Swim

As I was scrolling through my phone the other day, passing words of a Gothamist article caught my eye -  “ - dismantling of the 24th street sky-bridge - ” Wait, what? No, I thought with some sight panic fluttering in my chest. It can’t be. The Art Deco piece of architecture was one that dazzled and filled me with wonder from the first instant I had laid eyes on it. And, having become part of my daily commute, every time since. It had also become a sort of “the one that got away” if you will, in the photographer corner of my life: I could never quite capture its magic on film, not the way it evoked it within you when you gazed upon it in real life. And now, it was apparently being strategically dismantled and removed from the Manhattan skyline for good, to make way for a new office building.

This wasn’t even a new story, or a worse-than-usual one. New buildings replace the old all the time, with reports of the latest casualty littering city newspapers as if it were no more than the weather. In fact, it’s been the very reason I give when I tell people why I love this city, my city: like me, like any living breathing human, this city evolves, it shifts, it morphs. Streets will never be the same twice. Favorite bars will close and become a distant memory that tugs at the heart. The skyline oscillates like a restless sea; and you? You can fight it, or learn to swim with it. But it’ll keep going, whether you’re along for the ride or not. And there’s a magic in that, too.

Why then, was the news of this sky-bridge hitting me so hard? Perhaps because most things are hitting me harder than usual this year. Loss is a difficult emotion to grapple with even in the best of times, but 2020 has been a special level of ass-kickingly brutal. So, on my walk to the train tonight after work, I decided to walk past the 24^th street sky-bridge, see if it was true. Maybe I’d mixed it up with another sky-bridge, I thought desperately. Maybe the article got it wrong. I had just seen the thing, just last week...how....

I headed up 24^th, towards Park Avenue. It was cold, dark; though it was barely the end of November, the brisk air was framed with the quiet only found in the depths of a city winter. I was half a block away now, and my heart leapt. Yes - even in the blur of the shadows, I could see it. It was still there. But as I drew closer, squinted up past the glare of the blinding construction lights that lined the street beneath it, it was...a skeleton. A desolate ruin suspended by rusted threads. The Art Deco plating was entirely gone. All that remained was its hard, tired metal underbelly that was closer in aesthetic to the Gates of Mordor than a gateway through heaven.

My heart felt heavy as I crossed Park Avenue. “Really though,” I thought with annoyance, noting the street had been unnecessarily torn up to be repaved; Park Avenue wasn’t exactly ridden with potholes. The crosswalk timer was ticking down, and my feet were making their ginger way across the jagged concrete. I was torn between keeping an eye out so I didn’t trip, and glances up above at heartbreak in the sky. I saw that clock dwindling down to 4, 3, yet I slowed my pace, wanting to take my time, to exhale. To live in a leisurely moment looking upwards at something miraculous, that was all but erased. But the clock was out, and the headlights of the cars champing at the bit were bathing my legs. Begrudgingly, I stepped onto the curb, pausing for half a second.

Despite it being thirty minutes into curfew, there were still a handful of others like me, in black coats, rushing to get to wherever New Yorkers rush to get to. That strange winter quiet was gone for the moment, with muffled sounds of rushing cars and rushing people swirling around me. I wanted to stop. I should’ve stopped. Even there, in that briefest of pauses that felt like time itself had halted just for me, I was filled with regret. I wanted to look up, and take up the whole crosswalk to do it, cars and cabs and passerby be damned. But this pause was getting messy, loud, dizzy. And I had to get home. With a sigh, I gave that bare, drab looking thing in the sky one last glance before tucking my head down and making the left to walk up 23rd.

In the long avenue blocks I had left to walk to get to the F train, I became a sea myself, of thoughts and emotions and questions. Was this just me, going through what everyone goes through as they age – wanting to cling to something from their time, from their life, no matter how outdated it might be? Was this me, refusing to accept the inevitable cycle of this city, hell - of life, one I’ve always so adamantly defended and even applauded? Was this me, mourning a year that had already taken so much away from all of us – why this, too? Was this me, being privileged as fuck, that this is the thing I’m mourning?

I didn’t know. I still don’t know. But I know I hate that I’m going to take that walk to work, that I’m going to bike up that street, and never see that sky-bridge again. Maybe not everything should be born only to fade into a memory, lost when the pages of time have dissolved its faded photos and the hearts that held it dear are gone. But... isn’t that what we're all destined for?

I got to the train station. I saw on the train arrival clock that I had a 13-minute wait until the next one. 26 for the one after that. Which meant-

I clattered down the steps. Yes, the train’s here, oh my god, can I catch it in time- I hurried through the turnstile, saw the doors closing, the conductor held it for the guy in front me – closing again – I ran –

The doors opened one more time, and I dashed on, waving a quick hand of gratitude to the conductor. God, nothing clears the head like trying to catch a train, I mused. And then I smiled, almost drunkenly, woozy from the the spectrum of emotions I'd lived from that walk, to the sky-bridge, to the steps, to the rushing through closing doors, to sitting down here, now. This city really is like a tumultuous sea. It gives and it takes, it pushes and it pulls. It lifts and it sinks. And it's brutal and unforgiving in all of it. But that, in essence, is life itself. It's up and downs, it's loves and loss. And honestly? I wouldn't have it any other way.

