New York

I think its easy to take your home for granted. The same glistening prosperity of life in someplace like New York becomes mundane or familiar when its all you’ve ever known. And I know that’s extremely privileged and arrogant to say, but I mean it’s hard to keep a fresh outlook on familiarity. I think its inevitable, people become comfortable in their surroundings, it’s only human. But it is quite refreshing and eye-opening when once again, you get those glimpses of wonder you became familiar with all too soon. Like a rebirth, you see with a new set of eyes everything you are so blessed with, yet accustomed to.

I’m back in New York, after a very long and exciting summer. I think when I traveled to cities like Paris or Florence, I was trying so hard to depict my life in those places because god forbid I stay in New York. Well that wasn’t even going through my mind, but I think it was more of a pressing urgency to pick up and leave. Not because I’m not happy where I am, but more because I feel like I’m always needing to be somewhere else, or anticipating the next thing life has to throw at me. It’s quite exhausting. Maybe its in my blood after growing up at such an accelerated rate in this fast paced city lifestyle.

But anyways, in these foreign cities, as a sixteen year old, I was already trying to find my place and see where I would belong in the complex fabrication of French or Italian society. (Neither of which I have a complete understanding of, or cultural ties to). By the end of my trip, reflecting on the plane, I decided to settle on Florence. Because yeah, it was a nice city, and I had a nice time, and they have nice things. Who doesn’t love a two euro cappuccino? Everything was perfectly acceptable. It wasn’t until I arrived home that I realized I had “nice” and so much more at my fingertips. Why did I ever feel the need to leave at all? I love this city, I could never not live here.

I reached this conclusion almost 5 days after my return, when on a Monday morning, I decided, like old times, that I would go to the Met to just hang out and do my summer reading. I think that notion in of itself is so pretentious and ignorant, I can’t believe I can say that just going to the Met, one of the most famous museums probably in America, is a common way I spend a summer afternoon. I can stare at the tourists and have this superiority complex because, “yeah its nothing new, same old, same old”. To have that thought process is so entitled and arrogant and I’m aware, I know. But there I was, in the Robert Lehman collection, sitting on those leather chairs, reading and watching the passer-bys in awe of the paintings, a sight so familiar, quite frankly it bore me. I think this all makes me sound like a terrible person, but I mean, this is what I’m talking about when I say opulence becomes familiarity. It takes away one’s ability to wonder and to “ooo” and “awe”. Quite the curse.

Then I finished reading, and I stood up from that chair, and realized the paintings hanging in front of me weren’t the ones I thought they were at all. They were new paintings, I had failed to recognize this because they were painted in the same styles that their predecessors had been (fauvism). I walked up to them and stood real close, so I could examine this new brushwork and new description of the painting (you know, the little artist statement “oil on canvas” formalities) I hadn’t been familiar with yet. That’s the moment I think, that I had this “rebirth” or “re-understanding” of not only art, or New York, but more of life and of recognizing the reality around yourself.

I ended up wandering around that museum more like I usually do, and was pleasantly surprised to see they had reopened a wing that had been previously closed. I got lost in the halls, and almost couldn’t believe how absurd it was that I could just stumble into a museum and get lost in years of history and creativity, passed down time and time again. If it sounded before as if I was unamused by the older paintings I knew in the hall, it wasn’t exactly that, it was only their usual familiarity that comforted more than amazed me.

I then found myself in the American wing of the museum, and saw that the exhibition for “In America: An Anthology of Fashion” was open!!! Wow, the excitement I had in that moment was honestly childish. I ended up going inside, staring at the pieces until my eyes went in and out, and obviously geeking out that Sofia Coppola had set designed some of the exhibition.

jaw-dropped.

But after I walked out of the museum, back into the god awful humidity down those steps and steps and steps, I felt so clear-headed (if that’s even a term) and refreshed, it was like I awoke from the most luxurious sleep possibly imaginable. Everything just seemed brighter and more colorful and more endless, I was breathing ambition and excitement. It was all that was in the city before, what had always been there, and what I had needed to be reminded of. The wake up call that told me (reminded me), I love the city. All of its packed stuffy subway cars, picnicing in Central Park, gum sticking to your shoe on the sidewalk, Bergdorf Goodmans in the crisp winter time, WAY too expensive coffee with that expired oat-milk taste, friendly bodega cats sitting atop glass cases, and warm bagels every Sunday morning.