The soft strums of a guitar echo through the tunnel as the screech of the track subsides once the uptown train has left the station. In the center of the pyramid created by the two stairwells, stands a man of average build in a long, black raincoat with a light mahogany guitar in hand. The raincoat, buttoned tight around his torso, accentuates his slender frame. Written in black marker on masking tape, on the base of the guitar, is his name: Theo Eastwind.

He rocks back and forth, right foot in front, and strums a few more chords. He bends his head forward, chin to chest, and examines his fingertips intently as they work their way up the neck of the guitar. His head pops up as he opens his mouth to begin his croon.

“All around are familiar faces, worn out places, worn out faces. Bright and early for the daily races. Going nowhere. Going nowhere.”

He rocks his body, right foot to left, softly with the music. His dirty blond hair is piled in a curly mess atop his head. He has a mustache and goatee to match, but of all his features the most striking is, by far, his brilliant blue eyes.

He throws his head about, from side to side, as his eyes jump from face to face of the nameless strangers on the platform. No longer sheltered by umbrellas and soggy hoods, the faceless bodies become people who rush down the stairs to the long subway platform, where they reside for the moment, until they are whisked away to another far away location. Perhaps to their apartment downtown, or to dinner at a restaurant a few stops away.

But no matter where their final destination may be they are all here, now, in these brief few minutes, listening to the guitarist’s solemn song.

“Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow. No tomorrow. No tomorrow.”

He breaks from the rocking movements and begins to flit about, unbound by his guitar case or messenger bag which are propped against the off-white tile wall of the stairway. His sporadic dance movements and high energy contrast sharply with the solemn tone of the song and attract stares from further down the platform. He appears to be least thirty years old, but dances like a teenage boy alone in his room, away from the watchful eyes of complete strangers. He doesn’t seem to care about embarrassing himself, or how he appears in public.  For Theo, the subway is his comfort zone.

Some do their best to ignore him, tuning into iPods or games on their phones. Others take passing glances before ultimately writing him off as another crazy person who plays in the subway for money. A few people make their way toward the open, welcoming messenger bag and drop a dollar or two inside, for his trouble. He whispers a breathless “thank you” between beats and continues.

“And I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad. The dreams in which I’m dying are the best I’ve ever had. I find it hard to tell you. I find it hard to take. When people run in circles it’s a very, very mad world.”

“Mad world,” he continues softly, before he lets a raspy, rocker tone from the pit of his stomach escape.

“It’s a mad world! A mad world! A Mad, mad, mad woooorld.”

Shortly after he finishes the last syllable the downtown 6 train sweeps into the station, muffling his voice. The few who stood with their backs to the train — eyes focused steadily on his movements — turn and rush onto the train in a sea of people.

In mere seconds the platform is cleared, empty, save for one or two stragglers who sprint toward the closing train doors, barely making the cut. Some peer out from windows of the train to catch one last glimpse of the subway rock star, before continuing on with their plans for the Wednesday night, likely forgetting all about Theo’s mad world.

He is left alone on the platform as the train speeds away, and stops to plug his ears with his fingers and let out a hollowed yelp as the screech of the track reaches nails-on-chalkboard proportions.

After the noise subsides, he looks up to evaluate his audience. A few 20-somethings chattering about their weekend plans make their way down the stairs and stop several paces away. He lets out a sigh and looks away, relinquishing his grasp on his guitar so that it hangs loosely in front of him from the strap over his left shoulder. Moseying back to his belongings he rummages through his bag for a water bottle and takes a few big swigs.

Slowly, but surely, more people filter onto the platform. Content with the size of the crowd, he tosses the water bottle into this bag and starts anew.

“All around are familiar faces, worn out places, worn out faces. Bright and early for the daily races. Going nowhere. Going nowhere.”

It’s my first time at the Stonewall Inn — my curiosity finally urged me through the large double doors —so I claim a seat at the front end of the bar near the doors. I feel a bit out of place in the eerily solemn atmosphere. It’s nothing like what I expected from the historic location that gave rise to the modern gay right’s movement. Where were the rowdy drag queens, and the uplifting spirit of gay pride that the bar was once known for?

