In a few weeks I will be in that place that holds my destiny and I am simultaneously scared and excited.I will be moving to the Bronx. Not because I have a cool job lined up there or because of someone else. I will be moving there because it’s my home.
I have always felt out of place in Oklahoma. People seem too concerned with the business of converting other people to their cliques, religions and what not, for me to actually express and be myself here. So I feel at home when I’m in the Bronx and it’s completely different than any place around here.
The streets are canyons whose walls are aging apartment buildings with delis, superettes and restaurants. Early ’90s-model Lincoln Town Cars, the gypsy cabs, escort people as the red No. 2 train speeds on its elevated tracks above the traffic. Salsa, merengue and calypso music harmonize with the horns of cars to create an urban symphony I long to hear. In the summer, firefighters will occasionally release the pressurized water in the hydrants that attracts children of all ages and races while old men play cards in the shadows of their apartment buildings. The population of white people in this district is less than 2 percent, mostly Puerto Rican and African-American, yet I feel completely comfortable in this setting, more so than I ever have here.
I made a lot of friends the summer I was a Bronxite. The four-block area I walked through each day became like a small town in the middle of the nation’s biggest city. I found the same to be true of the World Trade Center crowd I worked with in downtown Manhattan as well. People begin to recognize you and become part of your daily lives. Muhammad from the deli and Tony from the superette still ask about me and I always chat with them when I visit.
I had some really great experiences in the Bronx as well. Our neighbor was a planner for the Puerto Rican Day parade and my roommate knows him fairly well. On the day of the parade he took me downstairs to a limousine. Miss Puerto Rican Universe was sitting in it and we rode to the breakfast with her and our neighbor.There, we sat with Don King, Desmond Tutu and later Geraldo Rivera joined us. My roommate Kenny and I then marched 45 blocks with the New York City borough presidents, congressmen and senators (a cool advantage to being active in the Young Democrats) while more than 3 million people cheered on from the streets.
There’s always something to do there. Just being in a city so renown and with so many people is exhilarating. You don’t even have to have a lot of money to have fun there. Yeah, it helps, but just being there when you’re new is exciting.
Gradually I learned my way through the maze of subways and bus routes and did not have to drive one time in three months — I absolutely loved it.
Now, as I prepare to leave this school and town I have been living in for more than five years, I embrace this adventure wholeheartedly.
It may not be the best career move. I should probably save more money and get a job lined up. But no, I am still young, motivated and believe in myself enough to know that this is right.
And as you look at your own futures I would encourage you to eliminate money as a priority and prerequisite to obtaining happiness.
Do something that will make you truly happy in a place you will love. It seems that people can see the value of investing in the stock market and their 401K plans, yet are blinded to the rewards to be realized from investing in themselves.
Friends who have lived a little more keep telling me that this is the best thing I can do right now and I truly believe them.
Besides, I need a fresh crop of people to anger anyway and I think I have tormented the Republicans, conservatives and Christians here enough, I only pray to God that someone will take over for me when I’m gone.
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