Front Row Seat to NYC

Sometimes I think of my time in New York City as though I bought a ticket back in time to ride out on the first and final voyage of the Titanic, knowing well what disaster awaits, but going along for the ride anyways - to observe, to see it all go down.

Here we all are on this ship that everyone believes is indestructible, opulent and magnificent, gargantuan and omnipotent - the ship's trajectory is the same we all hold in our hearts - to achieve the impossible, to create a beautiful behemoth and win success, fame, fortune, power and influence against all odds. On board, atop the decks and in the galleys and staterooms, we're all believing in this fantastic dreamboat, delighting in its luxuries, inspired by its existence - feeling invincible, as though anything is possible and we're a part of it.

This is New York City. A synecdoche for the dominant culture that has conquered the world.

There's no iceberg in this modern epic (except those that are melting) to collide with our dreamboat Empire. Who really knows what it was we hit - other than reality - that has breached the hulls of this towering monstrosity.

This ship is sinking.

But no one will admit it. No one, yet, wants to believe that this omnipotent Empire is going down, despite the floods of water spilling in at our feet. Something can still be done to save it from going under, quick, Bernanke, fix it, Congress, fix it, President, oh captain and commander, fix it!

This story has happened before. I saw it when I was a child. It taught me the word catastrophe. Now, here I am, living it, walking these gilded streets, amongst this mass of dreamers blanketed in luxury, laughing and living unaware that this Style is sinking, still believing ever so devoutly, wearing these pyrite threads as though it were skin. No idea. Completely immersed in the ways and wonders of the Empire.

Sometimes I feel so apart from it all that when I'm standing in a subway station or waiting on the corner of street I just watch, in stillness, as it all plays out. Like suddenly I'm onstage in the middle of a performance I've seen before. The actors still going on with the show. Playing out these roles. This parade pushing through.

It's really so strange. I nearly feel like a ghost at times in the midst of all this scripted activity. It's also entertaining, beautiful, thrilling, tragic, moving. To have a front row seat to one of the greatest tragedies the world will ever know.

And sometimes I can't help but get caught up in it all and I join in, playing out some minor role, acting out the drama until I snap out of it and "remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain and I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life."

Somewhat appropriate appropriation of words from Lester Burnham. But in the end, I do feel grateful for every bit of it, whether I'm a part of it, or apart from it, I'm alive and living it, ridiculous as it all appears to me at times. And perhaps it's just as silly to get caught up in the spectacle as an observer as it is to take on a dramatic role in the epic unfolding. sometimes I wonder if we can't help but be anything other than what we are in any given moment. That to be otherwise would make us something entirely different, outside the chain of events and the course of life that has shaped us of out billions upon billions of seconds in time.

That said and with these words I have shed (haha, nice rhyme!), I can only speak for myself what it is that I see through these deep blue desert born eyes, giving you a glimpse into a world different from that seen through your eyes. To see is nice, to see with many eyes, even better.