Crazy

I was 17 when I first got to the island.
It was, at the very least, incredibly overwhelming.

I took the train from 30th Street Station to Penn Station by myself. I was going to be here for a week working with NYU's OUTREACH Program, a community service organization. I figured I could continue the community service work I had participated in while in high school as well as make some friends.

As the train left Philly I had tears in my eyes. I kissed Mom and Dad goodbye. They'd be up the following Saturday with my things.

The train ride was short. As NYC came in to sight I stopped playing whatever was in my CD player (most likely Indigo Girls "Rites of Passage) and put in Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Song and Dance" starring Bernadette Peters. I knew every word by heart and had often acted out the entire show in my tiny, row-home bedroom in South Philly. The opening lyrics were more than appropriate:

"I can't quite believe it,
I'm actually here,
The one place on earth I want to be.
New York is just short of perfection they say.
The one thing it lacks is me.

It's all so amazing,
The size and the noise.
Why it's still alive at 5am.
And that drive in the eyes of New Yorkers (the original line is "New York girls" but I had to change it)
Oh I'd like to be one of them."

So as NYC rushed toward me, I listened to this music and I cried.

When the train finally pulled in, I grabbed my bag and went in search of a taxi. Everything was overwhelming. I had never been here before on my own. It seemed as if every direction I walked in was exactly against the flow of everyone else. I didn't understand the signage and I ended up in a dark passage between Penn Station and Madison Square Garden. I threw myself on to...some street and found a taxi.

As the taxi rushed from Penn Station down to 10th and Broadway I tried to take in everything I could. Remember: 34th Street is Macy's. Remember: 14th Street is packed with people and cheap looking dollar stores. Avoid at all costs. And so on. Actually, I think for the first few days my list consisted of places that I was scared of and vowed never to return to; 14th Street and St. Mark's Place being my number one destinations.

This anxiety quickly passed. It had to mostly because of the nature of the OUTREACH Program. I spent a day working for God's Love We Deliver in Harlem. We spent the morning preparing and packaging the food and the afternoon delivering it. I found that afternoon to be completely eye opening. I saw neighborhoods that I still, after 15 years, have never returned to. Luckily we were being driven. I naively expected everyone we delivered food to to be filled with thanks, respect and politeness. I knew these were AIDS patients and needed this food. No. Most of the people barely looked up as I dropped off the food. Some of the apartments were overrun with personal items and smelled like piss and rot. Some were neat and particular. All were distinct.

Another day was spent working at a Senior Center in Greenwich Village. This was a joy. I couldn't help but think of my grandparents. They wanted to engage all of us in talk about where were from, what we were studying and how we decided on NYU. At the end of the day they wanted us to sing with them. We converged in the rec room and someone wheeled out a piano. We sang showtunes and standards. Then there was a huge request for a song called "Twisted" that I only knew from Bette Midler's sophomore album:

"My analyst told me that I was right out of me head.
The way he described he said,
You'd be better off dead than alive.
I didn't listen to his jive.
I knew all along, he was all wrong
And I knew that he thought I was crazy.
But you know I'm not. Oh no."

And I wasn't crazy. I had made the right decision coming here.

We got lost in the crazy, nonsensical streets of the West Village on our way back to campus. We stopped and asked a woman carrying a bouquet of flowers for directions. She moved the huge spray from her face and, voila! ROSIE O'DONNELL. She graciously pointed us in the right direction and welcome us to New York. We stood in awe as we watched her ascend a steep set of steps to a brownstone and disappear inside.

This island was mine.