Draft 2 of Nostalgic Irony

Between drafts 1 and 2, I’ve made a few changes. My essay overall, lacked a focus on the main idea, so there is an additional conclusion near the end that better ties to the idea of the relationship between home and the individual, and how that can possibly affect one’s freedom when they are gone and what they will do with that freedom. Other than the additional paragraph, I proofread once more for clarity and changes the sentence structure of a few phrases, and then I made sure to credit mentions for the A Dream Deferred poem by Langston Hughes. Overall, these changes add tremendously to the point of the essay, which is to bridge together the text to myself and construct a work relatable to not only myself but the reader.

The body is a vessel. It’s marvelous, it’s a room. There is a singular noise to be heard from said room, a particular beating driven from such a place that has the largest capacity, the largest potential, to do practically anything. But it beats. It drives you, the individual, to a destination unknown to you, so eloquently, so exquisitely. Do all you can to ensure you are content with where you end up.

A goldfish will die in saltwater. Its body isn’t equipped to handle it. It serves its purpose in a different setting, it wants to live where it’s comfortable; it will flock to what its cells feel compatible with, a thought so realistically unfamiliar to the body as a whole, like a secret language every entity dances to. Think of the latent forlorn feeling of losing your place. This experience washes over the train of thought you have, it overwhelms it to the point of derailing it. Where are you?

I blink. The familiar street corner that appeared in front of me through the only window available now shows gallant buildings constantly being worked on, the furthest one advertising a lottery. My night sky, pale and empty, has its own idea. It shines bright, geometrically illuminating as far as I can see through these frames. The city is different. Its unfamiliarity to me is as obvious as a candle in a dark room; I fail to hear “Manhattan’s breathing”, as E.B. White says, its vitality that of a person with inner workings, thoughts, desires.

My mind zooms to home, or what was. I blame my upbringing. There is a terrifying disparity between fantasy and reality; it pains me to feel the almost bittersweet comfort in the honesty of the city that is to many that arrive “to escape, not face, reality”. My home, a two story structure, built like a cot made to withstand the test of time, now a room in a building that reminds me of the Empire State Building. My fences are gone, now a clever mix of concrete and glass, and while White is right, there is a particular reason as to why this city is the “destination… the goal” despite being built on practical contempt. If you want invisibility, you’re in the best place. Your face, forgettable, thanks to the city’s “gift of privacy” and insulated individuality.

Sometimes I relay to myself, in hindsight this probably was not the best decision, and other times I remember the sobering feeling of sobbing on a sidewalk corner feeling lost, all in place, in mind, and in time. The city has a beautiful ability to “[compress] all life, all races and breeds, into [such] a small island” that subdues the few, but strangely many, quips and whims the mind seems to have when it lurches at the possibility that perhaps “it is healthier to live in a community where, when a cornice falls, you feel the blow” and you feel important, rather than irrelevant, and pointless. But if the “price of [your] ambition is a life closer to death”, as Brian Doyle says, then perhaps there is joy to be had when living in the fast lane, that there’s a form of happiness that can be somehow successfully derived from its “forlornness or forsakenness”, by White’s terms. How awful it must be to not fully comprehend, to have to balance between the unreasonable destruction or fulfillment of an individual in such a stunning place that nearly hand delivers “spiritual sustenance and maintenance of morale”.

Dreams and desires are equivalent to each other: when deferred they have the uttermost potential to have our “hearts grow cold”, as Doyle says. Potential is the key word. Whether one wants a new job or another wants to go to a new place, there are risks, there are always risks. You quit your job. You sell your home. Human beings are so interesting; how is it a person can honestly be happy spending their precious “two billion heartbeats” living a life they are comfortable with changing on a dime? With the flick of a wrist, the thought of change plants itself in your head, it grows and suffers, taut for nutrition, and in sensing its thirst for the sun, blooms within your eyes with the target it originally had for you.

I flew over a thousand miles into the bright light. It was gorgeous distraction to the distraught feeling that consumed my insides. I had longed for the chance to start over, to get an opportunity to leave where I had grown up, and home paled in comparison of the city. Suburbia, the wishy washy idea of balancing residency with a side of big city dreams, never prepared me for the environment I walked in on. The stereotype was true. As I walked within a crowd of motley individuals consumed with their own lives, I wore a cloak of invisibility. There was a scary air filled with the “gift of privacy” and utter abandonment that could render a person practically senseless.

I wanted so much for the cliché. I wanted to laugh instantaneously with a stranger and end up becoming their confidant, their friend. I wanted to bump into the man of my dreams on the street, share a conversation, and continuously pinch myself as I asked myself whether the experience was real and truly happening right before me. I so wished for a chance to be so immersed with my surroundings on a journey elsewhere that I find myself in an abandoned library of sorts and just ooze and pour at the bounty of literature right before me. My thoughts, putrid birds flying onto my shoulder tops, would chirp their inner songs urging me to fulfill the tiniest wants: get lost here, find this, try that, and go wherever.

Freedom was never a choice for me. From a young age until I found myself in college, my parents enforced the strict understanding that my life was not my own. How does a caged bird fully embrace an open door? Is it too afraid to fly out, for fear of the unknown, or does it leave, completely and entirely hopeful that its life will get better, that everything ultimately gets better?

If deferred dreams dry in the sun only to float away in the wind, turning into specs of dust, as Langston Hughes says, then we must recognize that we are “utterly open with no one in the end”, as Doyle states, and to make our dreams an actuality, no matter where they may possibly take us, be it across the street, in a car, or on a plane. These actions will get a reaction, and that reaction is the insurance of a “rejuvenation” so plentiful it will creep into the corners of your mind that hid away the childish urges to cater to your heart’s quirks, to whatever possibly allowed you to be happy instead of the ordinary humdrum that you fell accustomed into living.

Maybe life is supposed to be lived in parts, each relatable but somehow independent of each other. Yet that relationship bridges the gaps we have within ourselves, it builds the foundations of who we are to each other and to ourselves. Where you arise from will compose you, you are scripted letter by letter from the humble beginnings of your youth or the extravagance you felt upon your face every morning as a child. As you step away from this, whether from maturity, your independence, your freedom, will be scarred from the cage from which it left. It will fly to new heights, and do what it wants, what it’s always wanted to do.

The city is beautiful. It’s living, it is alive. It’s full of wonderful chances to ruin your life and sprout like a phoenix and start over once more. It wants to play with your heartstrings and make you forget about the “What Ifs” so that you know why the fascination can’t die, so that you to try to horribly fall into its chaotic humdrum only to realize that such a plight is impossible and unrealistic. Yet take joy in it. Find the happiness, find a form of happiness, in any way you possibly can. There is such a loveliness to the neglected thought that receives water again. There is such a joy that can arise from living a dream, not matter how extravagant. Take matters into your hands instead of dwelling on the possibilities that can arise from an idea; take an idea and put it into action.