Mechanisms

G's Brooklyn Heights Stoop, Early Winter, 2015

We all have them. We carry them, these vices, in our purses, in our backpacks, in our hands (and in our minds.) I'm subject to possessing so many (coping) mechanisms that I might, at some point, as a person, even humbly define the term itself. 

It's strange being back in the City: good strange, but nevertheless strange. I adopted this place as my "home" so many years ago, even when life handed me tangled finances, a bad break up, difficult friendships, trying commutes, loud and angry white noise created by a City of 11 million people. In many ways, this was my life mission: live somewhere where the sound would overcome me. Live somewhere where the noise would drown me out: me, my own internal figurative shouting, the layers of grievances leaving my lips, the sheer concept that everything basically looked like rubbed black gray felt. Life is an ear infection, buzzing, get through it. Suffer. Crawl out of proverbial holes. Just keep going.

It's so much easier to keep going in New York City than anywhere else in the country that I've ever lived. People are bruised, here, and continue to take beatings. We sandwich against each other on subways, bags filled with everything and nothing jamming against someone else's bag filled with everything and nothing. We risk stepping on those terrifyingly unstable floor hatches that lead to the basements of bodegas. We eat from food trucks, and like it. Winter makes us insane, and summer makes us crazier. It's almost as though the overflow of abundance (redundancy at its finest) is what keeps New Yorkers on the move. We're aching for movement. And we aren't short of that.

It's hypnotic, living in such a frenetic environment. 

Yet, it's so different being back in it. I felt it to be novel, interesting, incredible, when I lived here before. Now, to me, it's a jungle. This is New York City. You come here and fall against a wall, lose footing, stumble. New York City eats your heart out. 

I can't say that I want out. I want this emphatic lifestyle. It screams. Working in Midtown reminds me of how loud life can be.

In my private and solitude moments, I know New York City will take care of me.