New York City

I just got back from New York City yesterday. It lived up to everything I’ve ever heard about it. By far the most beautiful city in the world (I’ve been to), and I could spend the next sixty years of my life there without a doubt.

Which is weird for me.

Until recently, I’d honestly never thought of living outside of Canada. Maybe I’d work and travel for writing, always wanted to live in France or Belgium for a few years drinking coffee, speaking only French and living as a suffering, misunderstood artiste. But, I think I’ve got too much of a drive now to be so far away from hustle and bustle.

This year has brought me into society. I feel engaged in what is happening around me, I feel my ability to effect my goals, for once. Why I didn’t before is neither here nor there, it just wasn’t a part of me. Now, it’s unimaginable that I should end up anywhere aside from a city.

I can appreciate small-town life, but I feel like Toronto and Kingston have given me a good appreciation for the differences between it and big-city living.

What New York did was show me how addictive power, or the semblance of it, really is.

If it wasn’t walking down Wall St, hearing about how the tallest building in the world was a successive list of structures on Manhattan island for the first 50 years of the 20th century, it was the fact that art is everywhere there.

There’s graffiti, architecture, public art, and well writers from wall-to-wall. It made me want to join the herd.

Writing, whether good or bad, is most powerful when most widespread. It has the greatest effect because it reaches the most people. It’s why people say the printing press is one of the most important inventions of the last millenium. The machinery in and of itself isn’t much.

Maybe that’s why I enjoy writing this blog so much. It’s really fascinates me to see the people who’ve viewed my posts, to interact with those who’ve read something and want to talk about it. I don’t know why, but it makes my writing feel real. Could also be why I enjoy writing for magazines and papers. For publications which reach a wider audience than a short story ever will. There’s something great about knowing, rather than merely hoping, that someone’s taken something away from a piece of writing I’ve done.

New York made me feel that all the more. To see the New York Times building, the immensity of it all built on the written word. Without sounding trite, it was a life changing experience.

-Clay