In May I went to New York hoping to learn some things: about the world, about myself, about life in general. Lofty goals, probably, but in fact I did learn things. They may be self-evident to some (in which case, lucky you), but I am a delicate soul, and writing these lessons down helps to cement them into my brain.
On my last full day in New York, I had some time to kill on the Lower East Side and I wandered into McNally Jackson, the bookshop on Prince Street. Bookshops always get me excited – I feel like a whole world opens up every time I go into one. Downstairs, a crowd of people were gathering (people who gather in bookshops are usually people I want to gather alongside) for a panel titled How to be Creative Online.
The panel featured a selection of bloggers I had never heard of, but the premise sounded interesting and I had time, so I sat down. All of a sudden I was introduced to
Brain Pickings (the inspiringly curated site by Maria Popova), Maris Kreizman's
Slaughterhouse 90210, and a group of people who consistently mentioned my favourite writers (Muriel Spark, E.B. White etc.) as their favourite influences. It was a random encounter, but it opened up a world I would probably never have tapped into from my desk in my flat, and it taught me a lesson: the internet can only take you so far.
When I travel, I want to see what the locals see, and learn the 'rules' of a place as quickly as possible so as not to stand out or (worse) be an irritation. Being a photo-taking, middle-of-the-sidewalk-stopping tourist is the direct opposite of that. I started off feeling incredibly frustrated at my lack of knowledge, and tried to hide it. Other tourists would approach me and ask for directions – despite knowing as little as they did, I would hilariously try to direct them, then spend all afternoon feeling awful about probably giving them terrible advice. I should have owned up, but I was kind of ashamed to.
But after more than one afternoon spent castigating myself for my bad direction giving and writing about my feelings on tourism here, I've come to realise that tourists have a value all of their own. As
Dottie put it in her perfectly insightful comment on my post: "Their energy is contagious ... now I embrace my role as a traveller and focus on being an enthusiastic one." I can't think of a better attitude to have.
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Everyone has a Story (and they want to tell it, too)
Despite the fact that I have a blog, I am a confirmed under-sharer: if ever I get into the position of telling someone a story, I get about halfway through it before I start to panic that I'm wasting their time. Similarly, when people hint about their own fascinating stories and experiences, I rarely pluck up the courage to ask about them – I wouldn't want to offend anyone.
In New York though, I noticed that people really do love to tell their stories. In a diner, I overheard a guy saying to his friend: "Everyone has a New York apartment story, so here's mine" as if having a story like that, the more gruesome the better, was a real step on the ladder to becoming a fully-fledged New Yorker – if you didn't tell it, no one would know!
At the Moth Story Slam (the open mic story-telling nights), people were desperate to tell their stories, and people (like me)
paid to listen to them. It was like therapy for everyone. At one Story Slam, I sat next to a guy who had been practicing his story for weeks. He had tried it out on his friends, worked on the feedback, and then he had come to The Moth and put his name in the hat. But his name didn't get called. He was incredibly disappointed – he wanted to tell his story; I was too – I wanted to hear it.
The lesson it taught me was not to be afraid to ask people about their lives – by and large, people love to tell their stories to people who are interested, and if you don't ask, you might miss out on something incredible. More importantly though, it taught me not to panic when telling my own stories (like this one, for example). By and large, people do actually want to hear them.