A bartender named Ben sidles up in front of me and slaps a white cocktail napkin down, while asking how I’m doing, what I’m drinking and where I’m from — in that order. I order a vodka tonic and cast my glance back down the bar at the medley of characters who fill the bar’s seats, several forty- or fifty-somethings, sipping well drinks or bottled beers on the 2-for-1 special.

A forty-something-year-old man seated next to me leans in and addresses me like a friend: “How have you been?”

“Good,” I respond. “How about you?”

He’s wearing a POW hat, though he refuses to tell me which branch of the military he served under. He abandons the topic quickly and continues to talk my ear off in a rather one-sided conversation about his partner, Michael, who bears the same first name. The other Michael is currently in the hospital with kidney stones. So this Michael is killing some time at Stonewall before he returns to his partner’s bedside. He doesn’t come here often — he lives in Staten Island now — but he assures me he’s a true New Yorker since he grew up in a cramped apartment in Chelsea with seven other brothers and sisters. He tries to stop by for a drink when he can, because Stonewall’s a piece of history and he wants to pay his respects. That, and it’s just a nice place for a drink, he adds.

He trips over his words; maybe this isn’t his first round, maybe he’s just eager for someone to listen to his tale or maybe it’s a bit of both. He orders another vodka cranberry and steps out for a cigarette. Ben saunters back to check on my drink and see if he’s bothering me.

“No,” I respond. “I think he’s just a little lonely.”

Despite the rather modest interior, Stonewall is not without its fabulous, prideful décor. Mini rainbow flags hang behind the bar above the large mirror centered between two old-fashioned cash registers. Black t-shirts with the bar’s name—the same t-shirts the bartenders wear with the sleeves rolled up—hang off the edges of the mirror, ripe for purchase. And then, the pièce de résistance: a jar of NYC condoms positioned in the middle of the bar with the label “get some.”

The single claim to fame — an echo of another era, when Elizabeth Taylor and Judy Garland look-a-likes frequented the original Stonewall — hangs at the far end of the bar. The giant black-and-white photo shows a drag queen standing aside an old Chevy, arms outstretched into the sky grasping a banner that reads, “Stonewall means fight back! Smash gay oppression!”

The flashback to the 1969 riot that sparked the gay rights movement is the sole reminder that this building is much more than a tourist trap — as Yelp.com insists — or a local watering hole. It’s a symbol of the continuing fight for gay rights; one that will never cease or shut it’s doors.

New York is a lot of things. It’s a traveler’s paradise — well, not like the glossy magazine photos of some far away tropical getaway. It’s a place to escape from the confines of the suburbs in the Tri-State area. It’s a place of wonder, art and exceptional food. It’s a global center that people travel to, from far and wide, just to get a glimpse.

“Remember that crazy weekend in New York,” guys reminisce about over a beer at their local suburb bar.

But for the wearied New Yorker who spends every waking minute — remember New York never sleeps — in a 24-hour-party state, the city carries a phenomenal feeling of hope and opportunity that one day fades into monotony and hatred. Those initial feelings of wonder disperse and fizzle along with memories of first experiences. The shine and gleam of the glass windows gives way, and all that’s left is haggard and graffitied buildings caving in.

I don’t mean to be pessimistic. But it’s hard not to be as I sit behind the smudged glass at Starbucks, looking out at the tour groups chock-full of overzealous incoming freshmen. They quicken their pace to keep up with their tour guide who trots down the block spouting fun facts and anecdotes about that one time in Washington Square Park.

Hey freshman, remember that one time in Washington Square when that creepy old guy tried to sell you some weed?

Oh, that hasn’t happened to you yet? Well, give it a week. And make sure you hang around the park after dark.

I remember that time, way back when. It was my third time in New York — my first time alone. I was here for orientation and only knew one person in the city. Everything was exciting and fresh. I couldn’t keep my eyes off the tippy tops of the buildings. Everything was a new adventure, a new opportunity. I had my fingertips in it all. I was poised and ready to pounce.

