Settling

There are roughly three New Yorks. There is, first, the New York of the man or woman who was born there, who takes the city for granted and accepts its size, its turbulence as natural and inevitable. Second, there is the New York of the commuter--the city that is devoured by locusts each day and spat out each night. Third, there is New York of the person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something. Of these trembling cities the greatest is the last--the city of final destination, the city that is a goal. It is this third city that accounts for New York’s high strung disposition, its poetical deportment, its dedication to the arts, and its incomparable achievements. Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness, natives give it solidity and continuity, but the settlers give it passion. And whether it is a farmer arriving from Italy to set up a small grocery store in a slum or a young girl arriving from a small town in Mississippi to escape the indignity of being observed by her neighbors, or a boy arriving from the Corn Belt with a manuscript in his suitcase and a pain in his heart, it makes no difference: each embraces New York with the intense excitement of first love, each absorbs New York with the fresh eyes of an adventurer, each generates heat and light to dwarf the Consolidated Edison Company.

- E.B. White, Here is New York

I have the privilege of being one of New York’s settlers. I came to this country (for New York is a country in its own right) with two suitcases in tow and a cryptic quest before me. In exchange for my passion, this city promised to give me nothing less than a life—my shelter, my food, my employment, my friends, my church. And so far, the trade has been quite lucrative. My budget is squeezed as tight as a fat man on a rush-hour train, but according to the cost-benefit analysis of life experiences, I am making out quite well. In fact, I’m doing so well that I have the joined the elite rank of poor, crazy settlers.

Yes, I have settled. And I have embraced New York with the intense excitement of first love. I’m not so settled that I feel completely New-Yorkified, but I am settled enough to feel the process beginning. And ah! What is better than the nascent rumblings of, not a transformation, but an expansion of one’s core? There are few things more satisfying than to have spent so much time waiting for the train to come, and knowing surely it must come, and then finally hearing it. Then seeing it. And then jumping on and heading into a dark tunnel. NYC is still a dark tunnel for me, but I have as much confidence that the MTA will get me to work in the morning as I do that the Lord will get me to my unbeknownst-to-me destination. That is because I’m not driving and heck, I can’t even see a thing out the window except movement. And I am moving. I’m progressing, growing, expanding and stretching.

Each day, on my ride to Manhattan, there is a majestic moment when for about one minutes the train rises out of its channel to gasp for air and cross the East River. On the way to work, I can see the sun darting off the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan skyline. On the way home, I’m struck by the beauty of the man-made lights that dot and speckle the bride and the buildings. I look forward to this part of my commute and unashamedly gaze out the window as New Yorkers keep their noses in their books or make a quick call while they have reception. But before I know it, it’s back to the dark tunnels again because we must keep moving.

NYC may still be a dark tunnel of uncertainties for me, but I've been blessed and enriched by many moments as glorious as that occasion of crossing the river. Shopping and coffeeing in Soho. A Vegan dinner, a drink and an archetypal East Village bookstore with an old classmate. Lunch with new friends on the East side of Manhattan. Touring around the upper east side and 5th Avenue and leisurely enjoying all its high-class pleasures. Strolling through the Met while engaging in deep conversation with a new friend. Church and worship and the word preached! Reading poetry in the New York Public Library. And all the mundane pleasures of living a new life. As a result, I have absorbed enough of the city to get into my blood.

It seems I’ve begun generating heat and light and so maybe now this place won’t be so dark and cold.