An Echo of Home

In my very first blog post, I described what I considered to be a good place: my parents' walk-in closet in my old childhood home. As I explained, the time I spent in that place strengthened in me the desire to write, to craft stories that I could share with others. It's been years since I've seen that place, and, at the moment, I'm working on making my childhood dreams come true.

But now I'm in a whole new place - New York City - and it has been almost impossible since I started at NYU to remember what that strong desire to write felt like back in that walk-in closet. It's a feeling that I need now more than ever because, in the city that never sleeps, one is always competing against others to be the best in what they want to do. After an exhausting semester and another one (my last one) on its way, I think I might need that passion back to push me through.

It's not easy to recreate the specific feeling one gets in a special place. As we've learned throughout the semester, there are many different factors involved in creating a certain sense of place. New York is perhaps the complete opposite of my parents' walk-in closet. Despite this fact, thanks to this class, I've learned to pay more attention to my surroudnings, to find the spaces in the city that echo back to that special place.

The first step to making these discoveries was slowing down. It’s hard work, slowing one’s mind and body and opening them to one’s surroundings, especially in a fast-moving city like New York. But it was unavoidable. For the journalism class I took this semester, all of my work was focused on a specific place – the West Village, which I wrote a post about, too – and a large part of what I had to do to succeed in the class was to be more aware of my surroundings.

In doing so, in taking the time to walk a little more slowly, to pay a little more attention to the people and the places surrounding me, I eventually forged a deep connection to the West Village and to many of its residents. It helped to take this class at the same time as my journalism one because it made me so much more aware of what I was experiencing in relation to others and in relation to the spaces through which I moved. My head was thinking on two different levels when I interviewed others about why the West Village was so significant to them. With all that we've learned, it was so much easier for me to understand the importance of this place, especially to locals.

Although I still have a lot to learn about the area – and the rest of New York, for that matter – I feel there, perhaps more than in any place else, the same kind of feeling I used to have in that walk-in closet so many years ago. Maybe it’s the winding streets, the bustle of people, or the unique neighborly atmosphere that calls to my mind that closet. It might even be the history of the place, the fact that it used to be a hub for artists and writers alike, that inspires me to keep chugging on even when I feel I have no energy left to report or to write.

Whatever the case, I know that whenever I walk those streets, somehow finding my way around to say hello to local residents or friendly storeowners, I am flooded with that feeling, that strong sense of place, an echo of my old home.