2003-05-04 - 10:22 a.m.
There is a difficulty in articulating the present moment. A challenge to speak clearly about how it feels to be where I am right now. I have been grappling with this idea of how to represent my life in New York to myself and others since I got here. There is this tendency to treat New York as the center of the world and have this idea in our heads that everything important happens here. And even while I passionately don't beleive that, I find myself slipping into it from time to time. But then I think there are unique feelings that come from being here. And they are no more or less unique than anywhere else, but there *is* something profound about this city.
Maybe its the way I feel it streches out without sprawling. Its miles and miles of neighborhoods, brownstone, limstone and brick row houses with corner groceries, shoe repair, flat tire repair, clothing stores all mixed in. Last week I rode my bike twice from Sunset Park to Williamsburg and back and took in the way Broolyn keeps flowing together, how the nieghborhoods keep changing and how they are the same idea repeated over and over.
But there's more. I am thinking about what it has meant to be in New York at this time of war. It's something I feel actuly. Everyday has been a struggle against rage and despair, always hovering on that point of giving up. Everynight when I go home there are national guard with machine guns in the subway stops. Their fingers are on the trigger and they are ready. It tells me a lot about what "freedom" and "democracy" have come to mean as of late.
And with this recession, economic downturn, or hard fucking times, whatever you want to call it, we see the consequences everyday on the streets. Of course, these times effect everyone everywhere. But I wonder in this city, how many people got evicted because of it? How many people can't eat? How many people are dying because they can't get health care? How many people are being told they are "lazy" and to "get a job" when there are no jobs? It reaffirms my absolute loathing of "the system". I am so outraged I don't know what to do, but I am staring it in the face and I know those in power don't care one ounce about humanity.
These questions are always on my mind and my rage has been keeping me up at night. What is my role as a writer right now? HOw do I speak to other writers, to other people, reach out and keep talking, questioning, making spaces to hear each other?
