New York musings

picture taken by Rachel Byrant

I spent 5 days in New York City. I love New York, like a complicated boyfriend. I loved how dillusioned I got, the tears swelling. It’s a dog eat dog world out there. You can tell by the birds and the subway rats. They have surviving on their minds. People are desperate in New York. Or maybe not.  It’s a cold city and as told by Emma Rose, a writer originally from Finland;

“It’s really hard to meet people in New York, the women wear masks”

I could tell Emma Rose was looking for the same things I was. Spirituality, deep human connection. I met Emma Rose, which is her Nom de terre while I was sketching a garden in the middle of Brooklyn.

“Are you writing a novel” which is funny because I was writing. Back in my ‘Victorian Sanctuary’ in Harlem/Upper West Side.

We started talking and we felt at ease. It’s a quaint feeling, your shoulders are no longer perched high in nervous anticipation, they droop.

We shared what was on our mind, each listening intently. Both open.

I felt magic  when the Newark airport transfer bus was driving to the city. I felt like I was in a dream, a bright yet hazy landscape. Oddly familiar. The world felt wide and brilliant.

I lugged my suitcase up and down subway staircases, sometimes with men taking it from my hands and shaking their heads. No, no, tiny white lady… let me help you carry the weight of a 19-year-old man. It was at least relief from my tourist in New York hazing.  I made it up to my dark and serious Airbnb with the help of an old man selling bandanas and watches.  Paintings adorned the walls in a well thought out fashion. This was a house for thinkers and artists and Soliva the Housemaid. I settled in slowly, enjoying the bed like a cat. Sleeping at camp was interesting. I saw the sky in many different shades.

My first night was spent in Downtown Manhattan, getting a Gyro from a street vendor. His name was Muhammed and he was from Egypt. From his phone he was playing a surah from the Quran which made the fluorescent light above him mystical and New York felt familiar.  I walked along to a fountain park. I sat between a couple and two old friends…both Then an oldish white man sat down next to me. It felt like we were both looking at the fountain together, which prompted me to ask him

“Have you had a good day today?”

He replied, “It was excellent, you?”

That unraveled a surprisingly intimate interaction, bouncing and perfect. Talking about what we think is my favorite type of conversation.

“I’m meeting a writer in New York, how cliche” he laughed.

I told him about North Carolina and he told me about Berlin. Germans do like having fun and being relaxed. Southern girls don’t usually talk about sex the way English girls do.

He walked me through Washington Park and we said goodbye with a handshake. I googled his full name and felt like the universe was trying to tell me something.

I went to a palm reader after I bought some rolling papers. 

My future is something to look forward to, foretold by a large Czech woman with a warm face. Her body melted into the seat and her skin ate the neon glow of her sign, the yellow of the lamp.

The days in New York, now looking back were tied by routine with gaps of spontaneity. I liked living like this, I used the Airbnb the best way I knew how; as a sanctuary. I ate from the deli shops and brought home leftovers. Strawberries, Ritz crackers, lychee’s and cherries. I ate and slept in the middle of the day. It was like being in a factory grade washing machine, my brain was tired.   It would grip my face with both hands and make me watch the rat race. This isn’t smile for a smile camp anymore. This is reality.

The second day I tramped around downtown Brooklyn, crossing a bridge I forgot the name, towards Coney Island. I like that no one asks any questions because a girl acting jumpy with headphones is the least of their worries. I followed each street to its end and took either a left or a right with the confidence that I knew where I was going. I found myself either being a homing pigeon or being so far out of the way I would have to take several trains to only get back to the station I arrived from.

On this day, I saw the partygoers of New York. The stylish, in love and the friends making conversation or life easier with alcohol. I was doing just the same, in secret.

‘Ignorance is bliss, Love from New York’

If you walk with your nose in the air high enough, you don’t see the homeless shrouded, crumpled. Life has chewed them up and spat them outside. 

If one doesn’t see them, they don’t exist, and the sun is shining and there is money in the bank and I think my wife loves me.

On the subway, there was a multitude of people wearing the little pod earphones from Apple. A visual representation of a socioeconomic divide. I wonder how easy it would be to steal them from their respective owner. All you need is an apt distraction. A firm, slow kiss on the mouth would be apt enough, a girl in college would be some men’s wet dream. But it is kissing strangers though, I don’t know where their mouth has been. I would have to create a sort of mouth guard or a spray that can cut through bacteria like a hot knife through butter.

Maybe a mix of pure ethanol, water and any old mouthwash in a tiny spritzer.

Locate target, spray mouth and off you go, doing strange yet financially rewarding work. I guess there must be some non-verbal foreplay. Warm them up to the idea with flicks of the eyes or a  small mysterious smile. You grip the sides of their face, your forefinger and middle finger splayed across the ears and then using your thumb, you would pluck them right out of their nests. Theoretically of course.

End