The City I Live In
January 6, 2021
I cannot seem to write. For days now I’ve put pen to paper, fingers to keys, and nothing comes out. Perhaps it’s because my brain simply cannot fathom the happenings of this time. Perhaps it’s because the history books seem to be coming to life before my eyes, and chapters I thought had ended now bleed onto the pages of unwritten years. Perhaps I cannot write because as I sit here at my desk, in my apartment, in the middle of Washington DC, I jump at the sounds of sirens outside my window, wondering if one of them is rushing toward another violent mob.
I’ve always been attracted to cities that move. Cities that shift the world, streets that flow at all hours of the day and night, skylines that climb into clouds. I love the sense of possibility, the hustle of a crowded sidewalk, paper coffee cups in hands, steps in rhythm on a memorized route. I’ve lived the entirety of my adult life in these cities, first New York and now DC. I’ve climbed their walk ups and sat in their taxis, I’ve wandered their streets and rested in their parks. I’ve made these cities my home and in that decision, I’ve come to terms with the dangers they present.
In the cities I’ve lived in, subway cars are small and should not be ridden alone after certain hours of the night. Guns can be pulled on corners and knives in stations. I’ve heard a woman cry for help in the early hours of the morning, I’ve heard the footsteps of the man running away with her purse. I’ve worked in a building on lockdown because bombs were found next door. In my time in these cities, I’ve come to realize that, with all the beauty and potential they possess, they also attract ambitions much darker than my own. In the midst of all their dreams, there are nightmares.
It’s one thing to watch tragedy on the news. To watch patients suffer in crowded hospitals or see peaceful protesters tear-gassed in front of a church as they chant for justice. It’s one thing to watch a violent crowd ransack a historical landmark and parade flags stitched with hate through its halls. When the broadcast or the attention span ends, the remote clicks off and the night moves on. There are dinners to be had in restaurants, masks to be left in cars. There are privileges to ignore, entitlements to deny. There are other ways to look, defenses to be made, lawn signs to hide. When the television goes black and the news of the day fades, life shifts back into place. Unless you live here.
In the city I live in, there is no moment of exhale before going back to daily business, no switching the channel to find calm. In our household, we watch the news to see what streets the protests are moving toward, to check if they’re our own. We see towers of smoke on the horizon and hear looters smashing store windows below. Our phones buzz with messages from friends asking if we’re safe and calls from family offering shelter in their homes hours away. When we look out, we see the Capitol under siege lit in the night sky. When we look up, we see helicopters circling low to the rooftops on our block and we rethink the route of our morning run.
There is a feeling that comes when the city you live in is under threat; a twist in the stomach, a grip in the throat. A certain sense of fear creeps up the spine and into the brain. Adrenaline drips into the gut as you process the sights and sounds around you, and hope this is all there is. There are struggles for sleep and moments of relief in the morning, while the mind stretches and yawns. But when the shades are rolled up and the curtains pulled back, you see the Capitol in the distance and the feeling sets in again, as you wonder what will happen today, or tomorrow, or next week.
The city I live in is lined with boarded windows because it’s never quite safe enough to take the boards down. In this city, I have more memories of nights spent under curfew with helicopters hovering overhead than I do of nights spent out with friends. Loud noises are no longer swept aside as soundtracks to this urban existence. Here there is constant alert, a bracing for what will come next, what fan will be flamed, what insurgence waved in. This city I live in has a heartbeat that skips, and in a large, white house a mile down the road, lives a man with orange hair, willing to watch it die.