)(( hannah mello ))(

((just the Tip of the Skyscraper

2 weeks and 2 days finds me in a space of becoming aware. I'm becoming aware of a whole new metropolis and a whole new culture within a larger one. New York City. One of the most significant, marked, and acknowledged cities in the world.

New York mindset.
New York moments.
New York life.

I have been a student of Europe these past two years. A student of Greece, Italy, Hungary, France, Spain, Germany, the United Kingdom, and now, I find myself being a student of a corner of my own land. My mind is tired, tired, tired of thinking, thinking, thinking -- & processing & observing and always, always paying close attention. I'm tired, tired, tired of really doing the work to compare and contrast all I've sponge-like-ly absorbed to what I have known and studied and been told-- trying to critically think about it all. I'm oh so tired of it all. However, in spite of my fatigue as "an always-stranger in a strange land" (NYC being yet another strange land), I press on and am seeking to be here will all my mind and body and heart and soul.

MINDSET
Scrawled on a napkin on my bedroom floor are the words of my housemate-- attempting to capsulize the NYC mentality in short-form. Quoting him: The NY outlook is-- "looking out for your own interests in an ambitious, and, at times, even aggressive manner."

I think I've already encountered actions and reactions based on a mindset of sorts like James described...

I went to a BBQ in Queens some days after arrival. Queens snagged my heart-strings and gave them a good yank. :) The brick. The tree-d streets. The genuine Irish accents errupting from cell-phone talking residents pacing the sidewalk. Parks.

At one such park, I sat at a picnic table with girls I have never encountered before-- tight-lip-ed, silently looking me over without talking to me, slow to smile. These post-college 20-somethings were career women-- some of them natives to NY, others well or almost acculturated. A fashion designer, a lawyer who's married to an aspiring actor, another fashion world worker, and whatever else. They were intelligent, cultured, well-dressed, but uninterested in intersecting with me at all... which is fine! :) No problem-- I've just never been in a social situation quite like it before. I had to put myself out there just to get their names. Introductions were left to be names-only. I then became a silent "part" of the conversation-- threads of trying to make it up the hierarchical ladder of success, acting auditions, case loads, the next-new-thing of technology.

I realized these particular people-- a particular slice of the social sphere-- stick to their life priorities with such courage and boldness and sure, as James put it "ambitious" and "at times, even aggressive" determination. I'm amazed. I felt alienated and definitely a stranger to it all, but grateful to be in that conversation and intersect with their specific minds that afternoon in Queens.

About 5 days later, I was walking on an escalator, descending a pedestrian bridge near the World Trade Center work site. I was on the phone with my mom, telling her the happenings of the day and how someone in the day had really treated me with cold disrespect and how it had affected me. I had been HEATED, but then realizing how arrogant and demanding-of-my-rights I was being. I had realized HOW OFTEN people are not respected and treated as such. I realized that I was sharing a very human emotion and life moment with SO MANY. I told all this to my mom-- sharing with her that, not being a pussy/scaredy-cat, I really knew that was a lesson moment for me to really learn humility and a sort of human-partnership in the face of such treatment.

There I was, talking on the phone on the escalator in the sea of post-working-day going-home people-- and had the passing thought that-- "wow... I'm in freaking New York City right now. !! The land of the clambering for success and respect and to be the best that you can be at any cost. The land of the "you-better-not-stop-in-front-of-me-on-the-stairwell-and-waste-my-time mindset". The land of the American Dream on caffeine. If anybody around me was listening, I can imagine them thinking of me as the prototypical doormat, "the one that doesn't get the boy" or the promotion, the loser that doesn't belong in New York. I'm ok with that. :) I don't really. Such a different world. I must say, however, that even though I can't follow the pattern in my thinking and as a basis for action/reaction, I am grateful for the exposure and the observations-- even though, MAN, I feel like an alien and can get heated at times. :) and meanwhile, my housemate, the civil engineer is teaching me the lingo and practical life application of it all. Interesting. Interesting. Such is a part of the world. This part of the world...

