I’m a tourist in a dream. Every step off the corner invites me with smells of crisp margarita slices. Layered in decaying gum and fresh dog poop squishing and squashing beneath the unsuspecting, one must tippytoe across the pavement with the form of a ballerina. This conscious effort has plagued the venturer since the invention of New York, to intake the limelights and become one with canine fecal matter, or to gauge the path ahead and miss out on the city entirely. When the sun rises, Eight million worms awaken every day discovering their apple anew. This rediscovery comes in the form of bakery grand openings, exploring the crown, wings, or toes of the city, or even observing the passage of seasons.
In due time, the leaves will crunch their last goodbyes beneath the soles of Converse and Timberlands. The trees will be naked, offering no protection from the armada of snowflakes that wage war with our coats. Fascinated by the sight of our breath, we miss out on the groundhog that peaks its head cautiously like an emerging periscope. Before we know it, it is safe to remove our cotton blend and nylon layers. As the frisbee navigates its way to a receiving hand, we reminisce on the last summer. We have made a full circle now, a whole year has gone by.
One year wiser, we have seen the city birth new stores in place of older ones, refurbishing itself like a culture of bacteria. That is to say of course that we both witnessed the stores having died and rebuilt in the first place. Illustrating this concept, Colston Whitehead says in his Colossus of New York, “No matter how long you have been here, you are a New Yorker the first time you say, That used to be Munsey's, or That used to be the Tic Toe Lounge.” (3). A tremendous novel, Colossus of New York tackles the existential-esque topic that New York, regardless of being a city, is subjective. Both in experiences and understanding, no two people have the same New York in mind, splitting the city into millions of fragmented conceptions. My understanding of New York is built upon my ever growing discoveries and experiences I’ve had in my 18 years as a resident of the world’s greatest metropolis.
I grew up right in Upper East Side Manhattan. Childhoods in New York are arguably better than almost any other place in the world, in that there’s so much to do at any time in the year. Perhaps the most notable season in my youth is winter, for winter to me means Central Park. It means getting dressed in ridiculous thermal overalls because being healthy and goofy is better than being trendy and sick. It means hot chocolate before AND after going sledding down my family’s favorite slope, dodging other kids and pretending to make a getaway. Winter in Central Park actually means snow in New York City, the kind that isn’t black and squishes under your galoshes. It means the Alice in Wonderland statue is set on repel, because touching it means you have to thaw out your hand or surgically remove it. It means walking on the solid ice that the ducks swim on in the spring and watching a couple of snow-chitects make an igloo. Winter in Central Park means grabbing fistfuls of snow and hurling them at Aba, only to get hit three times harder by a middle eastern who actually knows how to make them properly. Winter is a time when smokers on the street victimize their thumbs to get their lighters to work. The fresh smell of evergreens invades the streets, ready to be sold for festivities.That is what a New Yorker’s childhood is like.
Looking back, I come to realize that winters have now taken on a whole new meaning. No longer confined to the forest on the island, winter became my taste of freedom from the jail that was high school. Ice skating, partying, manhunt, my friends and I grew up in the winter. By the time I was sixteen, I hadn’t discovered the city, I discovered what it meant to be in it. Of course, that meaning differs for everyone, given the variety in experiences one can acquire over time. In her piece Mapping, Emma Wisniewski maps her childhood in LIC, a bland and remote area save the Five Pointz, a warehouse fully decorated in masterful graffiti. To her, Five Pointz is an overlooked center of the universe, adding character to an otherwise mundane bildungsroman. Like her Five Pointz, Central Park was originally my ‘destination’ to grow. Ultimately however, that growth grew beyond the barriers of the park with my newfound exposure to the subway and freedom granted from my time off from school and discovery of my city.
On a macrocosmic scale, these tales of discovery, freedom and childhood emulate the philosophical notion that reality is idiosyncratic in nature, based merely on the perceiver alone. Colston Whitehead’s belief that New York is not shared, rather exclusive to the individual, is a mutual understanding of many philosophers regarding any physical matter or concept thereof, in that the mind is paradoxically the true creator of everything it is intaking. This model of thinking predates any of us, stemming from solipsistic, nihilistic and existential thinking, among others, and is virtually impossible to invalidate. Therefore, if a tree falls in Central Park and no one is around to hear it, a tree has not fallen in central park.
Short lived, the seasons in New York have almost nothing in common except for that. Occasionally I will get a taste of childhood in the summer when temperatures are lower than they should be, but I’m quickly reminded of my oncoming adulthood when the heat picks up again. Sure, I can sit all day dissecting my life in seasons, but there are other elements to this great city that make me who I am. Wisniewski argues that “The Pointz is anchored by its tags. I have never been able to figure out whether they are a byproduct of the Pointz or the raw materials that make it what it is.” With this in mind, we have to ponder, does the city truly make us who we are? There is a chance after all that all our time spent building snowmen in the park and observing the monument that is the Five Pointz is what makes the city. Then again, the two beliefs mustn't necessarily contradict one another. In my belief, the great big organism we walk on walks in us. We are the city.
Because we are ourselves and not each other, but we are the city that bores our own unique existence, we now derive yet another piece of evidence to back Whitehead’s claims. I metrocard, therefore I am. Internalizing this realization, it is our duty to continuously construct New York. Reminisce. Reminisce. Reminisce.
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