That feeling of adventure and opportunity held through my first year. But come the following year, after a long summer in the suburbs, I was a bit more jaded. New York didn’t seem as bright as it used to be. Sure, some of the shop fronts on University changed, but it was all still the same, old New York.

I let the protective shield, we, as New Yorkers, put up every day when we walk out the door, envelope me. I started to put my ear-buds in as soon as I got in the elevator of my dorm and didn’t take them out until I had a foot in the door of my first class of the day.

Life became regular, monotonous. I was going through the same motions everyday, and started eating the same meals at the same times every week; Familigia’s pizza on Monday evenings; Cosi’s soup and sandwich combo on Tuesdays; Whole Foods’salad bar on Wednesdays; Chipotle burritos on Thursdays… Well, you get the picture.

As you can tell, my second year in New York was pretty bleak. I went back to the suburbs again, for the summer, and vowed I would not lose another year to monotony and routine. My next year would different. It would be better. I would try new things and make time in my busy schedule to go out and grab New York by the balls (yes, by the balls). I convinced myself I needed a change of location and a new atmosphere to try out. So I moved to Brooklyn to took a stab at the hipster thing.

It was fun while it lasted, but I found my shield popping up again on the subways in the morning; sunglasses on, iPod in one hand, newspaper in the other.

I guess all New Yorkers develop a shield; a shield that protects the outside world from colliding with their safe inner ones. But those shields don’t hold up forever. There is always a crack — whether it be a new art exhibition, a smile from a kindly stranger or a perfect day in the park. And somehow, the light always gets in.

The Apartment Hunt

It’s one of the most stressful situations you can put yourself in — more stressful than final exams, more stressful than LSAT prep, more stressful than defusing a nuclear bomb (well, maybe not the last one. You’ll have to excuse me, I’ve been watching a lot of Chuck lately.)

For most New Yorkers it lasts a few days or a week. I got lucky my first time around and was safely living out-of-state, therefore placing the burden on my roommates. It felt easy the first time. I looked at some pictures. I oohhed and I ahhed. I submitted my credit application. I had my guarantor sign-off, and I was on the lease. Did I mention my first apartment was located in Brooklyn?

Well, this time it’s a whole different animal.

You can choose to use a broker. You’ll see some beautiful apartments and gawk at the low monthly rent. Then you’ll get smacked in the face with the big number you have to pay up front. So that option is out. There wasn’t enough light in that apartment anyway, you tell yourself.

The next day you sit rigidly at your desk, your right index finger on the mouse which hovers over the refresh button on Craigslist. You pour through the no-fee listings and send out mass e-mails, hoping one, just one, will bite.

One finally does, and you hurry over to the East Village and look at the “$2200 / 2br – Winged two bedroom.” (For the uninformed readers in the crowd, “winged” implies an apartment with bedrooms on opposite sides with no living room.) It smells like curry and there is, in fact, a broker’s fee. Did they forget to mention that in the ad?

So it’s back to the drawing board. You run madly around the Village pulling out your hair. Well, maybe you only imagine doing that as you sit in that coffee shop on 12th and Avenue A sipping an iced coffee — the best five minutes of your day.

Thoughts race through your head: Maybe this isn’t worth it. Maybe you should have just stayed in Brooklyn. Maybe you’ll be homeless and have to move in with family in Connecticut.

When suddenly, you get an e-mail from someone inviting you to look at a bedroom and sign your name on the lease today. You trip over yourself trying to get to the apartment, praying you’ll beat every other Joe Smo from Craigslist.

You accidentally kick an old woman pushing a cart full of Trader Joe’s bags on your up Third Avenue, but disregard her mouthful of obscenities. You’re getting to this apartment. And you’re not letting anyone stop you.

You race down the block, neck and neck with an invisible person who is likely running to the same apartment from the opposite direction. You nod to the super at the front door and make your way up to the third floor in several bounds. You tell yourself this is it. This is the perfect apartment and it will be yours. As long as it has enough room to fit that bulky queen size bed you bought for your spacious Williamsburg apartment, this will be the apartment for you.

