Landscape Part One

In spite of myself, something I learned in school has seeped its way into my subconscious and is now slowly affecting the way I view the world. Education works, who woulda guessed it?

As I traveled various places in the last month and a half of summer, I stared out the large mini-van window to my right at the rapidly changing landscape.

The familiar fairly flat and slightly hilly land of my native area gave way to the metropolitan forests of the North. You see highway and more highway until all of the sudden you're surrounded by water, confused at the winding roads leading to tollbooths, and then BAM you're in the middle of New York City. There's nothing gradual about it. Lincoln Tunnel and then Manhattan, in all its polluted, crowded, and miraculous beauty.

The very first thing we saw was an extremely narrow street (the streets get wider as you work towards the middle of the island) flanked by delivery vans with complete disregard for awestruck tourists, and a foreign system of street signs. I wasn't the only one marveling at the concrete-shock. Dad could only say, "Samantha, take a picture of this":




Soon we began to pick up the nuances of the city, and it became less overwhelming and easy to enjoy. But I was always aware of the contrast to home. Once, while we were walking around in Battery Park, we heard a fellow tourist behind us sum it up so well: "You really are transparent in New York City!"

Transparent. That is the perfect word. While the rudeness of New Yorkers is often exaggerated in the name of stereotype, it is perfectly true that while you walk up and down the streets, nobody cares about you. The nodding of heads and "how are yous?" of small-town North Carolina do not exist there. Nobody makes eye contact, even when swerving out of your path. Ipods, newspapers, frappecinos--these are what hold attention.

Is the anonymity born of the landscape? If you stopped to talk to every New Yorker that you passed by, nothing would ever be accomplished. After all, eight million people live on that tiny island, and that doesn't count the commuters that flood in every day and the tourists that pour in from all over the world. It isn't practical to be friendly. You have to look out for yourself, because you haven't the time or ability to look after anyone else.

I kind of enjoyed the fact that nobody was paying any attention to me. It's a different kind of freedom. It eliminates an air of self-consciousness. Maybe that's why New Yorkers appear more confident. They aren't raised with the feeling that everyone is watching them, because they simply aren't. Being pulled into a flood of millions of people allows you the freedom to concentrate on yourself.

But I also enjoy the feeling of community and the togetherness of home. I like passing by people you know in the grocery store, and even ones you don't, and having them acknowledge you. The sense of belonging. If everyone is watching you, then everyone has the opportunity to help and you have the added drive not to let them down.

It's amazing how one species, so spread out, can be so different. A human is a human, whether surrounded by skyscrapers or cornfields. I'd like to be a person that can enjoy both.