from potato picking to sweet potato pie


An opportunity came up to courier dogs from Tbilisi to New York for an American charity, SPCA International. All expenses paid for; yes please. Nova was the dog I ended up taking, a lanky street dog with wise eyes. We spent over 7 hours together at Warsaw airport, bonding over our need for fresh air and the Costa coffee lounge. And goodness me did we attract a lot of attention. Children, old ladies, security guards were not fazed by Nova’s somewhat severe features, and we weathered the long journey pretty well together. Touchdown in JFK came with a heavy heart, and off Nova was whisked by two SPCA employees, off for yet another round of scans and injections, document checks, and check-ups. I hope you’re well, Nova.    

I myself was then whisked off in an Uber, arrived in Brooklyn at a hostel, exchanged a few words with my Mexican roommate, and fell asleep. By 8 am the next day I was down by Williamsburg Bridge, sitting on a bench with a steamed-oat-filter-brew, watching dog walkers, runners and selfie-takers pass on the East River Waterfront. It was nice to absorb the weekend buzz. I liked the sunlight that sharpened the shadows of the metro line above, its metalwork throwing latticed lines onto the pavement below. I also liked the smell of the sea, its blinding glitter, and the salty reminder that there is always more to discover. That restless need for more.

It might have been the jet lag or lack of sleep, but my first impression of Manhattan glinting across the water was one of horror. That wall of skyscrapers, fake and impossible as Lego, brought panic. They were ugly. Dystopian, unsettling, unearthly. The buildings shot up in endless flashes of glass and steel, straight as geometric instruments on the streets, gridded like graph paper. The sense of entrapment grew as I wandered, awestruck, through the city, musing on the idea that skyscrapers are the inverse of mountains, that you must stay at their feet, condemned to stare up at those impossible heights, heights that offer imprisonment rather than escape. Even in Central Park, a whopping 843 acres of green space, you’re more often than not forbidden to walk on the grass or settle beneath the trees. Of course, Nature's just there to be looked at isn't it.

But whatever misgivings I first felt were beaten away by the pounding drum of New York’s pulse. Here is a city that operates like a mini-state inside America, harbouring its own unique history and culture, that’s not quite ‘American’ per se. Back in 1609, when Dutch traders created ‘New Amsterdam’ for their international fur trade, ambition, conflict, and ingenuity transformed this small harbour town into the most densely populated, most influential, and most diverse city in the United States. And diverse it certainly is. Italian, Eastern-European Jewish, Polish, Greek, Syrian, German, Irish, Chinese communities made their huge journeys across differing seas, fleeing from violence and deprivation, to find refuge in New York. This restless, rootless re-invention breeds an intoxicating atmosphere of dynamism. Not one person looks alike. Not one person you can pin down as ‘American’. But perhaps that's what makes a 'New Yorker'.

A particular favourite immigrant area of mine was Chinatown, where I liked to lurk among the fish stalls. Shoppers and stall-holders would eye me up suspiciously, while I, rooted to the spot like a slightly-too-tall, slightly-too-patterned tree, stared in wonder at the sheer variety of sea creatures. I also got a cheap haircut there. Shoved into a sink before even opening my mouth, I was scrubbed and massaged to within an inch of my life before scribbling a rough diagram of my desired chop, less than soothed by the hairdresser’s “okokokokok” insistence that she’d understood. To my surprise, I emerged with a Chinese-style haircut. From a Chinese hairdresser. In Chinatown. Funny that. It was a great haircut however and I'm grateful for the shake-up.

And then there was Petee's Pie shop near Little Italy. I found it when searching to satiate my hankering for pumpkin pie. On entering, you are hit by a wall of buttery steam and will exclaim "Oh my god, it smells amazing!" I thought I was saying something original, generous even, but after two hours of steeping in pie fumes, I witnessed every single customer say the same thing. It was quite comical really. For two hours at time, I'd sit and inhale that buttery smell of pies baked to the sweet (or sickly) tones of Taylor Swift in Petee’s Pie shop. Walnut and maple, apple, pumpkin, and sweet potato were the seasonal ones on show.

NEW YORK…uncouth, formless, piebald, chaotic, it yet stamps itself upon you as the most magnificent embodiment of titanic energy and force” – G.W. Stevens 1897

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