New York City, 5 April 2026  Seeing New York and seeing nothing

In New York, being too busy with the city to actually see it.

I’m in Bushwick and in a bar and talking to the bartender and I find it funny and later I fall off my bike and I will feel the crash on my rib cage for a long time but right now, right now it doesn’t matter, right now I’m in New York and we’re holding a gin drink in one hand and a fancy bite of food in the other and we meet one, two, three, four, five people, we make plans for the next day and I ride my bike through Central Park and I walk and walk and walk and I see so much, I see so much that I realize I’ve barely seen anything, it’s never enough, no matter how far you walk, Manhattan is so big, so full, so much and we get a magic show from Italians while we eat tiny bites of pasta and we accidentally get pepper‑sprayed in a bar with a giant pig out front and then there are more people in a new bar and I stay forever and talk and talk and talk and ride back to Bushwick for a long time and sleep for a long time and try to see more and I walk and walk and walk and I see so much, I see so much that I realize I’ve barely seen anything, it’s never enough, no matter how far you walk, Brooklyn is so big, so full, so much and we meet at the waterfront and I notice that New York is by the sea, I know that New York is by the sea but the city has swallowed me whole, I’m deep inside it, completely, and we meet another one, another two, another three people and I say I want to visit the MoMA but I don’t make it to the MoMA, I stumble across Ground Zero, at least, at least I’ve seen something, I’ve seen so much and at the same time I see nothing, New York is so big, so full, so much and we’re in a bar and we meet six more people, one night, so many people, and I talk and talk and talk and I feel how tired my body is but the city doesn’t sleep and neither do I and once in New York, you are only once in New York, you can sleep when you’re dead and they show me the West Village and they tell me their life stories, life stories you can only hear in New York and I’m in a bar and I talk and talk and talk and laugh and I know I’m flying out tomorrow but I still make it to the MoMA, at the very last second I make it to the MoMA and it’s crowded and loud and I walk and walk and walk and I see so much, I see so much that I realize I’ve barely seen anything, it’s never enough no matter how far you walk, the MoMA is big so big, so full, so much and I stop in front of the painting Chronic Hollow by Ida Applebroog and my heart skips a beat and I stare, stare for minutes, tumble into it and recognize everything I’ve experienced in the last five weeks, I recognize myself, I recognize the United States, I recognize everything shown in a way I could never express, and later in my hotel in Tribeca I sit on the bed and stare at the high‑rises and the view and a tear runs down my cheek because I’m so happy, so happy and full, I’ve never felt so complete and whole, it was the wildest thing I’ve ever done, I’ve changed, this trip changed everything, I can’t believe this happened to me and I am so thankful, so fucking thankful, so blessed, so happy, so full and all the other American superlatives.