2003-09-03 - 3:54 p.m.
Every day feels like my very own New York movie. I compose grainy shots in super-8 in my mind, my eyes as a camera, panning, scanning, focusing, to the soundtrack on my headphones. Sitting on the subway in the morning, staring accross the car and out the double doors to the graffitied tunnels flashing by. I sway to to the rocking of the car, reading over and over "do not lean on doors" until the helvetica font is burned into my mind. Ride washes over me from a mix tape, magnetic hiss becomes "tru luv". (I am starting to prefer listening to cassettes on the subway).
Maybe this is why people are always so fascinated by New York- every moment feels cinematic.
Growing up I never imagined that I would be able to name the Brooklyn neighborhoods between Greenpoint and Sunset Park, much less live there. Who knew I would learn how the neighborhood changes on 59th street between 8th and 5th aves? That I would walk around on rainy days doing errands and buying 69 cent tofu? It is the small experiences like this that remind me education is so much more than school and that my "life direction" will always be beyond what I can imagine.
But nothing can put me through the emotional wringer like New York can, especially going to school in New York. My mind is filled with possibility, with new information and ideas and perspectives found within my classes and without, and I find my brain and heart racing so fast. I loose perspective in the change of a traffic light. Yesterday I raced through emotions, from excited and confident about school, to wanting to be in school forever so I could "talk smart", to wanting school to be over RIGHT NOW, to feeling like I really have it figured out, to feeling like I have nothing figured out and will never amount to anything. It left me reeling and I came home with a headache. After days of not being able to leave the hosue without a friend to encourage me to do so, this was overload (but I think I am adjusting already).
In the meeting for my internship the director of the internship program talks about how these internships could lead to our "career". My classmates talk about working for ABC or at a hospital. I bind books, sort type and teach bookbinding workshops... an unlikely career but something I love... I just wanted to start crying, "I don't want a career! I want to survive doing what makes me feel alive!" This is hard in New York, it is hard anywhere. I understand it's a privilege to have space and confidence enough to not have to think very concretely at this moment about a "career", but also, I feel like it's important to pursue an agenda that isn't necessarily about becoming a success in the capitalist sense. I feel like there is this idea about a selfish drive for this kind of success for these young, white, college educated twenty-somethings in the big city and it is an idea that makes me queasy. I want space for creativity and community, not just to blindly push forward with my "career" agenda. I want to take the time to learn and experience in ways that might not lead me to being paid but will make me a stronger person.
