99 cent fresh pizza
Something really interesting happens the longer you live in New York City. During the transition from just another passerby, a tourist, into someone who actually lives here, you begin to notice the places you’ve already been. But it’s almost as if it appeared from a past life or a different dimension. The theater you went to see Wicked ages ago as a kid. The museum you went to on a field trip with your class in high school. The one dollar pizza joint you went to at 3 a.m. when you were high off your ass. A glowing, luminescent corner shop smelling of good gooey cheesiness, tangy tomato sauce, and warm bread. But now you see it during daylight in its entirety - greasy counters, grimy corners, and all. It hits you that - oh! - I’ve already been here before! Nothing’s really changed but the visual is so stark. It’s so bizarre to see it so naked.
I think something similar happens when you begin to see things for what they are and not what they represent. As you get older, you begin to see the cracks in the facade of systems “meant to keep you safe” or “create order and peace.” You start to notice small things. The holes in the logic. The hypocrisy. The hatred. The healing that can’t be done. You learn to name the things: microaggression, discrimination, assault, sexism, fetishization, white supremacy, hate crime. You see beyond the action itself and turn your attention to the aggressor. You notice the individual’s flaws, places where they fall short and can’t see. You learn their rough edges and sharp corners the same way you’d memorize streets and subway stops. You look even beyond them at the larger systems at play that condone their behavior. You realize it’s more than just one. It’s whole institutions that are complicit. It's loads of people who never learned better and you wonder, is it my place to educate them? You turn your attention inwards and see that you have a lot of unlearning to do as well. How can I ask for freedom and liberation when I can’t even give it to myself?
Once you’ve arrived at this point, it’s incredibly difficult to look back. To look at how far you’ve come. To see the people you’ve left behind. To remember how much pain you lived with and accepted. How did I not see it before? But nothing’s changed except your perception of it. You see it now, naked and exposed. Broken fluorescent lights hanging on the ceiling. Dirty napkins strewn on the floor. The pizza would still hit but maybe I’ll walk down the street and see what else is around.
