WRITTEN BY HASSE. POSTED IN MAIN

I have arrived in The Big Apple. The City, Gotham City, The Capital of the World, The Center of the universe, and once the biggest city in the world now  the melting pot called New York City. I meet people that say that this is the greatest city in the world, even if they have never been out of the country, or barely have travelled anywhere in the US. My knowledge of New York is from the movies, and as I am trying to make myself familiar with this big jungle, I find myself looking  for the familiar landmarks that has made such an impact on everyone since the great wave of immigrants started flooding the ports back a couple of hundred years ago.

It has been romantically described by so many authors and film makers, and I am taken by the enormity of it all. I have seen “When Harry Met Sally” several times, “The Godfather I” and “II” countless times, and with “Goddfella’s” and “Wall Street” fresh in memory, I quickly realize that, yes it is the symbol of opportunity and freedom, yet the harsh reality is quite different. I have always been a big fan of movies like “Hannah and her Sisters”, “Manhattan” and “Annie Hall”, and almost as soon as I have arrived and managed to finagle myself through the process of Immigration and Naturalization Services, I realize that I am almost in one of Allen’s films. I am living a parody of the modern immigrant that naïve and ignorant looks up at the big building, remembers the greatness of so many stories that is told through songs and success stories, yet has pushed back the stories of failure and lost hopes. I am living in Manhattan, and I understand why Mr. Allen made his masterpiece in Black and White, to give it a “great look” because he gives the city best justice without color. The people of New York City however are as colorful as people possibly can be.  It is a melting pot where people of all origins live on top of each other, but where racial tension and social demographics are divided by just a street or a subway stop. A place in the world that could and should thrive because of its resource of people, New York should and probably is the greatest melting pot, but everyone seems like they are angry, and wants to blame their misery on the other group. The Italians are mad at the African Americans, the Jewish neighborhood stays to them self, and the Irish fights with the Italians, and everyone hates the Puerto Ricans. People are rioting on the streets in LA, and it is not far from what can happen here in New York. We wonder why the United States is losing the grip on being the greatest country in the world, and we see that a guy gets beaten by police on television and comes out and what he says later hits us right in the heart, because it is what should be this country’s greatest asset, yet it is what divides us and keeps us from just being that. We all feel that he hits us where we need to get hit when he ask us “Can’t we all just get along?” If we all could accept out differences and just get along, this country would be the greatest and thrive like it has done so many times in history. Maybe it is a part of the process, but between the people in the streets I don’t feel that great cooperation. There is a lot of tension in New York, and I can feel it every day. There is only a short distance from South Bronx to Park Avenue but it is a very long way from The Bronx to Park Avenue.

I arrive in this great city, and as quickly as a New York minute I realize that my own life is becoming, or at least very much resemble a Woody Allen movie. A few months earlier I was catching books under my balcony back in Oslo, as my x girlfriend didn’t want to accept that I didn’t want to live with her any longer. I have always questioned that a person that you live within one moment and supposedly loved and  think you are the one for the rest of their life, suddenly , when you tell them that it is actually not so, managed to turn love in to fury in an instant.

I found myself catching my book collection underneath the balcony, and throwing them in to my convertible Peugeot in Oslo. Now in New York, I live a life in Black and White and find myself in a similar situation. I laugh to myself and chuckle of the situation when I after a short time in Mr. Allen’s backyard stand on Broadway and see my clothes come flying down from the sixth floor window.

The woman throwing my clothes out of the window, all five suitcases worth of clothes, is furiously mad at me, but all I am mad at is the fact that there isn’t anyone narrating the scene, like in “Broadway Danny Rose”. I am smiling, and my smile can only make her madder.  I have accepted my faith and think it comical that I am tied to a person that is mentally unstable, and the fact that she can’t see the comedy in the situation. People walk by me and look curiously at this scene where I am the main character laughing, catching shirts, underwear and shows flying from above. As I see her in the window there up in the sky, I plead that she also throws the bags out so I have something that I can put my clothes in. I immediately see one bag after another fly down and almost hit the surrounding spectators. As I see the bags come flying down, I hear some of the cheer, as to approve of the great idea I had, and the fact that she actually listened. My dear mother always thought that I would become an actor, but I am sure that she didn’t see me as the lead character in this kind of a farce, or maybe this was what she did actually see when she hoped to hear what the future of her only son would be when she handed a coffee cup to my grandmother back when they were reading their fortunes. I catch clothes and all my belongings and can’t help but laugh at the situation. People around me are cheering and I play the part gloriously. At least that is what it looks like on the outside, on the inside I am hurting. It is not the path I staked out for myself, but it is where I am in this moment, and why not make the best out of it? I had taken the wise words  from a couple of clairvoyants and made them happen for myself, but I am already doubting that this was what they meant when they said I needed to get of the bowl and get going with my life. According to clairvoyant #1 I was to move to a country with many colored people, and here I was, but for the wrong reason I was here. I was in a country and a place with people from all over the world, and many of different colors, but somewhere in the back of my mind I hear a psychic voice that is telling me to keep looking. This is not the end; it is just the mere beginning on your journey. You haven’t arrived yet, you have just taken the first leap. There will be many more to come.

A few months earlier when I announced that I was getting married, I was warned not to do it from someone that knew it was a mistake all too well, but I was not to listen to anyone but my inner force that was moving me along. I see the clothes come flying as in slow motion, followed by my shoes dropping and underwear swaying in the wind. I am in a dream and it is a good one, even if the spectators that are laughing and cheering seem all too real. When the bags come fast and hard, just like the situation I am in, reality hits me just like the bags hit the sidewalk, hard and inconvenient. What to do now?, I ask myself. I need a place to sleep.