Written Over Three Very Good Days in New York

Monday through Friday my days play out much the same. My alarm clock buzzes, I jerk half-awake and I groggily strike out in the direction of the noise hoping to hit the snooze button. Eventually I drag myself out of bed, cook breakfast, take a shower and leave my apartment. On the good days the sun is shining and my landlord's cats are relaxing on the front steps, patiently waiting for me to play with them.

Six blocks north to the subway. Two flights of stairs down to the train. Hoping that the G is not waiting at the platform causing me to sprint or wait an indeterminate amount of time for the next one. A little after 9am I arrive at work. I drink coffee. I open up Outlook and Excel. I mess about with figures and paperwork. I stress out about things over which I have little control. At 5pm (or 5:30, or 6 or 7) I leave.

This flat, grey day-to-day is the basis of my everyday and yet there are times (like now, on my roof, on a 65 degrees and perfect afternoon) when I get the strongest feeling that this 8-5, five days a week is nothing more than an extension of my dreams. A waking, walking sleep. In those hours it certainly feels as if a part of me remains unconscious, waiting for that first breath taken after 5 (or 5:30 or 6 or 7) outside the office's revolving doors. Then during, for example, a walk from Union Square to the East Village for a burger and a beer the best parts of me start to come alive again. Chatting with a bartender for a couple of hours about proper techniques for pouring beer and mid-90s alt-rock seems more like Real Life and Real Experience than an entire day of the-same-as-yesterday.

Stuyvesant Square Park at dusk, with its dog walkers, film students and bored high schoolers is lit far brighter than the rows of desks and offices bathed in cold florescence.

I breathe deeper and think deeper when outside of my daily routine; when faced with the myriad facets of New York. I've traced the metropolitan veins and arteries, my feet picking up the city's heartbeat from the streets and avenues. As this city lives, so too have I felt alive. Peeking past the sheen of brand new skyscrapers and midwestern transplants like myself I catch glimpses of brownstones and dirty brick storefronts seeing an organism both very young and very, very old. 

Though the High Line is developed, though Times Square is squeaky-clean; though every neighborhood has been the setting and/or backdrop for countless books, plays, TV shows and films New York still retains the potential for every moment spent here to be wholly original. It's this promise of impetuous possibility that drives so many to move here and prevents so many from moving away. 

New York is noisy. It's exhausting. It's, at times, claustrophobic. The rent is astronomical. But though the cost of being here may be high, the experience of living here is priceless.