I Am a Part of It (New York, NY)
Glimpses of a short yet superbly significant life chapter in the Big Apple.
I’m in a New York state of mind since my recent holiday trip to the Big Apple. Thus, I’ve decided it’s a good time to post this 2003 missive. Twenty years on, it captures the slice of time between India and San Francisco chapters, when I lived in Manhattan briefly. It’s for those who enjoy a sense of place, and for those who love NYC. For the natives, those who long to visit, and those who return for the magic. Always the magic.
Christmas, 2003
Greetings from New York City. How you doin'?!
I write to you from a vastly different place than I reported from in December '02. Now, hiding out in my high-rise apartment building in Upper Manhattan, I can scarcely believe that one year ago I was living in India, supping chai in a tiny, unheated, guest house with a view of the holy River Ganges at the foot of the Himalayas.
Contrast of contrasts, my view is now of a brown brick wall across East 80th Street, lined with red fire escapes and dotted with dozens of window views into neighboring urbanites' living quarters. I myself reside in a 35-story building, replete with no less than four doormen, two package room attendants, a super, and delivery dry cleaning.
Manhattan Transfer, full glory.
If you've been on my adventure train for a while, you'll recall I was tapering off my India travels through a stopover in Thailand last April [2003]. Watching sunsets, teaching yoga, and living off pineapples and coconuts, I felt the waves of questioning and anxiety wash over me as my return flight to the States drew nearer. What in God's name would await me upon my reentry to America? Could I reintegrate? Did I even want to?
One humid night on my bungalow balcony in Ko Phangan, in the Gulf of Siam, I had an intuitive flash that was brief, but surrounded by neon lights (how apropos – a psychic vision from Times Square). The message was "New York: Pay attention." Simple as that. I relayed my oracular experience to my Aussie friend hanging in the hammock beside me. "Don't let me forget this one," I told her. "Apparently, New York has dialed me up in Southeast Asia."
And it wasn't the first time I got the call from the Big Apple. Five years prior, I made a trip to New York for Christmas, finding myself smack dab in the middle of Rockefeller Center on Boxing Day, December 26, 1998. Standing next to the Norman Rockwell ice skating rink scene, I remember asking the bundled-up NYPD officer on duty where the towering Rockefeller Christmas tree was from. With a big smile (complete with glimmering gold front tooth) contrasting his dark skin, he teased the California tourista: "Dis tree's from da Bronx!"
(Now, I knew a tree grew in Brooklyn, but somehow, naive as I was, I just couldn't see this gargantuan conifer sprouting up out of a cracked sidewalk up in the projects....)
During that 1998 visit, as I crossed the paths of the two lion statues (appropriately nicknamed "Patience" and "Fortitude" by former Mayor LaGuardia) in front of the New York Public Library headquarters, I had an inkling that I would move to the Big Apple someday. So when the message resounded again last April, I perked my ears up and resolved to listen closer for further flying instructions.
My reentry back to the West, to the "New World" of the U.S. of A., was extremely difficult after five transformational months of solo travel in India. [See my first book, The Adventures of Bindi Girl, for all the tales.] Last May, back in my mother’s spare room in California, I found myself simultaneously depressed and wired – fighting insomnia and dreams of being back in the East. I had visitations from Hindu gods and goddesses in my dreamworld. Was I being beckoned back to explore Mother India again? Would I sell my car (my one remaining material asset), move to the subcontinent for a year, and write a book about my spiritual adventures?
A return to India appeared to be the direction I was heading, yet I resolved to do my best to function in daily life again in California. I was blessed with the help of numerous friends and family members, loved ones old and new who came out of the woodwork with opportunities to housesit, babysit, dogsit, guppysit and just plain SIT until the answer revealed itself. I spent a delicious summer in at least a dozen abodes throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, caring for homes and animals and gardens. Lying on Baker Beach, sunning myself before the Golden Gate Bridge, I would ask myself, "Now what?"
I needed help to make the transition. A segue. I finally admitted I wasn't getting anywhere left to my own devices and dragged myself into a recommended transpersonal therapist's office to hash it out. Three short days after this first therapy session, the door opened. I got a surprise phone call from my friend Bill, a gifted comedian and native New Yorker. That night, after seeing him perform, we met for coffee somewhere in the "TenderNob" neighborhood of San Francisco.
