luni, 14 mai 2012

My New York


My New York is not your New York (most probably). It's a bridge and dog, some kids yelling in a train, a soaking wet me unable to figure out the map, an inspired rap rhyme in the subway, a beer on the fire escape, a coffee and cigarette by the fire hydrant of some posh non-smoking co op building on the Upper West Side, a backyard in Brooklyn. Many new people I just met and already liked. Stories. Empowerment. Being poor is not a crime. The anonymity of myself and the others. Phone banking, door knocking, outreaching. Hectic lifestyles. Barefoot in the sand. Bumper cars. Jadu. A flying ass fuck. Story of my life. A warm blanket after a rainy day. The feeling you get when you pass the Empire State Building and those people try to hunt you to buy a ticket. Direct action. Very direct action. Some more direct action. Yeeeei!!! Being able to take part on a public hearing on the minimum wage, even if I am not a citizen of that particular state or country. A passover like a Woody Allen movie (make that two). A bar and another bar. And some other bar. A green flyer. A powerpoint presentation. Bird dogging. Do you know how to get there? No. Red wine. Beer. One at a time. Oh, you don't wanna see this, or that, or that other tourist place? Nope. Buy souvenirs. You know they expect you too. Post on facebook, check in to places. Report. Daily and overall. Report. Report some more. Take the A and then the G and then the 1 and then switch to 6. Get off there! No, not there, there! Oh, your English is very good! I don't understand you! Well, I don't understand you either! 

3 weeks is not nearly enough for knowing NYC. I only have this feeling of it, but I am afraid my observation may not be valid. However, it is what it is, one cannot change the feeling of something. 



The wealth gap. It is so obvious when you pass through Upper Manhattan towards East Harlem. Here you have huge residential skyscrapers with doormen at work and a few blocks upper you have latino music on the streets, public housing developments, 99 cents stores and local bodegas. As you walk downtown to uptown, you pass the suits, the dresses, the fancy dogs, right next to regular dressed people taking photos (tourists, one can assume) and some other people not taking photos (locals, should they be?). There’s plenty of diversity and plenty of stories. People just speak to each other. You can hear someone’s story just because you sit next to them in the subway or in a queue. I can sense optimism and social trust, they say it is just New York, a cosmopolitan place where there’s room for everyone, one way or another. I couldn’t sense racism, but they say it is internalized and very present. They call it structural. It made me think I might somehow be a racist myself, even if not by choice but by ignorance. I still hope it is not the case, though.

Brooklyn has a different flavour. It looks more european to me, in some way. If I ever lived in NYC (which I sort of hope it will somehow happen to me during this lifetime), I think I’d like to live in Brooklyn. I cannot actually put my finger on what it is about Brooklyn that I like. I just do. It made me feel safe and somehow at peace.
Queens, they say, has the most diverse communities. Except that for me it felt just the same as Harlem, but with different residential places, much smaller houses. And at sone point, Queens looks like a suburb.
Bronx was something else. High rise apartment buildings and that's pretty much it. I did not see the violence. I can only assume that where there are plenty of people living together, conflict is inherent.

This is one unfinished blog post. I started it while in NYC. Now I am back to Romania, with many lessons learned and even more questions unanswered. However, I had six amazing weeks in the US. The 3 weeks in NYC were defo a highlight. But not the only highlight. I need more highlights ... It's been a week now since I am back here. I have mixed feelings regarding my wanting to somehow go back there, go somewhere else in the world or staying here... In the meantime, I've learnt for sure that what I do is what I want to do and there's nothing else in the world I would rather do (and now with even better methods). Which I sort of knew... but it is a great feeling :)

To be continued (whenever I feel like, that is). I must write about the professional side, which was, once again, amazing.
      

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