My Dazzling City

I am a rather eccentric person. The nature of my avocations for the last 20 years has brought me to the capital of nostalgia. I found my voice on a long crowded island called Manhattan. If I bargain a job in this depressed society, I plan to die here. Bury my soul in the overpopulated cemetery in Queens. I want curly bamboo sticks on my grave. Please don't mourn over my headstone with fresh-cut or artificial flowers that lack originality. Because this city is all about having character.

It took a long time to get to New York. The eternity of the ride into the city is where I met my irrational love for the place. New York is a city of perpetual filth, occasional hatred, daily tests of individuality, and a daring amount of energy to fully appreciate its dollops of charm. It's mysterious allure is epidemic, like love. I came to this soaring madhouse to discover love. Not just a well-wished romantic companion, but to marry my passion. This compacted and beautiful segment of America is my muse, my feel good, my gem. Waking up on Third Avenue is a daily indulgence, like sex. My proclaimed affair I have a metropolis is real. I consider myself a native newlywed.

The interval between my fourth-floor address, create contrast, and so much more. The direction of my window commands attention to the curiosities of humankind. I romanticize the unobstructed view of neighbors from my desk chair. I accidentally eavesdrop on drunk weekenders from the uncarpeted interior of a red-bricked mini skyscraper.
"Dude, I can't tell if she's hot or not. She's wearing too many clothes," a city character once said, crookedly passing over the gum-spotted and worn sidewalk, marching to the 4 a.m. beat of the village. This city is tolerant.

My Manhattan has been my health and my allergy, my battlefield and playground, my bruise and my band-aid, my sweet lemon with salt on it, my fetish and my nuisance. It feels like there's no other place in this world that penetrates my creativity as a writer. All else is uninteresting.

And just beyond my glassed pane is an enlivened bus stop. The M101 is my night light. It has the kind of digitized, exterior advertising that would gloss your eyes in Times Square. Fourty-second street is infidelity. It's the face of New York, but not my source of adoration or comfort. My dazzling city is a diagnosed spastic. I support every symptom of eccentricity. It's most tranquil moments are hard to decide. It requires no prescribed lens to reveal the lurking commotion. I'm most comfortable in the gritty East Village where suburb-starved artists wear suspenders and Elvis Costello glasses, clinging hands, creating a portrait of Cupid's graces, anxiously searching for golden inspiration. I find restful peace in the rush of a yellow cab's wheels intersecting with street vents. The homemade cheese store across the street, that lacks all commercialized showiness, is poetic enthusiasm. I have learned to dream in a restless environment. When the sun sneaks into my city's overcrowded infrastructure, I wake up craving more, ready to embrace every beautiful moment of coexistence.

By winter, I still have the butterflies, even when all six trees on my block have been amputated of their springtime bio. They appear starved and shivered by the erratic falls of February's snow. My love grows through seasons, through every tear of rain, burst of sunshine, and gentle drop of snow. New Yorkers don't know how to appreciate everything. By mid-day, important business people their scriveners have trampled over every last piece of preserved flurry, leaving the scraps to the latecomers and call girls. January, February and sometimes chunks of March are winters that burn your skin, color your nose cherry red, erect your arm hairs, and seem partially miserable. But, I'm here until death do us part.