Two steps into the front door, past the spotless, white-tiled bathroom toward the too-big-to-be-Manhattan living room, you hear those horrible words: “I’ll take it.”

“NOOOOOO” you bellow at the mid-20s girl with polished nails and immaculate hair (she must have taken a cab here, looking at those heels).

Discouraged and downtrodden, you exit the apartment that will never be yours and find an inviting park bench in the neighboring park. Maybe this will be your new home. It’s not so bad, anyways. May be cold in the winter, but you should surely be able to find an apartment by then.

Manhattan real estate may be a tease, promising wondrous opportunities and affordable (not really) housing, but it’s got to put out sometime. I mean, it can’t keep teasing you forever, right?

I think my interest in writing stemmed from my active imagination. Before I was a writer, I was a dreamer, and I still am. I dream of future events, alternate realties and far away places. I am an only child and I’ve never really had the chance to travel abroad so I turned to creating adventures in my imagination as a way of coping. My creativity has always been the root of my writing. Its been the moving force behind every essay, article, blog post and short story I’ve ever written. It is the thing that flows out whenever I put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard. Without it, I can’t write.

An amazing thing happened when I first came to New York. I lost that creativity. Well, not so much lost as misplaced. I got caught up in the hustle and bustle of the city and my overwhelming workload and let the creative juices drain out of me. But, it wasn’t long before I found something to revive me. At the time I was taking an art history class and one of my assignments was to pick out a piece of Roman art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and write about it. I’d never been to the museum and decided to take a day trip there to tour the other galleries aside from the Greek and Roman art section. I’ll never forget the day I turned on Fifth Avenue and saw the majestic steps of the museum in their full glory. It was an amazing site. I’d visited the Smithsonian when I was younger but I’d never seen such beautiful architecture. I had no idea what the rest of the museum had in store.

I have to admit, my first trip to the Met was not the most graceful. I took a wrong turn off the Egyptian room and got lost in a room full of china for a rather long ten minutes. It wasn’t until later visits that I finally explored the Met to the fullest and found my favorite hideouts.

I finally made my way to the Greek and Roman exhibit and circled the room several times before settling on a large statue of thee young Hercules in the main corridor. I sat on the marble bench in front of the statue for almost an hour, examining every gap and crevice in the stone. It was enlightening. I felt so alive and so in tune with the world. I felt so special to be able to sit in a room full of some of the most renown pieces of art in the world. To be surrounded by that much beauty and to imagine the amount of creativity and effort that went into each piece was enough to shake me out of my writer’s block and revive the dreamer in me. I sat there on that same bench for several hours more and wrote stream of consciousness. I wrote my essay. I wrote a poem. I wrote a short story. I wrote a to do list. I wrote everything that came to my mind.

The Met has had the same effect on me ever since. Whenever I feel empty, and cannot get my creative juices flowing I hop the 6 train uptown and spend a few hours walking around or sitting under my favorite paintings. It’s difficult to explain the sort of calm that washes over me when I’m there. The environment grounds me and allows me to get a grip on my life, but at the same time lifts me up with all the untold possibilities the future holds. I feel invincible and ready to handle whatever the world has to throw at me. Though I was brought up in a strict Catholic family I’ve never been a really religious person. I don’t go to church every Sunday, or even on the holidays, and I don’t pray to God because I don’t believe there is one. But, for me, the Met is like my church. I feel renewed and happy once I leave. It’s freeing.

And every time I go I find a new favorite place. My spot has shifted from the bench in front of the young Hercules in the Roman hall, to the atrium with the reflecting pool, to the seat in front of Chagall’s Lovers and most recently to the third level of the Modern Art exhibit in front a Jackson Pollack painting. Each time I pass over an old spot I notice the traces I left behind–the ideas I thought of while I was seated there, the things that touched me or that final eureka moment I had which fulfilled my hunger for inspiration.I’ve been in New York for three years now, and every time I am feeling lost I return there.

