Sweet Awakening
The bedroom is overly bright, and almost entirely occupied by a gigantesque bookcase. It has two crooked frames above the headboard, and an IKEA looking-like lamp near the head of the bed. The dull white walls, the empty window sill and the boring bedspread are proof that this room is deprived of life. It is empty of memories. If anything it looks like a sanitized hospital room. Since last night and for the next year at least it’s my room though.
Dad went back home yesterday, leaving me alone in New York.
The roommate I share the place with told me that I could do whatever I want with it. “Make it your home” she said, like it was an easy thing to do. You don’t decide for something to be your home, it either becomes it or it doesn’t.
There is a poster of the World Trade Center by dusk on the sliding door of the only closet of the room. I can’t figure out if it was displayed because of my arrival or if it was always there. Why would someone hang such a random poster in an unoccupied room? It makes me feel as though my roommate attempted to make my room warmer, but all it does is to remind me that I am a stranger in this apartment.
I had been looking for something to feel like home, and I think that’s why I left France. I tell people I did it because I wanted to improve my English, and that the best way to do so was to immerse myself in a culture where English was the main language spoken. Bullshit. I left to escape the weariness really.
The last year of High School was a rollercoaster of emotions. I lost my grandma, and gone through a breakup that hurt like hell at the same time. That’s when it all started, when I told myself to leave. If I’m being genuine about it I left France because I wanted to find myself or rather because I needed to feel alive again, but I couldn’t tell that to people. The whole “I need to get away to be reborn” thing sounded way too cocky, but eventually that’s what it was.
The peaceful village that cradled my childhood had become quicksand, preventing me from moving forward. The once calming sound of the wind caressing the trees now resounded in me like a note of despair. The mountains that used to mirror the orange and rosy colors of the twilight sky now seemed to reflect only one gloomy gray color. The reassuring routine I long ago loved had grown heavier on my shoulders and was ready to swallow me up at any time, so that I would no longer feel joy being at home. I had to wake the fuck up from this numbing agony. So, I left.
I could have ended up in any city, but New York was the only place I had on my mind. Moving from a village of a thousand inhabitants to a city of eight million would give me the opportunity to be just someone else in the crowd and to lose myself in it. I wanted to be away from everything I had known, so that I would not take it for granted ever.
The first day by myself I unpacked my suitcase. I guess I unconsciously expected mom to be annoyed at me for not cleaning my stuff and then I realized that this operating mode was exactly what I wanted to leave behind. I needed a place where neither mom nor dad, nor anyone could actually do anything about me deciding to unpack or not. I needed a place where nobody but me, could do anything about anything.
I spent the first few days of my journey scrutinizing the subway map and memorizing every detail of the multicolored lines the exact same way someone would absorb the plan of a labyrinth they were trapped in. I quickly realized that most of them passed by Times Square as though it supplied energy to the city and was an inevitable place. I needed to see for myself what it was about 42nd street that attracted people.
And I instantly understood. The incessant lights of the innumerable huge screens slapped my face, illuminating it with blinding colors. Pink, blue, red, green one more time pink, blue, red, green… my eyes, used to the monotonous gray with which they had painted the French sky, awoke with a start as though they were assisting to the first firework they had ever seen.
It was already 6pm, but the glare of the screens defied the night and showed it that here the city does not sleep, the city never sleeps. The month of January may carry away the sunlight at 4pm and engulf the rest of the world in a dark and frightening black, here the flashy screens would keep people awake and please their heart. The skyscrapers reflected the warmth of the neon lights and made me feel like I was living in one of these giant pinball arcades I played with as a kid.
I could feel the flame that had gone out in me slowly being reborn, as if awakened by the smell of the food stalls on the avenue. Each step invited me to a new country, and this time I appreciated the breeze for bringing the scent of a thousand meals to my nostrils. One step I was in Pakistan, the next one I was in Italy and a block further down the road I had traveled all over the world simply thanks to aromas. These sweet smells sometimes mixed with other less pleasant ones, but I couldn’t care less. I wasn’t dormant anymore, I was feeling again.
The crowd all around me left no seconds of respite to my brain and forced me to be overwhelmed by its waves. I was not sure anymore from which side came the hubbub that filled my ears, reminding them that the sound of the wind was not the only one left to exist. The deafening sirens of the police and firefighters mingled with the improvised drum stands which themselves served as symphonies to the dancers in the central square.
And after a few months, these noises became a mere banality, a background distraction, to the soft sound of the accents of the friends I made. Vietnamese, Hindi, distinct versions of Spanish and English were now lullabies to my soul. My mind gradually returned and regained strength by feeding on all this life that spread from the city and the people around me.
It’s been more than two years now.
I’m moving out from the place where my journey started in three days. Eventually, without controlling it, this place uplifted me. I was persuaded that it would never truly become meaningful, but as I pack to move on to the next chapter I realize that my suitcase is fuller than it was when I first arrived; it overflows with souvenirs gathered when delving into the vibrant streets of Spanish Harlem, Soho and Dumbo.
It is with a heavy heart that I notice the changes that have appeared in my room since January 2018.
The bookcase has filled up with tens of rewards, proof of the happiest moments spent in school, the dull white walls are almost hard to notice, covered with photographs that will forever capture the grin on my face and the ones of the many friends I have met. The window sill which harbored both successful and terrible essays, testaments to the hours spent learning, shows off its prettiest bouquet of orchid in this sunny March afternoon. The bedspread is ready to be washed one last time, finally letting go of its hands the memories of the nights spent crying, laughing and dreaming about the next day.
And as I get ready to leave this once unknown and uncomfortable place I tell myself that New York succeeded; it did become home. Ultimately it did more than that; it brought me back up. It awakened me.
