Tall Buildings and Tiny Spaces

I live in a city of tall buildings and tiny spaces. So much about New York City is larger than life, or maybe people seeing how large they can live or maybe it's just full of people wanting to be part of something larger than their own lives. You can walk around the city and sometimes only see up and down the street you are walking on because the buildings block your vision of what's just around the corner. One time I was meeting my husband at the Oculus downtown near the 9/11 Memorial and I knew I was close, but all the buildings around obstructed it until I almost ran into it. (It's not a small building by the way.) Perhaps because you can't see more than what is in front of you, it can be easy to feel disconnected from things that are near you. Manhattan is a small island surrounded by other islands- Brooklyn, Queens, Long Island, Bronx then mainland New York. Even though I know where I am geographically in relation to those places, they are so far from my view and daily life that they aren't really real to me. In juxtaposition to this, so many things are crammed together into smaller and smaller spaces. Rather than most storefronts being wide with several doors, so many are narrow and long. Small apartments are often split up even further as families rent out rooms, like where we were for the past three months. Moving into our own apartment last week was both exhausting and exhilarating since we finally have our own refuge in this overwhelming city. In our own little corners, sometimes it can still be challenging to block out the chaos around us. Ironic, isn't it? That the city shields us from seeing around the next corner, while at the same time we can't shut it out no matter how hard we try. On the other hand, when you ascend to the top of these buildings, you can see for miles. When you go up, you can see the connections- millions of intersections, people passing, etc. With some effort, you can step back or up to see how what appears on the surface to be isolated individuals are really thousands, if not millions, of connections. People come to New York City for lots of reasons and stay for others. They come with dreams burning inside, to learn, to achieve, to shine, to become who they want to be. Some come searching, some come fleeing. Everyone finds more than they thought they would. It's a place that demands the very best from you and gives you so many opportunities to give it. Amidst the tall buildings and tiny spaces, I live in a city of connections.