NYC.
I tried, I really tried. I wanted to believe. Just like I wanted to believe Exodus by Leon Uris was a true history of the Zionist movement. And I did believe Leon right up until the moment I watched Israeli soldier boys shoot tear gas at old ladies in Ramallah. I truly tried to believe in the Big Apple and I did right up to the moment I bit into it. I let my eyes go all starry with the flash of neon and plasma. I rode a bike and soaked up the sun in Central Park. I fell into a wonderful musical called Wicked. I saw the sites and revered the big chick with the lamp on the river. I smelt the coffee and tasted the heady ozone of excess and success. The trouble, I guess, is that the city never sleeps and neither did I. The star spangled dream became a nerve jangling nightmare filled with hawkers selling tour tickets, selling bike hire, selling food, portraits, strip clubs, shiny things, boat rides and ferry trips. So many people! Jostling, shoving pushing buying selling laughingcrying singingscreamingtalkingshouting. A cacophony! Too much sensory overload. Too much TV. Too much junk food. Too much junk! Too much too. Do you know those horrendous toys that people buy toddlers? The ones that whine and whistle and blare and have sirens and generally drive you insane within 30 seconds? I didn't realise that they are essential pre-emptive stress desensitisers or training modules for NYC. Seriously, it's like trying to live under a metal workshop full of unsupervised teenage boys. Which leads me to the famous NYC delis. What a joke! Mass produced meat straight out of battery farms. Everything over packaged, over rated and over priced. Fruit: sad parodies of something just plucked. On the street we met beggers with cell phones and signs asking for money to buy weed or prostitutes. Is that supposed to be ironic? Is that supposed to be wit? Or is it a sad symptom of something sick? As we we left our hotel lobby, I saw an old cowboy with his granddaughter. His hands were big and calloused. Creases of a hard life scarred his face. He bought her a soda and watched her with a smile and spoke so softly I couldn’t hear what he was saying. She twirled and climbed and played on her bar stool, singing and smiling and keeping watch for her mom. I wanted to warn them but he looked straight through me. I was just another body filling up space. They say, ‘If you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere.’ -so leave! Vin. New York, New York....... Ok....everyone knows there are three sides to any story....... Yep...NYC was crazy, hot, crowded, glitzy, noisy, over the top, but....amazing! We were in NEW YORK!!! The history...the stories, the crazy people, the hutzpah!!! We stayed in a very posh hotel in Times Square (thanks to our personal travel agent, Laura ), so we were right in the middle of it all....exciting for most of us! |