Member-only story
Personal Essay
To The Cities That Hold Our Stories
Why I’m inspired and shaped by cities I do not know
I was on an airplane, moving through dark rain clouds, when I felt it. I watched out my window as from them emerged the grid-ridden lights of the city, sparkling like a diamond struck by a spare patch of afternoon sun. A fractured, flaming spectrum of light. As rubber hit concrete, the creative whirling inside me was incurable.
New places generally inspire me, but New York City falls over me in a different way entirely. The subway cars tremble and weathered men play chess in the park and a tall bleach-haired family speaks a language native to a country far from here.
I begin to write. The sensations flow from my chest to my fingers to my page. I let the sounds engulf me. I let them strike new chords. I release into the whirlpool of what I’m perceiving, granting it permission to knock against me with a thrill akin to the strike of a funny bone. It jolts me into my body and lingers.
Yet as I sit, alone, clicking and crafting, my fingers slow and I stare at my screen.
How can my mind go blank with the flurry of life around me?
It struck me that I cannot write about a place that I do not know. I am not from here. I do not live…
