photos by Koury AngeloLast week I was standing on the corner of 47th and Broadway in Time Square with a man I had just gone on a first date with. As I turned to say something to him, he put his hands on my face and kissed me. It was a movie like moment until a few minuets later when he said, "I hate Time Square, I just don't get New York."
I knew then, it would never work out with him.
Perhaps I am guilty of romanticising New York more then Woody Allen, or maybe it's because I am a romantic person, but everyday, I fall deeper in love with this city. A city that I have begun to grow roots in.
I have never grown roots- anywhere, before here.
I was born in the mountains of Boulder, Colorado, moved to desert of Albuquerque, New Mexico, grew up by the ocean in Sarasota, Florida, received my college degree in Tallahassee, Florida got my heart broken in Atlanta, Georgia, licked my wounds in Gainesville, Florida, and now I have found myself here in the bright lights of New York City.
Even in New York I have moved several times. Bushwick, Park Slope, West Village, Upper West Side, and now Chinatown.
When I went to meet a dear friend for brunch near Astor Place. I called him on his cell phone, I was lost. I told him, "I'm not exacty sure where the resturant is located." He said:
"Why not, you have lived in every square inch of New York."
When I wake up in the morning, and walk down to the B/D subway stop on Grand Street- I walk down the streets of Chinatown watching the men unload the produce off the trucks. The traffic is moving fast and its hectic. I walk down the subway stairs where hundreds of people are pouring on or off the subway cars. I feel the wind in the tunnels when the train is about to pull into the station, and it makes you feel powerful, to be strong in a city with so much chaos. It's almost mediation for someone like me that feels so much chaos on the inside, New York to me, is an equalizing balance.
These aren't the only reasons why I love New York.
The winters are hard here, and it makes you appreciate the Spring. Every year when I see the first buds on the tree I silently celebrate to myself- warm weather is coming back.
I have my best conversations with close friends or a lover while walking around New York's many little roads, and quiet streets, that are always waiting to be discovered by someone new. To discover them by yourself is wonderful, to discover them with someone you care about is magical.
If you are open, if you are brave, if you are willing to be on your own here, go at it alone, you will find just the opposite is true. You will find and connect with the very people your heart desires because they too took the once in a live time opportunity to live here, to struggle here, to find themselves here.
New York can be hard, because some have so much, and you can have so little, but, to be motivated, to be intelligent, to be talented here, with a little patience you can see your opportunities flower here- like you would never see in any other city. This is the gift this city gives you- it always makes you feel like no matter what your age is- you still have the opportunity to realize your dreams.
It is the city for dreamers, even more so for the doers.
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