When I stare at the New York City skyline from certain vantage points, it looks like it was painted. The way the buildings all pile on top of each other, it’s hard to tell where one ends and the next begins. What’s in the foreground, what’s tucked in between, and what towers above the rest. You often have to focus, lose focus, regain it, and shift your spatial awareness as you scan across the horizon. It makes your eyes hurt sometimes; a small price to pay for such rich culture.
I have a lot of thoughts that bounce around when I go out walking. Even with so many distractions that glint at me, seduce me, turn my head– I like to take notice of the minutiae as well. The amount of detail and planning that goes into designing a single pizza joint is nothing to sneeze at. The Empire State Building is staggering, obviously. The subway system? If I think about it too long, I’ll short-circuit. There is an apartment building being constructed directly across from mine. My roommate and I have gotten to watch from our kitchen window as the process has unfolded; it’s obviously an incredibly advanced step. The cranes make their moves, the men wield their power tools, the foundation is laid for the next story. And as much as I’ve observed, I don’t have a clue what any of them are actually doing. Even though they are completing a full-on feat of engineering right in front of my very eyes– from my point of view, they’re kind of just walking around, surveying things. Pausing sometimes to inspect the concrete or something. Pulling on a rope here and there, who freakin’ knows. And yet, the building grows taller. It strikes me that this is what New York is for, and it’s why I came. To create story after story, building upon each one. To grow stronger, more resilient, more established, and to plant myself squarely into the city. If my roommate reads this, she’ll laugh, because this is an astoundingly optimistic take on the construction of this building– the noise drives us fucking nuts.
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October 2023
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