Dear New York #2

From the Archives...I wrote this months and months ago, and for some reason never printed it. Since posting photos seems too involved right now for my tired self, this will be tonight's contribution to internet meanderings...

Dear New York,
It has been a while since I have written especially to you. But here I am again, feeling overwhelmed and bowled over by your energy...to get things sorted out it must go down in print. You are no longer so new that I am distracted by navigating a course through your corridors, yet you aren't quite old hat either. I can still be delighted and surprised by fresh views you offer, as if from around a corner. I haven't made up my mind yet, but I am slowly being won over , even as I surrender things I thought I could cling to forever as part of who I am. I realize these things are slippery and not of substance. I sit here with a baby tumbling inside of me...your baby...and I think of the relationship I have with you. You are glossy and professional. You are marketed and managed. And you are also old and poor and dirty and home to the bottom of the barrel. Nevermind that you may have created this floor, along with the ceiling.
"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore, send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door..."
This is the placard on the gate. I believe that you mean it, you really do. It is just that the poor need a master, and the master is Money and his queen, Freedom. Oh how you torture me with these extremes. And yet, that was always there, from the beginning. I just was able to compartmentalize better surrounded by the same color, the same class, the assumptions about who I was and what I stood for. With you, you make me choose. And that is something I am loathe to do...because then I might get it wrong. If there is no choosing, there is no wrong. If the choosing is a default based on someone else's belief system, it isn't really choosing.

Sometimes a song strikes a mood better than words without tune can. For this night, Building A Mystery (by Sarah Mclachlan) gets it nearly perfect. The mood is best conveyed with the volume up high, standing in front of the speakers (which I do to this song at least once every couple months--I know, guilty, pop music pleasure). At the risk of appearing cheesy and sentimental (flashback to the mid-80's and spending hours figuring out the lyrics to songs), here are the words:

"You come out at night
that's when the energy comes
and the dark side's light
and the vampires roam
you strut your rasta wear
and your suicide poem
and a cross from a faith
that died before Jesus came
you're building a mystery

You live in a church
where you sleep with voodoo dolls
and you won't give up the search
for the ghosts in the halls
you wear sandals in the snow
and a smile that won't wash away
can you look out the window
without your shadow getting in the way
you're so beautiful
with an edge and a charm
but so careful
when I'm in your arms

You woke up screaming aloud
a prayer from your secret god
you feed off our fears
and hold back your tears oh

Give us a tantrum
and a know it all grin
just when we need one
when the evening's thin

Oh you're a beautiful
a beautiful f**ed up man
you're setting up your
razor wire shrine"

(And for some great commentary on the lyrics:
check out this link.)

If you want to see Sarah singing it:
video

So New York, I do think you are a beautiful effed up man. I love you, I hate you, I can't believe I am lucky enough to get you. I'm glad I am able to see that you are beautiful and you are effed up too. As long as I can hold both in my hand I can't lose myself in the ocean of you. I think you make me a better person--before you I got stuck in idealism and I didn't have room for both of your faces. I am forced now to be more assertive. I don't know if we will always be together or not. But whatever happens I hope that I can come back and go out to coffee with you and I won't be afraid to look you in the eyes and really see your face. Well, maybe I can do that. Or maybe I'll have to look away until my heart stops fluttering. You know you have that effect on me and you love that kind of power. No matter...just hold my hand...deep breath and I'll try again.