Mindset of Permanence
Omaha, somewhere in middle America
Get right to the heart of matters
It's the heart that matters more
I think you'd better turn your ticket in
And get your money back at the door-Counting Crows
New York had always felt like a ticket I’d bought, gripped firmly in my hand, damp with anxious and excited perspiration. I could flash it at certain times and it would grant me access to doors that might have otherwise remained closed. I have found this to be the case time and again in professional and social settings. Fellow ticket-holders will compare their stamps, identifying markers, and level of wear-and-tear with something mingling between pride and distain for those who have just newly acquired their pass.
Watching the sunset after a 15-hour work day from my employer’s West Village rooftop with a glass of wine in hand following a multinational summit I had a heavy hand in planning and executing, the ticket was for a party of one - a celebration of acknowledgement that I belonged. The party admitted numbers incomprehensibly large, though. During the holiday rush, when everyone is bustling to get to their destinations, Grand Central was populated by two groups: (a) the visitors who gaped at majesty of the ceiling and (b) the locals who had their physical ticket acknowledged by the train and their metaphorical ticket acknowledged by one another as they shouldered past the doe-eyed slow-walkers.
Part of the magic that metropolitan ticket bought me was my personal knowledge that it was refundable. I could cash it in at the front door and go back to the reality form whence I came - far from a middle-American existence, but one decidedly suburban by comparison. So, everything I did, every person I met, every detail of them became illuminated by the knowledge that they were woven into a tapestry that was fleeting, shifting below my feet, propelling me forward and forward and forward until the day I’d step aside and opt out of the magic carpet ride and into whatever would be next. And what came next was a world where plans were made to be set in stone: engagements, marriage, parenthood, homeownership, career stability, and all the things my city-dwelling existence shrugged off. The wayward aims of my twenties gave way to the concrete path of my thirties and, in what felt like a violent push toward the door, I suddenly found my ticket cashed in and myself disconnected from the main artery that delivered vibrancy to my life at dizzying intervals. Instead of throwing glitter in the air each day, I am attempting to make it stick to the walls.
Once the concrete jungle hangover lifts, it can feel as if time, money, and energy was needlessly wasted in pursuit of life’s intangibles, but as the dust settles onto the floors I now have to worry about redoing in the future as opposed to pawning the same concern off on my heavily-funded landlord I can see that I’ve recouped my expenditures and purchased a new ticket for myself. This one allows me space (square footage! greenery! Single occupancy residences!), more responsibility (I have to drive myself places…oh, and raise a kid), and a greater opportunity for community alignment. That last part is what’s exciting me most these days. New York prides itself on hardscrabble habitability, it doesn’t need my help attracting the next ambitious 20-something desirous of carving their name into the wind. So now I’m looking out for ways to reorient the ambition I got back when I traded in my ticket for the big ride, and put it to use at home. In seeing others do the same, I realize no foray from home is wasted upon one’s return, it allows for a reframing of what’s here, now, and what comes next.
So…what comes next?
I suppose I’m working on applying a few of the following lessons:
Don’t be shy about your art - just share it.
I entered the MOMA once to see a half-deflated basketball floating listlessly in a fish tank. That was it, that was the whole thing. Remember that when you think your art is boring or useless or… well, a deflated basketball in a fish tank.
Stop on street corners that speak to you more often.
Part of what kept me in the city when everything seemed to scream, “GET THE HELL OUT” was the short walk across Hudson Street where St. Luke’s Place turns into Leroy Street. There’s a public park and a library there that always made me feel at peace and safe within the city. I’ve been seeking out similar places in my current surrounding area and they’re more abundant than I had once thought.
Go on history tours.
When I had time to myself, I’d often pick a historical landmark to visit (birthplaces and residences of famous authors, cultural landmarks, historically significant churches and burial grounds, and old-as-hell taverns that hosted drink-happy colonial rebels when Water Street was still just water) and make a point to take in all I could on the walk to and from there. Now, I get to pursue the same types of excursions (one of the benefits of living in New England is that there’s no shortage of history-steeped locations), but can also incorporate what I like to call History of the Self. In living where I experienced my childhood and adolescence, I’m able to revisit areas and landmarks that once were so important to me and learn how they’ve changed and how they’ve stayed the same. And “importance” here is an apt term. For instance, the location of my first job did not feel imbued with importance at 15 - it felt like drudgery - but at 34 I can see just how inconspicuous a launchpad can appear until time passes and you find yourself on the other side of your twenties, with the vantage point of experience under your feet.
And what’s under my feet now feels solid, more stable, a place from which I can take an informed step. But then again, it could be another inconspicuous launchpad to where this new ticket in life might take me. You just never know.