I Want To Be A Part Of It

Stayin’ alive on the streets of NY

Photo Credits: TheBlog

I most certainly don’t need to explain to anyone why anyone would choose to visit New York City. The conventional reasons we know: Times Square, Central Park, the Statue of Liberty, Broadway theater, the High Line, the 9/11 Memorial… The MoMa, Met, and Guggenheim… the galleries, shopping, dining, and bars… It has it all. It’s everything and nothing, it’s everyone and no one, all together, all at once. Yes, all can truly be lived on this little island sliver called Manhattan.

But let’s be really frank. The real heart of this island—even if just as a transient guest—is out on its streets. To strut like Tony Manero in Saturday Night Fever, over stenchy, hissing steam vents, past greasy food carts and musty piles of garbage lining the streets. The real thrill of it is to be another beat in the cacophony of bicycle bells, whistles for cabs, jackhammers and sirens. And yes, the honking.

The HONK—unmistakably the result of incessantly bored or frustrated taxi drivers and their neurotic accomplices, their passengers—is NYC’s constant beat. Here, it’s not just a noise. It’s its own form of urban communication.

Manhattan, the birthplace and crucible of legendaries Studio 54 and Sex And The City, is a breed all its own. Despite its unending throbbing and chaotic grittiness—or maybe because of it—NY is a champion of freedom, in its most raw and extreme versions. It’s a symbol—an opportunity—for celebrating all of humanity and living all its facets in glorious unity, and anonymity.

And that’s why I went back recently. By myself.

And this time on the streets, I lost my “ego.” It simply blended in. There was too much chaotic but electric grit seeping into my every in-breath. And all that raw unfiltered energy pouring out of me as I breathed out. I walked its streets, living it and feeling alive. I wasn’t consciously Nicole. I’d been stripped down, and the noise and anonymity forced me to live my edges—both as invisible and daring to be seen.

I walked countless miles, lost in time, the city’s pulse moving me. There, I was neither wife nor mother, not even fully myself. I was just one heartbeat among millions, unfurling in the sheer permission to be anyone or no one at all.

When I was 23 years old, I moved to NY and lived there for a year. The intention was to get a taster of the fashion industry experience. But I got more than I bargained for. It was there I began to grow up, to eat and drink finely, to be me and not what I was expected to be. It was also there I learned that every human being—no matter who or how or what they are—is not only just as worthy of respect as the next, but that they had my envy, because they knew something I might never be old or young or wise or bold or tough enough to ever live or know.

I’ve lived and visited this anomaly of a city many times. But this time, being there alone was magnificent. I saw friends for meals, but in between I just walked and walked, and willfully lost myself to its streets. Hours on end, and I still managed to walk freely–jauntily–on and on. There I was—unbound, and unburdened. In other words, the world was mine. There.

One night, my taxi driver pulled up to what should have been my hotel, but when she realized it wasn’t, flew off the handle and erupted with “Don’t know why I do this. Hate it. Get out, I don’t want your f#$%ing money.” Her abrupt lunatic but wonderfully honest vulgarity jolted me awake. It was like catching a live wire of fierce raw energy. And the realness—though empathetically distressing—made me feel alive.

Luckily I was only a block away. I walked and returned to my room, shut the door, and with an air of finality and thrill, let the city’s energy still breathe into me. And then I slept, still staying quite alive.