It’s my special place that is big enough to house my crazy imagination. Like a mental storage facility that holds onto unfinished dreams and drafts of ideas. I feel safe there, like it’s a home, but in reality is my place of escape. Though the paintings change walls and exhibits come and go, it’s not the physical space that encapsulates my creativity. It’s the power I’ve given to the idea of the Met, the good memories that I associate with it’s name and it’s face.

Though it will never be my own, I still hold it close to my heart as if it is my one personal place in the world.

Even though I’m sometimes ignored I take pride in the fact that I may have changed someone’s day, given someone the smallest expression that says, “hey, I noticed you.”

Its an amazing thing what a smile can do. It can connect you to anyone without muttering a word. It can say hey I’m having a good day and you should too. It can say hope you feel better, or hang in there.

When I see other people doing it too it gives me hope that there’s still human compassion in the world where everyone is rushing from point A to point B without stopping to (pardon the cliche) smell the roses.

So next time you’re walking down the street smile at someone you don’t know. It may just brighten up their day.

I grew up as an only child in a strict Catholic family. We weren’t devout Roman Catholics by any means but we went to church every Sunday and ate fish on Fridays. It was mostly my father’s doing. Unlike my mother, who was not baptized until before her wedding, my father grew up in a traditional Catholic family. He followed the Bible’s teachings, did not speak ill of his elders and did his best to be a good Christian boy.

Because his religious upbringing provided a good base for who he would become as an adult he decided to instill these same ideals in me.

So that’s how I spent every Sunday morning, Christmas eve and Easter for the majority of my childhood. I went to CCD classes with the rest of the children, then joined my parents in the adult mass.

Religion is a tricky concept for children to comprehend. You’re basically told there is an all-encompassing being that created everything you can see and watches over everything you do. He (or she) knows all of your dark thoughts and secrets, like where you hid the neighbor’s favorite toy, and sometimes grants you wishes if you pray hard enough. For me, it was almost as if I had an imaginary friend watching over me at all times. I was never alone and could never be truly harmed because my friend would certainly protect me.

It was a nice way to live as a child. I felt safe and I was a great kid. For those of you who know me you may think I’m kidding but I actually never did anything intentionally wrong, never lied and never disobeyed my parents. I was the supreme child. Probably, because I had no one else my age to influence my behavior.

But this didn’t last forever. We moved to a different state and couldn’t find a church we liked. Before, when we went to church in Pennsylvania, every one knew our names. It was a small town made even smaller by religion. All the Catholic parents knew each other and stuck together at school functions. It was like a little cliquish community that welcoming only Catholics with open arms. Or at least that’s how I perceived it. There was a big difference between childhood friends who attended the same church and those who did not. It was almost as if parents in the congregation could be trusted for sleep overs or play dates whereas parents outside the church had to be screened.

After we moved we never found another church or community that was similar to what we had in Pennsylvania. My father continued to go to Sunday mass while my moth and I opted out to sleep in and watch Sunday morning cartoons. We only went as a family on holidays and special occasions.

I drifted away from my Christian teachings and found new friends who were not as concerned with doing what Jesus would do. I forgot most of the Christian manners my father had taught me and after my parents’divorce stopped praying to whoever was obviously not listening.

It was a turning point in my life; when I turned my back on religion because it had obviously turned it’s back on me. I told myself I didn’t believe in God and didn’t concern myself with Christian morals or guilt.

During high school I let myself get sucked into gossip and bad decisions. I made up for the lost time in my childhood when I could’ve been a bad seed and rebelled against my elders.

It took me a while to find a balance between right and wrong, between good choices and bad ones. I never turned back to religion, and still write it off as more of a superficial comfort than a necessity. But I realize now that it was, for the most part, my father and my Christian upbringing that taught me the difference between night and wrong.

Though I do not believe in a higher power or agree with what the Bible states, I do appreciate the lesson in morality.

I haven’t gotten writer’s block like this in a while. Usually my fingers just run across the keyboard, like they have a mind of their own. They know exactly what words go where and where to put the correct punctuation. The story flows out so fast that my fingers struggle to keep up. They trip over themselves as the rush to get the ideas out. A quote here, a colorful detail there. It’s a delicate pattern that I’ve grown accustomed to. But today, it’s like I’ve forgot the key to the map. I have an hour to finish this story and still have another piece in the works for Monday.

