Living Just Enough for the City

I tried to tell Lady Liberty that I could make it without her, without the ocean, the gridlock and the skyscrapers of eternal light. I told Lady Liberty that I could do it on my own, without the help of Wall Street, without the inspiration of Brooklyn and the raw kitsch of It All. But Lady Liberty, she’s a constant- her lights are always shining, her skyline hangs steady and her people somehow find time to recharge in the midst of everything happening around them. They get up each day to do it all again; it’s a self-feeding cycle, but it’s never exactly the same twice.
Lady Liberty laughed at me. “If you can’t make it here, babe, you can’t make it anywhere.”
“That’s not true!” I cried. “That’s not true at all.”
She raised her eyebrows at me, questioning my definition of making it. I pretended not to understand her point.
Lady Liberty issued a challenge. “I bet you can’t do it. You don’t have what it takes to make it here.”
I made a show of shaking my head: left to right, right to left. “That’s not true at all. I know I can make it here,” I told her. “It would be easy. Look at the man there, on the corner, the one in the suit. He’s done it. That woman selling falafel out of a van, she’s done it. That girl across the street, with the knobby knees and vacant eyes, she’s done it. If they can do it, so can I. I know it.”
“Prove it,” she taunted.
I looked at her like a child being asked to enter a dark cave in the dead of night. My voice faltered. “I can do it. I can…”
“Prove it,” she repeated. She looked down at me, her eyes stern. “Are you afraid?” she asked.
I nodded, meekly.
“You’re scared of me.”
“No.”
“Then why are you afraid?”
“I’m afraid of what I want.” I regained my confidence in my earnestness, “I’m afraid of wanting to prove you wrong.”
She smiled because she knew she had won.

- - - - -

I’ve always spoken out against the rite of passage that is New York City. It’s silly to think that living there will somehow make anyone a more interesting person, a better artist, a harder worker. I know it’s ridiculous- to think that I could somehow become something tangible, someone who matters by moving there. But New York City has so much of what I want:

-Locally owned shops and restaurants
-The ability to walk everywhere
-Ethnic food- lots of it
-Communal insomnia
-Cheap cabs/ cabs that take credit cards
-Liberal guilt
-History
-Progression
-Everything

But, if everyone who wants these things goes to New York City to find them, what will happen to the rest of the country? I never want to have to own a car again, but what if everyone who doesn’t want to own a car in Minnesota moves to a city with great pubic transportation? Where will the incentive be for the Twin Cities to get a better public transportation system? What if everyone who values great ethnic food moves to New York City? Who will eat ethnic food in Montana, Texas or Utah? Sure, my singular presence may not be important in the cultural direction of whatever city I end up living in, but it’s the cultural mindset that’s important.

Why is New York the bar of success? I’m not trying to undermine the influence of New York City, for it is awesome, but who’s to say that people aren’t doing interesting, creative, important work in Chicago, Baltimore, Boston and Portland?* Who’s to say the best publishing house in the country cannot operate out of a loft in St. Paul? Who’s to say that an influential writer has to live in Brooklyn? Why am I being goaded into the idea that moving to New York and doing well in The City will somehow translate into a successful life, as my professors and friends seem to insinuate?

Over the summer there was a super model from Eastern Europe (or somewhere) who killed herself. She lived in an expensive apartment on the tenth (or so) floor of some New York high rise and jumped to her death from the balcony. One of her friends, in response to her death, said something along the lines of, “I never thought she would do this. I thought she loved the city,” as if to say that New York City is some kind of metaphor for life. In my industry, it is. But what happens when the city dies?

Over the weekend I sat in front of the Stock Exchange and wondered for how much longer it will serve to represent hard work and the tireless spirit. One of the sculpted men on the top of the building is hunched under the burden of a heavy sack, and I wondered, when was the last time anyone currently working in that building labored under such a load? Maybe New York is out of touch with what it represents. Maybe what it represents is changing. Maybe the bar of success can be moved. Maybe I am just trying to talk myself out of moving further away (mentally, not physically) from my family, and maybe I'm secretly hoping I’ll be unsuccessful in doing so.


* These questions are purely rhetorical. I know that people across this great country, across the world, are doing things of huge significance. I am merely suggesting that we take extra care to understand them as artists, workers and people and not compare them unjustly to their peers in other parts of the country, for reasons that are purely geographical.