cities

I ran into myself in New York this morning.

It’s funny. I’ve gotten so accustomed to getting on and off of planes and being in different cities that it didn’t occur to me I was in the big apple until last night, when suddenly I didn’t know where to go grab dinner. Then, I remembered that I was on a coast, so dinner meant sushi.

There I was, sometime between 8:30 and 9 am, marching along in my little business casual outfit with heavy laptop strung to my back, when I passed the southwest corner of Grand Central terminal & its ornate porticos. That’s where I saw her, 17 year old Caroline and a few of her newest friends trying to catch a cab uptown to the museum of art. One of those claiming more city experience kept turning cabs away, thinking that some were cheaper than others. We could have just grabbed a subway. But today I suddenly remembered standing on that corner, staring up and all around at the big, busy, grey place that engulfed me while trying to not look young and naïve. Well, New York City was a different sort of place in the 80’s.

And now? A city is a city is a city, but the differences in architectural detail jump out at me more. New York has more art deco and early modern details whereas Chicago will display a neo-classical hangover amidst some more bland attempts at contemporary. SOM hasn’t done my sweet home any favors. London mixes an exquisite oldness with and edgy new. Medieval towers elbow up to giant glass and steel structures resembling a slinky perhaps left lying on the riverfront by a giant baby. Such contrast leaves a tart sweet taste in the mouth that makes one want more after the shock is over. So, whereas 20 years ago I stood amidst they grey, cavernous beehive of midtown and made little sense of what was about me, today I see that the bricks on that building are arranged to make a subtle plaid pattern as they sculpt the edifice. Neat.

Maybe cities all seem the same after a while, but they press their character on you in subtle ways. I get into a cab to the airport and the cabbie looks up at me in his mirror. “You’re going to Chicago!” “How did you know?” “You look like Chicago!” I’ll take that as a compliment. One third the people and twice the fun - I love this place.

I always said I would never live in an unnatural, electronically mediated world. That was the reason I bought books and shunned TV. But I get to the airport and remain tethered to my iPhone calling this or that person and emailing my boss to ask to work from home tomorrow as I have a sniffle and a backache. From security to jetway I suckle the information nipple. I am not apart from this world I inhabit. I do not have the luxury of commenting on it. I need it too much to be a critic and perhaps I need it too much to poke at it too heavily with design.

On the plane I am next to a man so tiny the can sit cross-legged in the middle seat. He is the largest of his family, who populate the two rows behind us. He speaks no English and so we communicate through sign language for a bit. This is his 3rd flight in a row and he smells like it. He wears a tag about his neck stating that he is traveling from Myanmar to Fort Wayne, IN. An immigrant, a refugee, he sees this world with a mindset I can only begin to fathom. I make sure he gets drinks of water and hope he feels welcome. His legs are thinner than some people’s arms. His hands are delicate and the nails tell a story of times of nutrition and famine like the rings on a tree. I compare his legs to my notoriously meaty ones and wonder if this thing I call life really in any way stretches what it means to be alive. That’s what brings me back to the garden, I guess. I need that place to see life force in motion and to see it exercising a will that is not always benevolent or pretty as much as necessary.