Both/And

(image from here)

"New York will bestow the gift of loneliness and the gift of privacy."

-E.B. White

I've been here before. The path to the door was a familiar one, as I crossed through the regal gates and scuffled across the red brick pathway. The black leather chairs sit facing each other the way they did when I left them last, inviting conversation, signaling rest. And, today, I take a few minutes repose after having travelled no short distance to be here. It feels good to be where I've been before.

This time, the lobby in the Columbia University International Affairs Building is teeming with life. People come in from the frigid (8 degree) outdoors, lungs still puffing out personal fogs of breath half-frozen. Last time I was here, I was helping to move a friend , settling her to begin a graduate program at this grand university.

Now, I'm here to see about a potential life for me. Now, I'm here to see the colder, more ordinary version of daily existence in the concrete jungle of New York City.

On the plane ride up, I devoured E.B. White's simple essay, "Here is New York." The essay, first penned in 1949, is now prefaced with a more recent advisory explaining that the city is not how it was. As is the case with most transitory places, people have come and gone, businesses have replaced each other, things have changed.

But, there are things that have remained. There are, as White observes, three separate New Yorks. There is the one for natives who see the city lights as old hat. There is another altogether for those who traverse to Manhattan each day of the week only to turn around and leave it at day's end. The third city is for dreamers like myself. It's for people who come looking for something. It's the city that is a destination, a goal, an invitation to discovery.

Later in the essay, White goes on to describe both the inescapable community and the possible anonymity of being here. At one point, he sips coffee in a cafe, noting the eighteen inches between him and the neighboring patron. The foot and a half were "both the connection and the separation that New York provides for it's inhabitants."

This week, I hope to be both known and unknown as I spend time on my knees and on my feet. Ironic as it may sound, I'm taking a retreat. I'm seeking a haven in these busy, noisy streets. And in the midst of crowds, I'll find the solitude I seek. And in the buzzing chatter, I hope to hear the quiet voice of wisdom.

I imagine I'll be writing a good deal this week, as all this stimulation stirs up what's been dormant for a long while. I feel as though I could already write a novel from the things I observed on the bus ride, of the fashions, of the texture of the sidewalk. If I bore you with my goings on, just don't mind me. This is helping me to see with eyes wide open, the bright and wonderful world around me.