What it means to be a New Yorker
I never really had a grasp on this city, what it really meant IN ITS SOUL. I think it was 'Eat Pray Love' that offered the idea that every city has an identity that can be summed up in a word, and if that word doesn't work for you, you'd best be moving on. In Tokyo, I realized that that word was 'Correct'. Everything you do there had better be the 'correct' way of doing it, because that is the heart and soul of Tokyo. I had my yukata on and the bow was coming undone a bit, I had tied it wrong, and a lady there stopped me and retied it for me, and when it was tied and fixed, I realized it wasn't due to kindness but because it was incorrect, and she looked awfully glad to have righted that wrong.
Here in New York, the first year I lived here I got overwhelmed and just couldn't get a sense of the city's soul, what makes it inimitable and quinticentially so. So many people, and so many *types* of people, are living here that every person might have a totally different experience.
Now I think I have a bit of a handle on it.
Aggressively inclusive
Sometimes I think everyone here has a little bit of 'imposter syndrome', simply because so many people are from somewhere else. We want to belong, and feel like our voices are counted among the multitudes. All of us. So along those lines, if someone is being told they don't belong, the impostor in us feels deeply maligned, and will fight back to include the others. Because here we KNOW that we're all immigrants, not somewhere back in our ancestry, but here, today, in this city. I am an 'immigrant' from California, from Tokyo, and I want to be counted as a citizen of New York. So if you're coming for any of us, we're coming for you.
Beauty and Culture are necessary for life
This is a city of dichotomy. There is so much ugliness everywhere, dirty streets, ugly attitudes. Trash smells, subway screeches. So the beauty around is not taken for granted. It is cherished, loved, nurtured. Gorgeous buildings and parks. Symphonies and galleries. There is a reason so much artwork is collected and stored here, and the musicians with hats out playing in subway stairwells and archway paths in the park are some of the most talented people you've ever heard. We need this art and beauty to get us through the day. It is oxygen.
Here in New York, the first year I lived here I got overwhelmed and just couldn't get a sense of the city's soul, what makes it inimitable and quinticentially so. So many people, and so many *types* of people, are living here that every person might have a totally different experience.
Now I think I have a bit of a handle on it.
Aggressively inclusive
Sometimes I think everyone here has a little bit of 'imposter syndrome', simply because so many people are from somewhere else. We want to belong, and feel like our voices are counted among the multitudes. All of us. So along those lines, if someone is being told they don't belong, the impostor in us feels deeply maligned, and will fight back to include the others. Because here we KNOW that we're all immigrants, not somewhere back in our ancestry, but here, today, in this city. I am an 'immigrant' from California, from Tokyo, and I want to be counted as a citizen of New York. So if you're coming for any of us, we're coming for you.
Beauty and Culture are necessary for life
This is a city of dichotomy. There is so much ugliness everywhere, dirty streets, ugly attitudes. Trash smells, subway screeches. So the beauty around is not taken for granted. It is cherished, loved, nurtured. Gorgeous buildings and parks. Symphonies and galleries. There is a reason so much artwork is collected and stored here, and the musicians with hats out playing in subway stairwells and archway paths in the park are some of the most talented people you've ever heard. We need this art and beauty to get us through the day. It is oxygen.
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