I decided to take up the offer my friend, Ann, had made to spend New Year's Eve in New York City with her in her tiny brownstone in the Village. It was 1985 and my first time to explore the Big Apple.
Ann and I had been in the same GRE prep classes in Denver where she was from and where I had landed, tutoring each other: she tutoring me in math, and me tutoring her in English. We had enough in common to become friends and would go out for coffee and Baileys to talk about life and dream about the future.
She decided if she were going to go to graduate school, it would have to be a top school. I decided if I were going to graduate school I needed to go to the one that would offer me a graduate assistantship since I didn't have any money. She did not get into the school of her choice and decided to move to New York City anyway, taking a position that would one day get her into a position of choice. I decided to go to Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia, where my tuition was paid.
Since Ann was working and I was on break, I toured the city alone, which was how I did most things those days. The real difference between walking around inner-city Denver and New York was the sidewalks in New York were always crowded, even in the middle of the night. I went to all the places I had heard of--the Empire State Building, Wall Street, toured the Guggenheim, looked at all the people going in every direction at Grand Central Station and walked through Central Park. I remember pausing outside of the World Trade Center thinking it would be fun to go to the top and take a look, but decided there would always be next time. (Whenever I catch myself thinking that way, I think of this.)
Since I had been watching the ball drop in Times Square on television all my life I thought that would be our plan for the evening. My friend quickly intervened in that thought process saying it was far too dangerous and we could get mugged. She had a different plan--dinner with friends . . . her friends.
First she would lend me her stockbroker roommate's cashmere dress and string of pearls so I would fit in, and then she would instruct me to not tell anyone that I knew her from Denver, which, she believed, was too much of a "cow town" for these sophisticated New York-types. I wondered, after the fact, where she told them she was from--Long Island? Before I could say anything, she also forbade me from talking about graduate school since I was living in West Virginia, and that, she said, was even worse than Denver. Who I was, and who I was supposed to be for that evening, had very little in common.
After a dinner in which I didn't have to worry about saying anything because there were a couple of young women with a lot of money from somewhere in the South who were sharing with us how they "just had to buy those darling $80 t-shirts because they were the cheapest little items in the store." I could barely afford a cup of coffee, but I digress. Ann decided we would drop by someone's party. She was confident she would be meeting someone there and hoped I was ok tagging along. What other plans did I have?
Standing in a hallway of a tiny apartment on what I think may have been the lower west side, a decent looking guy approximately my age, started a conversation with me in the most predictable way, "So, where are you from?"
I looked around to see if Ann were nearby and when I didn't see her, I responded, "Do you really want to know where I'm from?!" He seemed ok with it. "I'm from Hart, Michigan," I said. "Don't worry if you've never heard of it. Some people from Michigan have never heard of it either. And I don't even live in the town of 2,000. I grew up six miles east on a dairy farm." I couldn't decide what the look on the guy's face meant. Either he was thinking--take a hike farmer's daughter, or, I've never met someone like this before--tell me more. As I waited for him to make some excuse and walk away, he said, "I know where that is. It's near Silver Lake." I had not given him that information. How could he possibly know? He then did what people always do and asked if I knew a certain person. In most cases this sort of thing bears no fruit, but I knew to whom he was referring! In a town that small one either knows the person, knows someone who knows the person, or is related to the person.
We were well in the midst of a wonderful conversation by the time Ann, with a look of--let's-get-out-of-here-before-someone-tries-to-kiss us--made it clear it was time to go. The guy pulled a business card out of his back pocket and said if I were ever in the city again to please give him a call.
The next day as I was enjoying one of the best, most expensive bagels I had ever eaten, I pulled out the guy's card. He was an executive with MTV! But alas, I had to fly back to West Virginia where some students didn't like me because they thought I was a big city woman from Denver. But I wasn't. I was like them--a country girl from a small town who learned that being invisible was not her only option, and the people who really matter will always be able to see you.
Ann and I had been in the same GRE prep classes in Denver where she was from and where I had landed, tutoring each other: she tutoring me in math, and me tutoring her in English. We had enough in common to become friends and would go out for coffee and Baileys to talk about life and dream about the future.
She decided if she were going to go to graduate school, it would have to be a top school. I decided if I were going to graduate school I needed to go to the one that would offer me a graduate assistantship since I didn't have any money. She did not get into the school of her choice and decided to move to New York City anyway, taking a position that would one day get her into a position of choice. I decided to go to Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia, where my tuition was paid.
Since Ann was working and I was on break, I toured the city alone, which was how I did most things those days. The real difference between walking around inner-city Denver and New York was the sidewalks in New York were always crowded, even in the middle of the night. I went to all the places I had heard of--the Empire State Building, Wall Street, toured the Guggenheim, looked at all the people going in every direction at Grand Central Station and walked through Central Park. I remember pausing outside of the World Trade Center thinking it would be fun to go to the top and take a look, but decided there would always be next time. (Whenever I catch myself thinking that way, I think of this.)
Since I had been watching the ball drop in Times Square on television all my life I thought that would be our plan for the evening. My friend quickly intervened in that thought process saying it was far too dangerous and we could get mugged. She had a different plan--dinner with friends . . . her friends.
First she would lend me her stockbroker roommate's cashmere dress and string of pearls so I would fit in, and then she would instruct me to not tell anyone that I knew her from Denver, which, she believed, was too much of a "cow town" for these sophisticated New York-types. I wondered, after the fact, where she told them she was from--Long Island? Before I could say anything, she also forbade me from talking about graduate school since I was living in West Virginia, and that, she said, was even worse than Denver. Who I was, and who I was supposed to be for that evening, had very little in common.
After a dinner in which I didn't have to worry about saying anything because there were a couple of young women with a lot of money from somewhere in the South who were sharing with us how they "just had to buy those darling $80 t-shirts because they were the cheapest little items in the store." I could barely afford a cup of coffee, but I digress. Ann decided we would drop by someone's party. She was confident she would be meeting someone there and hoped I was ok tagging along. What other plans did I have?
Standing in a hallway of a tiny apartment on what I think may have been the lower west side, a decent looking guy approximately my age, started a conversation with me in the most predictable way, "So, where are you from?"
I looked around to see if Ann were nearby and when I didn't see her, I responded, "Do you really want to know where I'm from?!" He seemed ok with it. "I'm from Hart, Michigan," I said. "Don't worry if you've never heard of it. Some people from Michigan have never heard of it either. And I don't even live in the town of 2,000. I grew up six miles east on a dairy farm." I couldn't decide what the look on the guy's face meant. Either he was thinking--take a hike farmer's daughter, or, I've never met someone like this before--tell me more. As I waited for him to make some excuse and walk away, he said, "I know where that is. It's near Silver Lake." I had not given him that information. How could he possibly know? He then did what people always do and asked if I knew a certain person. In most cases this sort of thing bears no fruit, but I knew to whom he was referring! In a town that small one either knows the person, knows someone who knows the person, or is related to the person.
We were well in the midst of a wonderful conversation by the time Ann, with a look of--let's-get-out-of-here-before-someone-tries-to-kiss us--made it clear it was time to go. The guy pulled a business card out of his back pocket and said if I were ever in the city again to please give him a call.
The next day as I was enjoying one of the best, most expensive bagels I had ever eaten, I pulled out the guy's card. He was an executive with MTV! But alas, I had to fly back to West Virginia where some students didn't like me because they thought I was a big city woman from Denver. But I wasn't. I was like them--a country girl from a small town who learned that being invisible was not her only option, and the people who really matter will always be able to see you.
