12 December
Today is my first day ever in the urban behemoth that is New York City. I arrived on a red eye flight from Denver. Hungover from the night before and still under the influence from the drinks on the plane, I stumbled through the airport with all of my bags. No one looked at me, everyone looked through me to wherever they were trying to go.
There is so much life in New York City. I can feel it. Especially growing up in a lifeless, small town in Southern Colorado. I pile into the first taxi that catches my eye and go on my way to my room for the night.
After getting everything settled at the pretty average hotel that I am staying at on 42nd Street, I decide to wander out into the city and look for a place to have my evening drink. I walk about 5 blocks through masses of people to a small jazz bar. I love jazz--American jazz especially. I walk into the dimly lighted cool environment through clouds of cigarette smoke to the bartender. I sit next to a man and woman talking together at the bar and I order a whiskey on the rocks. I sip my whiskey and zone out to the cool, smooth jazz.
Suddenly, a very attractive and well put together looking woman sits next to me and orders a glass of wine in a very think French accent--she has peaked my interest. I greet the woman and ask for her name and where she is from and she says that she is Simone de Beauvoir and she from Paris, France and she asks me the same with a welcoming smile and I reply. She comments about the music in the place and says that America is destroying jazz and I adamantly disagree and we have an argument about jazz for at least fifteen minutes with no resolution.
Then to change the subject, she tells me she is here learning about American and traveling around and writing. We begin sharing stories of places we have been in America. She tells me that she loves New York City and has been all the way as west as California. I ask her what she thinks about America--she has a lot to say. She tells me how Americans do not really think for themselves and that Americans have such a simplistic view of other events and things in the world. I tell her that I agree. We talk about the irrational fear and hatred of communism in the United States which we mostly agree on.
I finish my drink and exchange information with her and stumble drunkenly back to my hotel room.
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ReplyDeleteI remember that night, too. I, too, was new to New York City and excited to experience the fast pace, the life, the independence. Mom and dad didn’t want me going to the city alone as a young girl, but I told them there was something insatiable within me that wouldn’t quiet until I went into the city. After all, when you grow up in upstate New York your whole life, adventure always feels just out of reach. Like you can see it off in the distance, but never run and catch up. Well, I didn’t care what mom and dad said, I had to go to the city.
ReplyDeleteI wandered into the same little jazz bar, and I was absolutely enchanted. The smoke hanging in the air, the music starting jittery and excited before calming down to a smoother, sensual beat. Lots of young people sitting around, talking casually to people they probably never knew. In that moment, I knew the city would give me exactly the adventure that I wanted.
But when I sat down, I heard such a maddening conversation. Some woman claiming that Americans don’t think for themselves, that they are simple, too happy all the time, that jazz and art are too “abstract” — whatever that means. She said jazz is removed from its meaning now. She just simply doesn’t understand. Perhaps Americans are “simple” because life for us has been simple…Is that so bad? In the farm I come from, you grow up with the same people your whole life. Nobody really moves in or out of town, and all the grocery stores and shops are within a half-mile radius. We go to the same schools and do the same things year after year. Our world is very small and yes, simple. And when you die, you get buried in the little graveyard in town and life continues on for everyone else as it was. And yes, simplicity is comforting. Not everything has to be intense, complex, and dark. Sometimes it’s okay to embrace simplicity. Besides, education here is not so good. We have not read intellectual books and travelled to foreign places like this woman has. Not to say I don’t want adventure — that’s why I’m in the city. I guess I just get frustrated when someone believes they know America after travelling it for a handful of months, and they are so condescending in their beliefs. And anyone who has any musical sense knows that jazz is absolutely fantastic in all its forms.
On one vivid weekend away from the all girls' school in New York, I took a trip with some friends into the city. We decided to go to a bar, not because we wanted to drink, but because we enjoyed listening to jazz music and looking at the handsome young men try to drunkenly navigate their way up and down the dimly lit streets.
ReplyDeleteThe minute we walked in and sat down, a man caught my attention. He was completely disheveled and his wrinkled clothes gave the impression that he had spent the entire day cramped in a small space. "A traveller," I thought to myself. I immediately made a bee line for this man, but as I approached him, he seemed to look right through me, staring at a young woman across the room. I asked him, "How do you do?" and even lightly tapped his shoulder, but he completely ignored me, walking straight to a woman speaking French.
I never knew what happened to that man that night, but the curiosity has never left my mind.