MOMENTS
Everyday I head to the very tip of Manhattan-- pictured here. Battery Park City. Next door to Wall Street, and tucked in with a walkway of trees and a glorious shaded pathway (cheers to all the joggers, break-takers, gardeners employed by the city, tourists, and whoever else I always see...). I love being on the margin of the city in such a quiet space. The Statue of Liberty in constant view. Ellis Island in constant view. Jersey City in constant view. And, a Jersey City riverside clock always telling me where I fall in time and space.

And, so, everyday I am in the sea of 9 am and off-to-work commuters from Jersey City. The minute I exit the light rail and walk to the Path Train station (photoed below, with the river view of Manhattan, which takes me under the river to the World Trade Center), I am shoulder to shoulder with a thousand suits. I am in the airspace with a thousand oh-so-clean-and-showered, cologne-wearers and well-dressed fashion-model-esque career people. Every nationality. Every height. In a both-genders-represented swirl.

My favorite part is feeling like we are one sea anemone as we move up the escalators, some of us choosing to bear to the left of the moving staircase, walking up that thing as others to the right stand unmoved. One of the lessons of NY-- being with people but "invisible" and as if they're "invisible". Out for your own. Out for your own. I kind of break the rules and try to "use my peripherals" and pay attention as much as possible to who is around me... what are they like? can I snag a hint of their story from a brief encounter? where do they come from? how do they like to be/express themself in this world?

On my walk to work, I have seen an oh-so-remarkable sight some mornings in a row. As photoed here, a father sits, beside his around-one-year-old son in a stroller, and reads to his son literal books. This father sits by his son and reads book after book. He shows him pictures, answers his soft and squeaky questions. I snapped a photo here hopefully discreetly as I sat on a parallel bench in awe. The walkway is shaded, and with this portion of Battery Park being like a man-made strip of rain forest, I felt like I was in a corner of an ideal world where parents take time to teach their children about humanity & the arts & the world-- enjoying nature and enjoying their children's company simplistically. ... Maybe I scared him off with my photo-taking (I hope not!!) cause I haven't seen him these past 2 days. :)

LIFE
I have a simple life. It involves people. Sharing life with people. Security guards, upstairs directors, visitors' services representatives, managers. An assortment of ages, nationalities, creeds/beliefs, life experience sets, desires/dreams/hopes, needs. Because my actual job is not weighed down with a loaded job description and a list of must-do's, I have the opportunity to spend my days on-the-clock WITH people. Here are some of their faces... Adam, Chris, Jose, and next to me: Fanny. The boys are New Yorkers, Fanny is French. These are from our Monday night after-work time together in celebration of me and Fanny's days-apart birthdays. Then also photoed here: Fanny's boyfriend Jun the architect, Joel (also a co-worker-- along with the above photo, all whom are co-workers), and Dave, a friend.

When life is mainly about being and not mainly about doing (a DEFINITELY counter-culture situation to this New York world of go-getting and doing doing doing), every story, every conversation is more than a nugget-- it is a universe. It's a window into more and more of Life with a capital "L". Collective humanity. Their individual treasure-of-a-life.

I celebrate this opportunity of BEING-- being with and among the sea of people every morning and night. Being with and among my co-workers, my now-friends. Being with my ever-so-different-from-each-other housemates. Being among a people group (New Yorkers) that I am so different from as a West-Coaster, and yet being among them none-the-less.

So, leaving this post with 2 photos of Washington Square Park joys (Greenich Village magic). These photoed moments (below) were those that really cemented in my heart that I was to move to New York City-- mid-June with those very musicians playing (their band is called "Loose Marbles"). It was that fateful day that my Santa Cruz-ian friend received a call from his NY-ian housemate that I could cheap-ily move into their house. It was that fateful day that I got a NY job with the very two boys I had randomly met in a Paris hostel (NY-ers) in December because of a canceled flight.

I toast this unexpected time of unplanned, unsought, unexpected opportunity that New York City is to me, for me. And it's only now just the tip of the skyscraper... :)















... and I'll wait patiently for the green light telling me when it's time to move on... :)

posted by )(( hannah mello ))( @ 12:29 PM