Tag: Dreams

Reason #3 Why I Love New York: The Skyline

Such a triumphant feat of mankind and engineering – the city standing tall and proud, in spite of all that has happened in the past, in spite of the horrors and terrible things that happen every day, in spite of the insane traffic and maddening crowds – New York stands glorious and proud, undefeated and strong.

View from Top of the Rock

I have a lot of complex feelings about New York City. This is mostly because I associate it with a difficult phase in my life – my PhD. It’s been demanding to say the least, and that’s not exactly NYC’s fault – the PhD is hard in and of itself, but I do believe that it gets harder due to a lot of additional factors: NYC attracts the best and brightest minds (i.e. the most intense and type A), we all live in tiny, shared apartments, the cost of living is really high, and on top of it all, just the constant rushing, rushing everywhere (every time I leave NYC, I find myself having to consciously slow down to match my walking companions). Life here is hectic and rushed, and I find myself eternally strained, running around with a worried furrow on my forehead, a little crease that shows up during times of stress (which is around 90% of the time). The apartments are tiny and lack sunlight – partly due to the weather, but mostly due to the tall buildings that surround yours, and block out the sun during those already-limited precious sunlit months. Life in NYC is tough, challenging, draining, and yet…

View from the Staten Island Ferry

And yet, it seduces you. The same buildings that block out the sun are the ones that lead to the cool phenomenon of Manhattanhenge, when the sunsets and sunrises perfectly align with the east-west streets of the city grid. The same buildings which house tiny offices and apartments are the ones that give you the best views, especially from the rooftops. The same buildings that make you feel like you’re stuck in a dense concrete jungle are the ones that give you a sense of joy and security when you’re in a jungle of the greener variety – those parts deep inside Central Park where it’s easy to lose sense of direction and time.

View from Belvedere Castle, Central Park

You see, every now and then I feel worn out and run down by my big city life, and I make a fuss and threaten to leave forever. On occasion, I do actually leave for a gleeful, freedom-promising weekend. And I love it, I love leaving the city. As my train chugs out of Manhattan, I can feel a physical weight lift off my shoulders, I can breathe in deeper and longer, and with along me, the furrow on my forehead goes on vacation too. The grass is greener, the air is less polluted, and I can see entire unblocked views of the sky! Leaving NYC is like letting out a long-overdue sigh of relief.

However – and I don’t know if this is common to all New Yorkers – but every time my out-of-town vacation ends and I’m on my way back to the city by train, bus or plane, full of good memories and happiness, and a lingering sense of wistfulness and end-of-vacation blues: the minute I see the Manhattan skyline, I gasp out loud. Every single time.

View from the plane, SF to NYC

That gorgeous skyline, the distinctive shape of those buildings, almost definitely scraping the sky! The sleek sides of the buildings reflecting off sunlight, the glittering windowpanes, the dazzling lights – such a triumphant feat of mankind and engineering – the city standing tall and proud, in spite of all that has happened in the past, in spite of the horrors and terrible things that happen every day, in spite of the insane traffic and maddening crowds – New York stands glorious and proud, undefeated and strong. The Manhattan skyline makes my breath catch in my throat, and my eyes light up with awe and nostalgia – this incredibly intimidating, wonderfully terrifying place is home. It is mine, my home, my reality. I made it! This is the dream millions of people dream of, this was the dream I dreamed of when I was just a 12-year-old kid in India, reading books about bossy girls from NYC who bring their New Yorker slang and swagger to a Little League baseball team struggling for recognition. (Hit me up if you recognize this book!)

Back then, Manhattan was the dream, and now every time I look at the skyline I am reminded that I am here, I’m living the dream. I’m in the middle of what I used to look forward to. What I didn’t think would actually happen. Even when I was applying for grad school, I just targeted good developmental biology programs, and didn’t really care about the location (it was away from India, which was honestly all I wanted at that time). And when I got accepted here, I had to go back and check if it was Cornell, Ithaca, which I’d heard was also in New York (you guys, it’s very confusing to have a New York City and a New York State. Be more creative!). It was almost a discovery to realize that – wait, one of the programs that accepted me is actually in THE New York, the real New York you see in all the TV shows and movies! The New York of Friends and How I Met Your Mother, the New York of Gossip Girl (funnily enough, I also got to live on the Upper East Side, though my life is nowhere as scandalous as those kids’)!

View from the Brooklyn Bridge

You see, life in NYC might be tough, but it’s also a challenge. It’s a statement. It’s the most rewarding, accomplished feeling ever – and when I get to see that skyline, and when my heart stops and my breath catches – sometimes, just sometimes my eyes prickle with tears that I rapidly blink away. This is a crazy, awesome city, and she is mine. I am hers. I belong here. She may be tough, she may be constantly pushing me out of my comfort zone, she may be fast-paced and cruel and impatient and expensive, she may be the one who triggered my quarter life crisis, she is where I have felt my lowest, my most lost, miserable, bewildered self – but she’s also the one who taught me how to find myself. To rebuild myself. To explore and see who I truly am, what I’m made of, what I choose to make of myself. She tests my patience and my strength, and makes me wonder why I’m here, when I could have picked a less unforgiving place. But even when I’m doubting myself – one look at that skyline and I know that I belong to her. She has me. She owns me. My heart lives right here, in New York, New York.

