And Just Like That, 10 Years & The City

 

I moved to NYC ten years ago today. Ten years in NYC is the longest time I've spent committed to any place but not necessarily any thing. I spent ten years (ages 7-17) committed to classical piano. Unlike piano, I feel utterly defeated by my decade in NYC. As I compare my two decades, I might have a glimpse as to why.

Part I: Why I moved to NYC

Since high school I fantasized about living in NYC. I found it easy to navigate, I saw the map of the city in my head. I was obsessed with The Strokes and had a vision of myself in Nike kicks living on a cool stoop. Initially, I thought I'd come to NYC for undergrad at NYU, until I was rudely awakened by the price tag. I'm grateful I never went to NYU, I feel lucky in fact. I owe that feeling to the advice I received from a father of some kids I used to babysit, of all people. He said, save your money and go to a cheap undergraduate school, excel and be the highest in your class. Then, if you want to commit to something and spend money on it, have it be something intentional, like grad school.

So I came to NYC for grad school. Or more like, I came to grad school for NYC.

I didn't care to go to grad school as much as I cared to be in NYC. I spent three months abroad living in Italy and was trying to figure out how to get the same effect of my life in Italy, without having to live abroad. That essentially meant living in a walkable city, surrounded by the arts. I wanted to be near all of NYC's creative industries that were very available to me thanks to kind people who said "yes" to my cold-calls. I found myself on the photographers' podiums at fashion weeks, on set with Robert DeNiro and Anne Hathaway as a background actor, at an accelerator, in color correcting, in storyboarding, in audiobooks and podcasting, and always somehow still teaching.

NYC is a brutal education in staying alive, also known as not dying. I lived an entire year alongside rats in one apartment, and flying cockroaches and 6-inch long centipedes in another, in living with constant rain in one bedroom, and mysterious dust and debris in a potential asbestos-filled apartment. I nearly died from carbon monoxide poisoning in February, from decapitating planks flying on platforms, from casually slipping between the platform and the 1 train, from nearby shootings and late night street robbers, or sometimes from simple objects that casually fall from the sides of buildings for no reason at all onto everyday pedestrians. I should also say that I've learned to appreciate the support that comes from living with others, through communal living in converted convents with divorcées, retirees, nuns and a cute doggo affectionately named Happy. 

Though technically a Midwesterner, I do feel that NYC raised me. If millennials invented "emerging adulthood," NYC invented the concept of "tough love" in emerging adulthood rearing. I have NYC to thank in characteristically shoving me into the oncoming subway train of adulthood.

Part II: Piano

When I started piano, it was an innocent enough love; I saw the movie Shine about a concert pianist, fell in love with Rachmaninoff's 3rd piano concerto, and my parents did the rest with their fantasy of having a concert pianist in the family. My curiosity sustained me for three years of weekly lessons and one-hour daily practice sessions. But around age 10, I realized I was sacrificing a bit too much of childhood with this very antisocial hobby. I wanted to quit, but my dad convinced me that I would regret it. 

It's true, I would have regretted quitting, but having to reassess my piano playing three years in made for a way better remaining seven years. My teacher and I came to the realization that I wasn't going to be a concert player, that fun and discipline were more meaningful goals, and that my time spent learning under her instruction was ultimately what I liked most about piano. When I finally did end piano, it wasn't because I wanted to, I simply couldn't take my piano teacher with me to college. I couldn't imagine approaching the piano in any other way besides her way. Committing to piano wasn't exactly effortless, but it was the most grounding thing in my life, and still is. Sometimes I think of childhood and completely forget that that was my daily life. It was that rudimentary, like showering, eating, and blowing my nose. 

Part III: The Difference 

When in pursuit of the most perfect, beautiful, instrument, you begin to feel more perfect for trying. The piano demands so much respect, it knows it's perfect. It wants only the most persistent, most dedicated companion, but it doesn't shame you for your weakness in trying. I have memories of my fingers all being physically on the keyboard but the rest of my body hanging off the instrument, like Simba's father in The Lion King. Piano leaves you feeling tired, desperate, even hopeless. But all the while, just touching a piano still feels nourishing. You know it's a life source, a portal to a more perfect plane of existence. 

In the pursuit of a life in NYC, you only feel more and more imperfect for trying. When you enter the aura of NYC, you already feel like you are not enough. Like there is so little space for you as it is, that you have to work to prove you're worthy of just existing in it. It's distant in the same way that a greasy-haired man with a leather jacket smoking on a motorcycle is emotionally distant. As an artists, or as a female in this metaphor, you're told to desire this regardless if you actually do. But the closer you get to NYC, the more you see its imperfections, its pothole pores, its bad breath, its dandruff falling now on your face. The closer you come to touching NYC, the more you feel used, aged, imperfect. I genuinely believe to succeed and feel fulfilled in NYC these days, you need the financial means to buffer your experience. You need to not feel the waste of money and energy it takes in order to numb yourself and just exist in NYC. You can be successful, independent and therefore "perfect" in your NYC life, but you feel empty in achieving so.

Part IV: My Ten-Year Takeaway

I realize this sounds very dramatic. There are good people in NYC, as everywhere. There are genuine people, hardworking, tolerant, smart people in it. Like the piano, there are honorable things about NYC. The libraries are sensational. But I don't feel proud after a decade of making a life here, I feel tired.

The resulting circumstances are better than I could have imagined, that's true. But the resulting feelings are more empty than I could have anticipated.

There's something very tragic about NYC, and therefore very human. Like all humans, it cannot be perfect. However, like any mature human, you stop wanting perfect, you just want halfway. You want a sense that its giving you as much as you are giving it. NYC can't give me halfway. NYC demands so much more than what someone should be willing to give. Their safety, their silence, their sanity. Why should I give all that up? I genuinely feel a sense of defeat in not having realized and left NYC sooner. 

A decade of piano went quietly but left me feeling more whole. A decade of NYC went loudly, and left me feeling more broken.