Living in New York: Just Keep Laughing as You Fade from Memory
Another thing to which I’ve grown fully immune is automobile traffic. Relatives, friends, even my own fiancÃ?©e who’s lived with me as long as I’ve lived here, are shocked and awed at my bravado in just walking out in the middle of a clump of cars; as if, because the signal across the way isn’t illuminated white with the ridiculously silly looking chap swinging his arms, there is some reason I shouldn’t get into this mix of steel and horns.
But, eh!
There are some things which are just a little more important to me than getting thwacked by an oncoming SUV; not that I ever have been thwacked, dear friends. Close, but never actually has flesh and fender collided.
Noise, ineptitude, bile, sirens, none of it really bothers me much anymore. I’ve obviously grown more inward in my old age (well, not obviously; I just saw Tara Conner, the future ex-Miss USA who began the year a small town wallflower, progressed and became a party girl turned garbled heap and has come out a year later a Chatty-Kathy of sorts; hoping that we stay interested in her long enough to hear about all the Amazing Knowledge she’s gotten in this, her 21st year of life. Not that I’m digging on her for getting herself together, but come on; get some perspective.)
But, I digress.
In this elevated state of observation, I have noticed one of those great absolutes: everything disappears. I’ve known a few people who’ve passed this year; that’s a pretty incredible thing. This person, who was once just here, is no more. A related item of note on this front, in New York City, it seems, in particular, is that buildings are always disappearing. While not the same magnitude of a human life, they bear striking resemblances.
1)
People and buildings are encouragingly ignored in infancy:
Though often the arrival of a newborn child is often greeted with much fanfare and attention, many times the sad truth is that life goes on. Parents shove off the child on a sitter; the once adorable youth turns into something of a teething monster (there’s even a name for this period of childhood; “terrible 2’s”) and there are doubtful questions as to the child’s ability to “deal” with real life.
In terms of a building’s lifespan, even if it is, treated with great fanfare at first, this fanfare will, undoubtedly, inevitably silence.
2)
People and buildings are talked up through young adulthood
Another problem we have in our society is that of putting too great a hope in that which is young, fresh, new! All this speculation seems to lead to a sort of invertedness that turns itself out, violently towards the world.
I don’t think we need to go any further than Brittney Spears or Lindsay Lohan to see two young ladies who were pumped up to be so great, only to let these little empires they’d built up falter all around them. It’s not that they’re not “popular” – they’ve been robbed an identity and their empires of self have been corroded.
Their elders are fine with that; sex sells; debauchery, recklessness, apathy; little girls think that’s “cool.” Everyone wants to be like that. Even our former Miss USA grew up pining for the spotlight that Ms. Spears and Ms. Lohan had already basked in, lingered in, gotten bored of and flipped off years before. Maybe Ms. Conner feels she was their contemporary, but really no one knew who she was until a few weeks ago when she almost got the crown pulled from her pretty blonde head. Even winning the Miss USA crown hadn’t gotten Ms. Conner the attention she’d wanted; so she lashed out in violent ways to seek out the wrong kind of attention.
But buildings age and so do people. Just like people, these buildings start with little problems, a leak here, a rodent hole there, an infestation of roaches which descends through the whole building in another spot, all of which leads to this third.
3)
People and buildings are neglected and taken for granted beyond their half life
The building I’m living in right now should have been torn down years ago. After an extensive online search and backing the super into a corner, peppering him with questions, I can only say one thing about my sagging, sad building: It should have been torn down years ago. It wasn’t though. Now the residents turn over in their own remnants and wait to be kicked out so the building can be demolished. Do they think they’ll get something for living in this building the longest? They won’t have to move! That is a chore I wish on no one. That much is true.
But what else? What is the hammer that opens the lock that will set them free? And do they want to be? I guess that’s a question I’d never thought of before. Maybe they don’t want to; maybe they prefer their suffering, because at least it’s something for us to talk about in the hallways.
“When are they going to turn on the heat? April!?”
Or there’s always something for us to talk about in the newbies: “Did you see that girl move in this weekend? She’s living right underneath #10. Huh! Good luck!”
So it goes; my tired old building hurtling towards the finish line; lagging, lashing, lurching ho! To…What?
Well, I don’t need to go any further because we all know what happens to roach infested buildings that are rednered uninhabitable after a length of time anyway, don’t we?
And hopefully we all know ways to make the world, ourselves, and our apartment buildings better than in the condition we found them in to begin with. Before we as people continue lunging, lurching, lashing, lo!
The final thing I’ve noticed is that when I pass a street corner I’ve not been by in a while and I see a new building take the place of an old, I often say, “What was there before?” For a building, it’s true: once they’re gone, they’re gone. It’s the same way with people to a degree; memories of the deceased in better times live on in our hearts, but as time and distance wears on, even people disappear.
To that final chapter; we can save all that for another day: “Oh no, not me. I’m in no hurry for that final disappointment.”
