Ode to My City

A couple of days ago, I entered a semi-crowded metro with my typical New York attitude: conscious and uninviting. I noticed that a young girl and her mother were looking up at me. So, naturally, I intensified my uninviting face. I've decided that there is nothing wrong with appearing like a hostile and disinterested New Yorker here in Santiago. If anything, it will make me more comfortable with the fact that people stare at me.
Suddenly, I felt a tap on my arm and looked down to see an old man looking up at me, "you look pretty in that scarf - very elegant," he said. I smiled and thanked him. "Where are you from?" He asked. "I'm from New York," he looked as though he might have been expecting a different answer. "Ah, the United States," he said in English. "Look," he pointed to an east Asian looking man to my left, "there are people here from all over the world. It's really great for the city." This last comment surprised me. I've never heard anyone talk about immigration as being "great" for Santiago, or any city for that matter. I was truly amazed that this friendly old man had the same appreciation for diversity that I do. And that is when I began to think of my own home back in New York, where diversity is what, I believe, makes it such a special place.

Though New York is changing in ways that taint my love for the place, I am learning to accept that change is what makes the city breath; what keeps it alive. Sometimes I think back to when the small island was full of trees, and its first inhabitants called it Manna Hatta. Now those trees are a forest of buildings, of heartless business, and artificial lights. But despite the - sometimes painful - evolution, New York's soul sits in our memory. In my memory, the city's soul is a poly rhythm of sorts: 24 hour movement and constant variation...

It's a place where you can eat jerk chicken made by loyal Jamaicans, and minutes later hear the songs of Hasidic Jewish children; where one you might run into your favorite movie star, or go to school with the children of diplomats and world leaders. Maybe you'll step into Prada and look at the most expensive bag you've ever seen, then walk ten blocks and get the same bag for fourty dollars. If you're old enough, you might remember the sidewalks where Kieth Herring and Basquiat shared their first pieces of revolutionary street art. You'll stroll through parks that inspired Langston Houghes and Walt Whitman. You'll walk the streets where Dylan and Hendrix played their magical guitars, and stand by the bodegas where Salsa met Jazz. Someone might rob you, and someone might give you their ticket to a Broadway show. You might befriend a refugee, a tourist, or a millionaire. Maybe you'll enter the projects, and later find yourself in a 5th Avenue penthouse. You can taste India and Pakistan; Whole Foods and soul food. You can be spoken to in at least thirty different languages, and insulted by hundreds of different cultures. You'll ride the train with people who have been homeless for longer than you've been alive, and later walk by the very buildings where a world financial crisis reached its climax. You'll catch a glance at a feminine man, a masculine woman, and everything beautiful in between. You can be anyone, or anything, and no one is fazed because they are all busy finding themselves. Everyone is simply surviving. And though New York City is almost as harsh as it is stressful, the fact that so many different people manage to live in such close proximity is - in my opinion - one of the most beautiful things in the world.