One City. Two Views.
“Birds’ Eye” and “Up Close and Personal”
Starting in February of 2006, I’ve been living in New York City. Having just been hit by a car in 2001 and suffering a brain injury, I still needed constant assistance when I first moved to The Big Apple. During those initial years of living in NYC, I was old enough to be deemed an adult, but still too injured to be considered a functioning one. Unable to do many, if any, things by myself (like take out garbage, do laundry, or cook for myself), at that time I required the aid of a full-service doorman building.
So, those types of buildings are where I ended up living from 2006 through 2018. Each of these buildings was located in uptown Manhattan, from Upper East Side, to Midtown East, to Upper West Side. I had finally moved to the west side in the later years because I attended graduate school at Columbia in 2015, so I knew I’d need an easier commute. Remember: I still didn’t get around so well, so I considered a move closer to the school would be beneficial. (And of course it was.)
Accompanying my stays in these full-service high-rise buildings with complete amenities was the fact that they all very tall and they all had absolutely sensational views. While New York appeared stunning and spectacular as I viewed it from the roofs and high-storied windows of tall buildings, a real New York experience still remained untouchable to me. I was never in the trenches of NYC living; I was never really “in it.”
Unable to walk quickly or to balance while I walked, I knew that being on the ground level of the busy metropolis wouldn’t be easy for yours truly compared to other healthy, non-brain injured people. The elements that had made those sweeping New York views so magical to me still seemed so far out of reach that they didn’t feel worth fighting for. For the time being, I appreciated my panoramic view of the crowded island. A magnified picture of life was so far removed from me that I could only appreciate an all-encompassing sky broken up by outlines of cranes and buildings.
That was me, then.
At that point, the late ‘aughts through the early 2010s, I didn’t want up close and personal looks of either the city, or of me. Still very much in the throws of recovery and regularly eating out of the vending machine at work, I preferred neither to look closely at people, nor to be looked at.
Everything felt safer with only a birds’ eye view.
All looked well kempt from up there and no one could see an injured and fat me.
Wide, general views are safe. With mine I could be anonymous.
Anyone can be anonymous from that distance.
I felt safe.
But now it’s 2019 and I’m completely moved into my downtown abode, which is on the second floor of a six-story building. Not high up at all. Not so high where I can’t make out facial expressions or gaits of people walking by. I am, however, at the perfect height where I see branches of trees right outside my window. These trees line the street directly outside, which reminds me of a classic novel I was probably supposed to read with better attention during my school days, “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.”
I’m also realizing that I’m close enough to the street, so maybe I’m even seen too! But I wouldn’t mind if I were.
I’m clothed.
This is no high-rise or full-service building. Ironically, though, I feel safe. This is a real neighborhood. I’m thrilled to be here. I get to watch life go by in real time. This is a genuine residential zone; my current view is not from some astronomical height where I can’t even make out moods on faces or gestures of bodies.
Now I see all of it, and only thanks to my new window shades, [I hope] they can’t see all of me.
This is me, now. This is what home is.
I had been exercising intensively and regularly last year (by taking spin and barre classes close to six days of every week when I was living on the Upper West Side) and so I’m ready for this. I am ready to be here now. This was all part of the plan.
Finally, I’m happy. I’m living where I should be.
Now I just need the weather to cooperate, so I can walk around outside a little more.
Yeah, spring can’t be too far away, can it??