a full grocery bag and nothing to eat, while the internet refuses to work; is that humane? Try to breathe but the lung machine has decided to go on vacation, and I take every pill I can find to bring it back.

But then, I walk to the subway. I trip down the stairs to the dry warm space below, weave through college kids who just came to New York and have no idea what's in store for them, and stand at the platform, looking at old mosaic tiles and rivers of garbage between the rails. I ride through the underground and emerge where the buildings are tall, and disappear in the gray beyond. Where millions of people run to their individual destinations and a bus load of cheap ponchos takes in the sights. I remember where I am. This is me, in New York. This is me, living the dream. Every day now, I spend here, and it is my life. And the thought made my heart swell in my congested chest, made my feet tingle through the cold wetness. So that on this day when I should've just given up and gone back to bed, I found myself with a smile on my face and a bounce in my step, grateful to the very tips of my split ends.

It may only be the Honeymoon. At some point the City, or I, will have to prove we really want this relationship to work out and are willing to fight for it. At some point it won't be enough just to be here, to be happy. But that moment isn't here yet. So I'll enjoy the simple delight, while I can. But I'll toss the umbrella as soon as I can find a trashcan that isn't already full of them.

Growing Up New York

I spent the morning at the playground, with this small child who looks like she could be mine but is in fact someone I get paid to care for. Her language is mine, thin, light hair encircles both our faces, and when I stare her down to pretend i am the one in charge, my blue eyes pierce hers until we both giggle and carry on.

We ran around the playground, this safe haven with high fences in a midtown corner, where children mill about and never match their caretakers' dialect or skin color. And the thought struck me, how different our lives, and our relations to New York, will be. I grew up in the small town, ran free in the woods, and dreamed of a life where something would happen until I landed starry eyed in the City. But this child, she grows up in the playground that is Manhattan. Smells of fried meat wafting from the corner carts. Somebody upstairs playing the trumpet. Cabs honking and streets neatly arranged on a grid. In a city of such diversity, soon divided up according to class and ranked, opportunities staked out and what age do you let them ride the subway on their own, anyway?

This is the City where she was born, where she has spent most days and the place she calls home. But I can't grasp it. I had to fight so hard to get here. I had to leave all those beautiful people, pack up my most cherished possessions, and run without looking back. I still walk with determination in my step, as if to will New York into existance, should it want to disappear beneath me. And this, this is the place she can take for granted.

It's amazing how different lives can be.

The Great Escape

They call me reserved, those who know me. Say there's that wall and they always feel like they talk more than I do. And I know they're right. It's just, everytime I divulge snippets from the deep beyond, it makes people so sad.

I told them I ran away to New York. That New York was the drug that kept my sadness away, because while here, I needn't think about Reality so much. I create a new Reality, and it keeps me happy. But I know that at some point Life'll catch up to me, and I'll have to deal. But maybe if I have the City to hold my hand, it won't be so terrifying, somehow.

I also told them that maybe I will not solve the tangled web of my emotions and solve my relationship issues, my aversion to love. And this, more than anything, seems to freak people out. As though it were an impossible concept. As though it were the most tragic fate. It is to save them from this sadness that I do not expose the dark ball of yarn within. I only want their worlds to be pink, and sparkly, and all smiles. Why will they not let me protect them?

♥

This is here. This is me. This is Home.

New York, I love you.

Mannahatta

And as we crossed the Williamsburg Bridge, my soon-to-be former roommate said, look out, take in this moment. This was the view you had. This is the place you are going. This is the moment when you moved to the island. How right he was.

As I took it in, the City looked brand new to me, unused, unseen, a whole new Adventure in the making. I've been here before, but now it is mine. Now I live here, and every breath the City takes, I am in. When my soul sleeps, it does so on a crooked, narrow, gingko-tree-lined street in the Village. When my soul sleeps, it does so with a smile in its heart.

Humm,Macdougal, I lived here,
Humm, perfect, there's empty space
Park by the bright lit bookstore
Where I'll find my mail
& Harmonium, new from Calcutta
Waiting I come back to New York & begin to Sing
(Ginsberg, A., Bayonne Entering New York)