View from Liberty State Park, NJ. The heart is all mine.

Reason #713 why I love New York: The Strand

I want books piled on my coffee tables, I want window sills stacked high with stray books. Books lining my staircases, books forgotten behind cushions and fleece throws in cozy armchairs. Books snoozing under my pillow, tottering on nightstands,  balancing on the edge of the tub. I want to live in my own little oasis of books, a little world in which my kids can grow up surrounded by witches and wizards, dragons and Shardbearers, boarding schools and midnight feasts, one-legged pirates and snarky Greek demigods. It’s a vividly colorful world, this second world I inhabit, and is a world I will welcome all my descendants into. 

All bookstores are magical treasure troves, but the Strand is pretty much my version of Aladdin’s Cave of Wonders.

strand
Behold, tons of stories just waiting to be read!

At the corner of 12th and Broadway, the Strand has a gigantic collection of rare books, classics with their quintessential leather-bound covers – so solid and indulgent, like books who mean business, alphabetized tall and narrow little stacks you can lose yourself in, all organized by genre and alphabet, an entire collection of cleverly-named candles, witty magnets, mugs, bookmarks, gorgeous journals and totes, humorous socks and other Strand paraphernalia, a banned books section, and a whole row of staff recommendations with detailed notes about how and why this book demands to be read this very minute – and while all those features make the Strand a terrific bookstore, what puts it over the top is the racks and racks of discounted second-hand books lined outside. Starting from as low as 48 cents, these books are wonderfully haphazard and disorganized – and it’s especially thrilling because you never know what you might stumble across. Old copies of Pride and Prejudice crammed against The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, mixed in with German folk tales, stodgily standing next to the rules of Hindi grammar, lined up with parenting help books, just adjacent to the single girl’s guide to NYC. I’ve found old yellowed books with notes inscribed in the margins (literary, as opposed to vandalism – there’s a fine line),  as well as books fresh and heady with that gorgeous new-book smell. The sheer variety delights my heart!

I’ve always felt more at peace with books as opposed to people. Those who saw me growing up can attest to the fact that whenever they came to visit, I’ve always had my nose buried in a book, and will only remove it with the greatest reluctance. I like to think I’ve changed a bit over time, become more of a people person, but maybe it’s just that I compartmentalize better now. Growing up, I’d collect books at stores and book fairs, I’d stack them, organize them by genre, author, frequency of re-reads, and caress them lovingly, read them over and over, trying to keep the pages un-creased and the spine intact (what kind of monster ruins book spines?! Or folds down pages?!). My books should remain as new as they were on the day I bought them.

At some point I realized that I don’t just like books, I need them. What started off as an indulgence has morphed into a necessity, and now I need extra ‘hits’ when I’ve had a bad day. While ‘going to the bookstore’ has always been the norm for when I wanted to celebrate some accomplishment (e.g. finished my annual exams and survived!) right from a young age, and getting books as gifts would make me happy in a way new clothes never did – I eventually figured out that a trip to the bookstore would also cheer me up immensely when I’ve had a hard day. Tired, stressed, lost, heartbroken – all these states of mind have been soothed over the years by a mere couple of hours in a bookstore. I feel at peace – like all the internal and external turmoil is held at bay by the hard covers (or paperbacks) of books. I’d go to a bookstore, pick up a novel, and curl up in a comfy armchair, surrounded by books and bookworms, and the quiet rustle of turning pages – it’s like a warm cocoon that wraps me up cozy and tight, a silvery force field of sorts, deflecting the world and all its troubles away from me. It’s my safe space, and nothing can hurt me while I’m there.

Books are something I take for granted, but whenever I stop and really think about it, I feel incredibly grateful to all the authors around the globe who pick up their pens and pick out the best words to share their stories, based in reality or imagination or both. I’m grateful to my parents for loving books themselves, and encouraging me to read more, explore more, as much as my heart desired. Reading is such an integral part of my identity that it’s hard to imagine a parallel universe in which I didn’t care to read. That universe seems colder, harsher, bleaker. My life is so much brighter, because I can choose to live multiple lives, think from varying perspectives, empathize better, and dream more resplendent dreams, all because of all the stories I get to read.

While e-books have revolutionized the ease of reading, I am determined to have a gigantic collection of physical books you can touch, see and smell (oh, that smell! Did you know that the Strand actually sells scented candles called Aged Page, and Cafe Au Library?). My dream house has a giant room full of books – wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling, many lifetimes worth of books. But apart from my very own personal library, I’d love to have books spilling over in other areas of my life, quite literally. I want books piled on my coffee tables, I want window sills stacked high with stray books. Books lining my staircases, books forgotten behind cushions and fleece throws in cozy armchairs. Books snoozing under my pillow, tottering on nightstands,  balancing on the edge of the tub. I want to live in my own little oasis of books, a little world in which my kids can grow up surrounded by witches and wizards, dragons and Shardbearers, boarding schools and midnight feasts, one-legged pirates and snarky Greek demigods. It’s a vividly colorful world, this second world I inhabit, and is a world I will welcome all my descendants into.