Turned out he was planning on making a move back to New York and was going to the Big Apple in August to film a Comedy Central showcase. "Why don't you come along?" I knew right then that I needed to go, check it out, and explore if it really was for me.
Thus, I took the first leap – boarded the plane to JFK and landed in the heart of America's truest megalopolis, New York f*cking City. I stayed with a good friend living on the Upper West Side, extended my flight an extra week, got myself a tentative job, apartment offer, and big pending decision. I returned to California and asked myself a million different ways, "Am I now ready to make the BIG leap?"
And then the fear set in. You know – the type of fear where you are onto something good, but it's just so foreign, and terrifying. It is the type of fear where you feel it...and do it anyway. It's different than the morbid type of fear that is entirely incapacitating. It's more like you are standing at the swimming hole ledge and you are just about to jump off the cliff in front of all your friends and you pray to God you miss those rocks below but you know that you just couldn't call it a righteous summer vacation unless you actually do make the leap.
An important person in my life once said that the quality of our lives is determined by the quality of the questions we ask ourselves. Therefore, last August, I asked myself, "If I were to look back in ten years and I HADN'T taken the chance to move to New York City, would I regret it?" Yes, of course I would. So, quivering in my flip-flops, on September 23rd, I loaded up three suitcases on a $99 one-way ticket, kissed my mom goodbye (again), and landed on my new doorstep on the Upper East Side, six blocks from Central Park, cozied up to Park Avenue and the Met, with a view of the Empire State Building spire from my rooftop.
One week later, I began my new position as a recruiter right across from those New York Public Library lions, and, just thirty-six short, miserable hours later, for the first time in my life, I walked out on a job. I could not, for the life of me, go back into headhunting – a field where, if it's not "in your blood," you'll bang your head against the wall in a commission-based compensation environment with no chance. (Not to mention the fact that economically, these are trying times for recruiters everywhere.) I was now, like so many fairy tales, yet another uncomfortably jobless transplant in New York. Exactly one month after landing in New York, through a series of "coincidences,” I landed a contract position (where I find myself now) in one of the top-rated luxury establishments in the world.... The New York Palace Hotel.
Located across the street from the stunning St. Patrick's Cathedral at the corner of 50th and Madison, The New York Palace is [as of 2003] owned by the richest man in the world, the Sultan of Brunei. With close to one thousand employees – from stewards to maids, bellmen, execs and concierges, The Palace is like a self-contained little city. Built in the 1880's and many-times-over expanded and renovated, it was once called The Helmsley Palace (under Leona Helmsley in the 1980's). The New York Palace resembles a mini-Versailles, complete with royalty suites, chandeliered ceilings, and grand ballrooms.
My first week on board, our department handled the amenities and affairs of a CD-launch visit by the Rolling Stones. Mick, Keith, Charlie, and Ronnie were all sleeping high above my head somewhere in the Tower Suites, with fake names and special requests ranging from ten additional ashtrays to a bottle of Stoli in each room. My phone rang with the Caller ID indicating that it was coming from Mr. Jagger's room (aka Mr. X) and my heart pounded in my chest as I completely flubbed the phone-answering etiquette of the hotel. Luckily, it was only the Stones' New York assistant dialing out, following up on the request for five extra humidifiers in the suite or something of the sort.
I initially started out as an assistant in the Conference Services Department, but that job was apparently "too easy" – they needed my crazy work ethic elsewhere; I was transplanted to the Banquets Department. After two and a half years of world travel and spiritual retreat, I have never worked so hard in my life. Coming upon the busy season, steam was blowing out my ears as our department controlled all gala affairs, Christmas parties, J.P. Morgan luncheons, and annual stockholder conferences.
With a unionized waitstaff, plus bartenders, barbacks, housemen, AV techs and more, I was the only woman in the department helping to orchestrate a multi-million-dollar operation. With a walkie-talkie holstered to my side, I made myself indispensable. I felt like a Secret Service agent taking a hit for the sake of luxury: I'd never let a V-V-VIP guest know I was taking on more stress than they could possibly imagine, simply to ensure that their CEO got the special request Atkins Diet salad at his lunch meeting.
Believe you me, my vision of moving to New York did not directly include busting my rear in the hotel industry, but I am learning that everyone pays dues upon landing in the Big Apple. (I must be getting older – things like teeth and dental and bennies are starting to become more appealing.) There are no free lunches if you want to make it in this city; ya gotta start somewhere. Then, I suppose, you REALLY appreciate it when you finally reach that star you were shooting for.