Exit Poll

     So, in what feels like a thousand years after 2016, the 2020 election finally happened. As of this morning, it’s drawing to a close, and looking like a Biden win. And yet…I’ve been feeling steadily worse since Tuesday, almost more than I ever did in all four years of the Trump presidency. 

    Not, mind you, for the same reason as a lot of my friends, customers, and family, who all seem shell-shocked and dismayed. “How can they be so stupid?”, they’ve been asking me, in regards to the people who voted for Trump a second time. I bite my tongue and I don’t say what I think, which is – it has nothing to do with stupidity. And if you’re genuinely taken aback by the closeness of these results, then you haven’t been paying attention. 

    So many of us became politically-engaged for the first time in 2016 - myself included. I don’t know what it was that drew me in exactly (probably a number of things), and I don’t know if it matters (for this article, anyway). Suffice to say, I became a woman obsessed, ingesting independent news and cable news and podcasts and documentaries and docu-series. Morning coffee and bike ride commutes became consumed by all of it. I was in my leftist little world, and every day it seemed like Trump stooped to new lows, while people who supported him reached new levels of rabid. And I was continually disgusted, shocked, and appalled by all of it. 

    But then, two years later, something happened. I started to talk, really talk, to right-wing conservatives. People who were self-proclaimed red-pillers, if you will. I dropped my clinging attachment and tentatively peered beyond the walls of my leftist echo chamber (difficult a thing as it was at first). Not to say I started thinking like a right-winger, but I stopped needing to...talk. I stopped needing to argue. I stopped regurgitating rhetoric. I had my world shaken by differing perspectives, and in turn, experienced the most important development yet: being curious above all else. 

    It may have been a natural progression for me; I’ve always found people fascinating. Ever since I was in grade school, I had an inexplicable love for reading autobiographies of legends and icons. Who were they, really? How did they get there? What stars had to align? How many failures did they have? How much drama packed their lives, and how did that shape them, as well as their path? And that inclination began to cross over, into my real life, with people I would talk to, whom all viewed the world so differently than I. It wasn’t about them being wrong, or me being right. It was about understanding them, as people. How did they get to have the views they have? What was their upbringing like? What sort of psychological trauma or life-changing events did they go through? And I started to find that, almost 100% of the time, there was deeper shit underlining the political stances they take. Some of it’s ugly, some of it’s understandable, some of it’s even relatable. But it’s the reason I’m so markedly unsurprised about the results of this election. Because that deeper shit, for so many people, is precisely the thing that makes them susceptible to why this election turned out the way it did. I’m talking about, of course, the misinformation network.

    As I listened to the news coverage do its usual charade over election results trickling in, I found myself getting pretty pissed. All this wide-eyed bafflement about the polls...seriously? Are we just...not going to talk about it? Because for me, the clear culprit behind this whole shit-stain of a situation was absolutely misinformation. QAnon, news radio, conspiracy sites like, oh, TheGateWayPundit; you name it. I’m telling you, it’s not some boogeyman, and it’s not something to laugh about or shrug off. It’s a symptom of a much more pervasive problem, one that makes me think we might be past the point of return - especially if we don’t do anything to address it. 

    And no, I don’t mean the new and completely wrong approach social media platforms are taking. Banning people or groups? Okay, pause and think about it the way I do, and ask the “why”. People aren't just drawn to these fringe sites and extremist “pundits” and groups like QAnon because they’re dumb or racist or whatever (okay, maybe some of them). It’s because they are riddled with a massive, massive distrust. Yes, much of that distrust is learned from the very misinformation network I’m talking about, but beyond that - can you blame them? Look at our government. What have they done, really done, on a broad scale, to actually pass policy that changes all of our lives for the better? When have you ever heard someone talk about how competent and efficient government is? Why should we have faith in them, when it’s clear that the system is all about rich, the media, and the politicians, all working together to benefit only themselves (profits, ratings, and reelection, respectively). I mean, come on. If you really think people who look towards the fringe ends of the spectrum for their news are going to "see the light" because media platforms are exercising control, then you may be as delusional as they are. 

    To me, that’s the only real answer to the problem that will only get worse as time goes on: effective change, bold policy, and politicians who are able to lay their goddamn ego to the side. So, good luck to Joe Biden and his administration, because if they’re unable to get the wheels of government really moving, if they decide to take the usual establishment, pandering, meandering path, if they aren’t held to account, and if we don’t hold them there: say goodbye to 50% of this country for good, and be prepared for a future full of Trumps.