The Walk

Everyday I cross back and forth between Washington Square on 8th Street and Union Square, where my apartment is located, on 14th Street. In that time -- it's about a fifteen minute walk no matter how you slice it -- I walk by some large number of people that I won't attempt to quantify accurately. I always catch myself on the same cerebral journey on these walks. I'll see a person, any person, and wonder what they're thinking, what they have planned for the day, what their story is, and so forth. More and more I'm finding myself obsessed with the millions and millions of people I don't know on this island and never will know.

There are a lot of interesting people and whenever a particularly noticeable one catches my attention I usually find myself in Washington Square, twenty minutes later, with a completey imagined existence -- thought up for them. It's all based on the information that can be transmitted in the course of a quick pass on the street.

These adventures in imagination often leave me feeling very appreciative of the people I do know well. And, even here in a city of millions, there are people I'm already starting to know very well -- even after a short, adventure-filled week. I've already waited in line for free tickets overnight in Central Park (we saw Meryl Streep in Mother Courage). I've already spent all day searching the streets for artwork for the apartment. I've already partaken in loud, pretentious arguments in the park about the nature of narrative progression or something equally arbitrary. And slowly, carved out of the masses, a handful of faces make reappearences, as I find our lives crossing paths habitually. This is the most surreal environment I've ever lived in. There are several thousand people in my class -- five times as many people as there were in my school -- and there is no central campus. There are 8 dining halls and 7 freshman residences. People are bound together only loosely by their colleges (Luckily I am in a smaller college of only 780 freshman).

I ventured to Columbia to meet with my roommates friend and it was a complete different environment. Columbia, an Ivy League school, is walled in completely with large, iron gates leading in from streets all around the city. It is inhabited by a small, elite group and it seems that with a little concentrated effort one could meet everyone who lives there. Inside it feels like a haven of academics, but the term "Ivory tower" comes to mind frequently. It is cut off from the city, a fortress onto itself, but a short trip outside it's walls allows the noises and vibrations of the city to flood back in. For some it is the best of both words -- the balance of a quiet, reverent focus, and the energy of a massive, ecclectic city a few hundred meters away. To me, however, it feels like the campus is under siege and the city is slowing starving the Columbia University community to death. It's a beautiful campus though.

I'll take my mashed together, random, interwoven campus with its nameless masses. It's an adventure.