My real dreams (very fluid at this point) involve testing the waters of improvisational and/or commercial acting and moving forward with writing and public speaking. Great news: my first tale from my travels in India will be included in a book (Angel Over My Shoulder) this coming April [2004]. The short story is entitled "Miracle on the Mangala Express," and will be published by Fair Winds Press, a division of Rockport Publishers. Cross fingers and toes that I'll be doing book signings and readings at Barnes and Nobles this spring!
I've spent so much time rehashing the past, and describing my journey getting to New York, that I haven't shared with you so much of my joy and the riches of actually being here. What is life like for me here in the Big Apple? Intense? Uh-huh. Fascinating? Indescribably so. Exhilarating? Electrifying! Exhausting. Oh yeah.
For the most part, I love it here. It's buzzy and freaky and way over-the-top. On the way to work this morning – in the #6 subway filled to the brim with the contrasting peoples of pretentious Park Avenue and the colorful commuters from the East Bronx – I pondered the notion, the possibility, that I could actually plant myself here for a long while.1 How, you might ask, could anyone ever feel like they could mellow out, put down roots, settle down in New York flippin' City, for Pete's sake? Well, I mused, perhaps it's because I have that somewhat restless, insatiable spirit matching New York's tone. Always pulsating, changing, flowing like a mighty river, Gotham (as NYC is hiply known) just may be kooky enough, bizarre enough, and intense enough to hold my interest.
We shall see. Time will tell, more will be revealed. For now, it's enough to get out of bed, don the business attire and high heels once again (I had swore I would never wear another synthetic suit nor bear discomfort in the form of three inch elevation ever again) and ease on down the Number 6 line to Midtown for another day of hi-ho at the gilded Palace.
Yes, there are a billion details I could relay to you about New York life; yet, I've got a hunch you can envision me by just flipping on your tellie, or think of as many stereotypes as you can.
There's one major stereotype I find to be disproven on a daily, if not hourly, basis: New Yorkers are far from rude, unfriendly, or unhelpful. Quite the opposite. I wholeheartedly appreciate the quick-witted way of getting straight to the point. I value the honesty, loyalty, and character. No more vanilla-flavored superficiality! In fact, I had to learn the hard way, and FAST, to stash away my California-sensitive mode of communicating. Case in point: I work with about forty of the most extreme personalities in New York hotel banquet life, ranging from Greek waiters to Puerto Rican stewards, to Muslims that won't shake my womanly hand during Ramadan, to John Travolta/Dance Fever Brooklynite management, to militant Bangladeshi union delegates, to bartenders from da Bronx (it's all true). The last thing they need is a chick in the office taking ANYTHING personally.
I had to learn when I was "getting my chops busted" that I was actually being shown AFFECTION! When a New Yorker is "giving it to you" in a sarcastic way, sometimes he is letting you know he cares about you and respects you enough to tease. He/she considers you smart enough to discern what is truly cruel and what is just plain fun. As one native educated me, "If a New Yorker doesn't like you, he'll just ignore you. If he's busting your chops, that's how he lets you know he likes you." California Girl here had to learn fast. See, back home on the range, my mother taught me, "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all." Well, that lasted less than a New York minute in terms of survival skills out here. Good thing I'm a quick study.
There's a lot I look forward to in 2004: getting back into yoga and finding meditative bliss in the middle of metropolis, trying my hand at improv theater, exploring the old neighborhoods of Brooklyn, and poking my nose around the lions' dens of the Bronx Zoo.
As Bob Marley sings, "I got so much things to say right now, so much things to say." Yet, I tink (no typo there) I've painted you a large enough picture for this time around. Thank you for being an important part of my zany world. I'll be remembering you when that big ball drops down in Times Square on New Year’s Eve.
With love and gratitude,
Erin
12/30/2003
I’d listen to Michael Franti’s Stay Human and Everyone Deserves Music on the morning #6 commute. I’d trudge in snowboots to 78th and Lexington, pile on the subway packed with the commuters from the Bronx, and play this on my Sony CD Walkman; it gave me strength to get through the worky-work workday.
Beautifully expressed, Erin...and yet again, so much overlap. Did you ever meet Laraaji or Alan Steinfeld in NYC? Michael F is a close friend of my beloved sister, Robin Lim, and I've been blessed to meet his exuberant, shining energy firsthand.