I’m at a standstill. Trapped on a gated bridge between two ideas, with no way out. I can’t go back. I’ve already started the profile and need to finish it. And I can’t go forward to the next story without knowing I’ve completed this one. So I jump. I push the profile’s deadline until Monday and hope that I can shake this sickness by Sunday evening.

I’m not sure how long I’ve been blocked. Maybe since before the summer began. I’ve been writing for a local newspaper but my stories have not given me the same adrenaline rush I usually get when I’m knee deep in news. I return to Maryland every summer and work non-stop so I can afford to live in the city during the school year. But I can’t say I don’t feel a tang of regret for not traveling abroad and taking a bunch of pictures to post on Facebook.

I return to the same Montgomery County bubble ever summer. The same bubble I fought so hard to escape from during high school. My excruciating writer’s block may be a product of my environment. The rut I’m stuck in until school starts up again and I can finally return to the place I truly call home.

It’s packed during rush hour; filled with moms and dads driving from the small town world to their hum-drum jobs. It’s almost empty at night; filled with cops picking off speeders, and late-night drivers just trying to make it home. It’s an easy drive; a single lane going each direction bordered by the darkness of the woods and farm land. But at the same time, it’s boring. It’s the bridge connecting my home life from my work life. The mandatory 10 minutes it takes to travel from one town to another.

But it’s not the only way to get home. There are the back roads. The windy country roads that are usually the last cleaned following a big snow storm. I had only traveled that path once, when I was in the passenger’s seat of a friend’s car. I recalled where the road started and where it ended, but didn’t remember much about the in-between. Would I stay straight all the way, or make a right turn?

As I came up on the next highway exit I had to decide: would I go the usual route, the one I took every day, or would I attempt the path less traveled?

Always up for a new adventure, I went with unknown. I had nothing waiting for me at home besides a warm laptop on my bed. I had some time to spare and wanted a break from the usual routine.

I passed the familiar exit and continued on North. I liked the feeling that overcame me. The feeling of spontaneity, of an unknown treasure to be discovered. I was driving with no purpose but to explore. I had no commitments, no strings. I could take the next exit and drive the unknown path or I could keep going. I could drive endlessly into the night. Until the road came to an end or until I ran out of gas. There was a multitude of possibilities that could cross my path that night. I could meet a stranger or find another life. It was the prospect of the unknown that incapsulated me.

As the next exit came up I drifted to the right lane to get off the highway and take the backroads home. There is much more to be discovered farther up the highway, but I would save that for another night. For now, I was contempt with the unknown path that led home.

But what about things you can’t take to a repair shop to fix. Things like relationships and your day-to-day life.

Today, I got a text from my mother. May seem usual to you, but I can assure you it’s not a regular occasion. In fact, I haven’t spoken to her in over a year. She texted to tell me that her and her husband are moving to Virginia. It was a surprise to hear from her, but not a surprise that she was moving. I figured they would move back to Alexandria, where her husband used to live and continually raves about, eventually. I didn’t want the conversation to end at that so I replied that I would like to know her address. She gave me a general area and asked if I wanted some stuff that I left at the house.

I doubt I will ever rollerblade again, but some of the furniture she offered would certainly look nice in my new apartment. So, I responded and we set up a date to meet so I could pick up my left over things. She said to meet her at her townhouse, the place I used to call home and haven’t stepped foot inside since I left almost three years ago.

The meet would be awkward. That’s for sure. But, I figured it was time we attempted to repair our relationship. The meeting may not be the defining moment in our relationship when everything is returned to its original quality, but it could be the first step in the process… the initial trip to the repair shop.

Repairing a relationship is a lot harder than fixing a computer or TV. It’s complicated and new parts can’t be ordered to replace the old ones. It takes time, apologies and communication to repair the trust that was broken. And even when you work and work for years at repairing that trust it may never return to the spanking new condition it was once in. But, what else is there to do but attempt to fix it. Otherwise, it will just remain broken.