City of Plaster and Lights

by Lynn Kim (United States of America)

A leap into the unknown USA

The New York City I knew growing up was made of plaster, the buildings tall and the streets narrow. The studio tour at Universal Studios was my favorite, and looking at the sets of the city was magical as a child. Last summer, I was fortunate to receive a stipend from my college to live and work in New York, across the country from my home and my parents, and intern at The Slowdown, a media startup. To be in a new city, one notoriously filled to the brim with strangers and strange things, was both liberating and frightening. My internship work was full-time, and was exhilarating, exhausting, and rewarding. As an only child, and especially as one obsessed with reading and writing, I’ve always been relatively comfortable spending time with myself. This was only elevated over the summer, when it was up to me to seek out activities to enhance my experience in New York. I enjoyed being by myself, but it became apparent to me quite quickly that I had to take advantage of being in such a culturally rich and stimulating environment, and that if I didn’t push myself, I would spend all my time exhausted from work at home, using the heat as an excuse to do absolutely nothing in my room. So I became an expert in picking out events and cultural experiences while also managing my finances. Friday evenings were pay-what-you-wish at The Whitney, Saturdays at the Guggenheim, Sunday nights, free comedy shows at the Upright Citizens Brigade. Walking through parks became almost a daily activity for me. I attended numerous spoken word poetry nights and found myself crying at the words of a complete stranger. Writing on the rooftop or at a café in my neighborhood was a luxurious and meditative hiatus. I volunteered at Happy Family Night Market, a festival celebrating the Asian diaspora, and met and worked with various like-minded Asian-American artists. I signed up for a free week of yoga classes at a local studio – I did not know it was hot yoga. It was great. I sought out unique bookstores across the city and ended up attending the book release celebration of one of the instructors I had worked with at my internship last summer at Writopia Lab, a creative writing non profit. I had moments, of course, in which I longed to be with family, or to see my friends from home or college. There were moments in which I felt, to put simply, defeated. The co-founder of the media company I was interning at had allowed me to write a piece for a podcast episode to be uploaded to the website, and I nervously wrote the introduction, only to have him sit next to me a day later and walk me through his edits – I watched as he demolished my writing (very kindly, though this, naturally, did not matter to me at the time), sentence by sentence. I recall sitting frozen in my seat as he left the room, thinking to myself, “Am I really a writer? Can I do this?” The next introduction (and the couple following) he had me write, however, was easier (and was published significantly less demolished), and I became more and more comfortable and confident in my work. Last summer was challenging, both inside and outside of my internship. Being in a new place can be daunting, but I learned so much by saying “yes,” by putting myself out there to try new things, and by being unafraid to spend time with myself. It is often all too easy to feel like there is nothing to do, to get caught up in the drone of routine. Independence is not solely being by yourself. It is getting to know yourself, being comfortable in that space. This summer, New York City taught me how to make friends of strangers, how to navigate the city’s maze, and how to thrive when alone and challenged. The mythical city of tall buildings and narrow streets became a reality for me; I fell in love with the twisted place that so many people are enamored by. Thank you, New York – I get it now.