The City Where I Spilled Coffee

After a few days in small-town Iowa, I still ache for the hustle and bustle of New York -- a city I once feared but have learned to love.

In all honesty, I had my reservations when applying to the School of the New York Times Summer Academy. What kind of people would attend a 6k program somewhere notorious for its cost? What would it be like being in America, a country printed on my passport but I questioned more than I claimed? For the first few days, my doubts came true.

I dreaded the "ice cream social," where we sat in a circle introducing ourselves and I'd have to cough up I'm from Taiwan amid dozens of LA, Seattle, DC, North Carolina, and even Kentucky. I was so tired of the "exotic" stare and being mistaken for the only other Asian girl in the class until I found a community of my own, with people who showed me what it felt to be different but accepted -- people who became my friends, my family, my shelter.

We had our dose of teenage drama, and I didn't love sitting through one's karate-chop demonstration at a Japanese restaurant, but it was worth having the best people to call, "Hey, where should we go today?" after a day of intense lectures, projects, and interviews.

My heart still longs for the evenings we spent strolling through Central Park, swaying to soft music under a bridge of mosaic; rowing a boat through the lake, the sun so bright and the sky so blue and towers budding from the streets. I long to dance again to jazz with strangers on the streets and roam through Chelsea Market and roller skate in Rocket Feller Center where we crashed into each other or stumbled onto the floor but laughed in the end, soaked and bruised, biting into a chili dog at a taco stand in Broadway. I long to be back to Washington Square, where we protested our rage at a country stripping away the rights of women. In the midst of weed and smoke and sweat, I felt empowered with my cardboard sign, like our chanting was the roaring beat of a drum the whole world could hear. It was New York baby, anything was possible, anything.

I realized how much I had fallen in love with the flurry of city life, where every corner had something new. I was drawn to the diversity of places, people, scents and colors, that I understood how beyond the campus of majority white, rich students, New York was a place for all.

I remember the exact moment I decided this is where I wanted to be: I had just gotten a free cup of Starbucks and was walking through Manhattan, mesmerized by a swirl of lights and sounds, when a lady smashed into me and knocked it right out of my arms. I laughed, not at the odd idea of karma, but at the excitement of life being so unpredictable.

I never could have predicted how entranced I would be by this city, nor how grateful I would be for those who explored it with me. I do not know what the future holds, all I do know is that on the last morning, when I looked out the window as the sun rose over the city, I had never felt more fulfilled, hopeful, and free.

July / 2022