The City

Contractually obligated to tell you the truth.

Growing up, I hated New York City. Monstrous, assaulting, reduced and somehow inflated to “The City,” a moniker void of discerning details, my fear was as tightly wound as the palm clutching my mother’s hand.

We’d visit for the occasional Broadway show or to see the tree at Rockefeller Center during the Holidays. In the heart of The City, life was saddled up next to you, barely moveable amidst the crowds of tourists breathing your air. Much of the time, there was no breaching the discomfort—the exhaust of the vehicles, the brisk air to your cheeks, the tangy smell of urine around every corner. You watched your step to avoid litter and the open grates of the Subway beneath you, thick clouds of smoke circling around your body. You cast your eyes down as you walked by yet another homeless man, the jingling of the spare coins in his plastic cup piercing your ear drum, a dull ache somewhere deeper. I vowed to never live in The City, resigning myself to something lesser, a place where discomfort was not inhaled with all the second-hand smoke.

On the crest of twenty-four, I now call The City home. I’m not exactly sure how I got here, but I’m no more spared than I was then. I’ve run out of Subway cars to escape a perceived threat—rolled up sleeves and blood shot eyes more clear than the string of curse words out of a mouth. I’ve dodged and skirted through many a crowded sidewalk, inhaling all sorts of unpleasant smells and vacant looks. I’ve been packed so tightly into a Subway car that if my neighbor moves their hand just one inch, I’m sure I’d have legal cause. My experiences are not unique. They’re stories every New Yorker has pocketed somewhere. They’re experiences you come to accept and expect as part of some unwritten contract you didn’t realize you’d put ink to.

To call yourself a New Yorker, you must’ve experienced some transgression. A notch on your belt, a weight carried with you, far more important than the identification tucked into your wallet. You have to have experienced something unpleasant, or worse, offending, for it’s often the key to the goodness The City has to offer.

The candlelit restaurants with authentic cuisine from all over. The book club that doubles as a bar with writers groups every Tuesday. The park sprawling for miles, each path worn with tires, treads, and footprints. And, for most of us, the Opportunity—capital O—of something better. Somewhere in the booming skyscraper with the lights always on is the belief that you will find your dreams met with equal vigor. Eventually you’ll climb floor-by-floor to the top, where the clouds will encircle you in their relevance, as impermeable as the crowd you’ll face during rush hour. The American dream dreamt, sought, and clutched in the hand that grips the Subway pole as the train screeches to a halt. You’ve soared both above and below The City, unstoppable but for your ragged breath climbing up and down several flights of stairs.

The City, a title enough to translate its geographical meaning while simultaneously sidelining any other city, is ontological—a “state of mind,” the most-respected oracle (“If I can make it there, I can make it anywhere”), the pulse of all things creative, worthwhile and meaningful (“Here in the streets of American nights/Rise to the bottom of the meaning of life/Studied all the rules, and I want no part/But I let you in just to break this heart”).

The rest of the world could sink into oblivion and it wouldn't matter because The City crows its center-of-the-Earth-ness and bemoans any opinion otherwise. In the contract you don’t remember putting ink to, you’ll find that The City signed something back. It permits your presence—among all the baggage you carry—onto its island. It will give you everything you need to survive within a grid-like system of needs and choices. It will grant you independence to explore, figure it out, and fail. You can live here, it seems to say, though only at my mercy.

The more time you spend in its domain, the more you realize that the mercy you’ve been granted, though sparing, is wondrous. You make your train in the nick of time. You bike through the vibrant colors of the fall. You cheer on hoards of marathoners, even the ones no longer running. You covet the mercy of The City knowing that it’s all you get in return.

You can live here, it seems to say, but you will not be spared the life being lived here. The dark depths of poverty, of addiction, of violence. You will see the worst of life—circumstances which could’ve just as easily befallen you—and the best of life—circumstances of which will rouse you to scorn comfort and raise a glass to the hustle.

A contract made and forgotten, almost as guileful as the lease you signed when you moved in. A concrete jungle yours and not yours, its King both mighty and merciful. A witness to the dark underbelly of suffering and the shining lights of dreams met and made.

I’m obliged to open my eyes to it all. In The City I once detested and now call home.

Until next time,

Kiera