Thoughts on New York

What can I say about New York City? How would one describe something so large? How does one begin to express the feeling you get when surrounded by millions of individual lives, billions of office/retail/livable square footage, and more languages spoken than I could have ever imagined hearing (let alone, hearing them in one location)?

What do you say, then, when you go from the wide-open space of the Midwest and are dropped straight into the Mecca of American diversity? How are you supposed to feel when you have to hire a car service to get to and from the airport? How do you cope when the only pieces of nature you see are fenced off, that the grass is designated: “No dogs allowed” and that the trees are there, seemingly, to more beautifully frame the main attractions: the buildings?

How do you fathom the amount of money it takes to simply function; to get anywhere, to eat, to be entertained? How can one person fathom how much it costs to rent a tiny apartment, and yet how many people do? How much money does Bloomingdales make in one day at Christmas time? Macy’s? Anthropologie?

How should you feel when you hear people SCREAMING at each other from across the subway platform? (in a heavy Brooklyn accent: “YOU DISGUST ME, IN EVERY WHICH WAY. . . .”) What do you say when you are thrust into an area where people have less patience than my kids do on Christmas morning? How does a guy raised in a small town in Colorado respond when someone causes a 15 second delay for an automobile, gets honked at twice, and then the car stops, rolls down its windows and proceeds to yell at the elderly woman who caused the delay? How should I feel when one sees lots of young, able bodied guys relaxing in seats on the subway while women (some elderly) and children are forced to stand? How does one get used to shouldering women out of your way when trying to walk the streets, not apologizing, and not feeling bad?

And can I even begin to imagine the feelings of the new immigrants who initially stood on Ellis Island? What does it feel like to a new immigrant now? What is it like to find a job in New York, let alone which direction is north?

How do kids feel being raised in the projects? How do they feel being raised in posh Manhattan estates? Will they ever know how sweet air at 9000 feet smells or what it’s like to drive your very own automobile for 12 straight hours before reaching your destination? Will they ever be lulled to sleep by the quiet chirping of crickets? Will they ever see the Milky Way? And how do teachers in New York do it, while their students are pent up and “roped in” continually and have nowhere to go run and play? How do parents do it if their yard is nothing more than a 6-foot by 8-foot concrete slab?

How do tourists feel when they behold the majesty of Times Square for the first time? How do I respond to television screens that are 8 STORIES tall, and they are EVERYWHERE?! How does a tourist, if they have no tour guide, branch out any farther than just that area of the city? How do you absorb the entire breadth of the stimuli in that two block area? How do companies afford an advertisement that is that large? What does a model feel like to see themselves blown up to 80 feet tall?

How does a resident of New York meet new people? How would a single person go about finding companionship? How do you even trust another person in a city that large? How do churches form and grow? How does one interact with so many devout people from other religions?

What do you say when you see puddles of pee randomly on the sidewalks? What about the post Friday/Saturday night piles of vomit just randomly on the sidewalks/subway platforms? Can one get used to the rats… and the smells? Is it possible to get used to most public restrooms being filthy, without toilet paper, cramped, and crowded? How about the higher prices at restaurants?

How will I ever eat another Gyro again without comparing it to the “real thing” I had in Astoria? Will I ever again try a hot dog as good as a Gray’s Papaya frank? And the bacon-corn chowder at Gray Dog, how can I go without it? New York bagels are incomparable to any I’ve ever had, so how can I go back to the regular Panera bagels? Will I ever again see a Christmas tree as beautiful as the one at 30 Rock? Will I ever again feel as deeply in the Christmas spirit as I did while ice-skating in Central Park with my wife and my friends? Will I ever be in a place that diverse again? Will I ever be in a place again where almost nobody is fat?

How does one deal with New York for the first time?

You dive in head first – live it, love it, breathe it in, and thank God for every single bit of it. . . .