Tripod: Messages from the Staff

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value="http://tr2.freeshop.com/pg00025.htm">-& Sports <option value="http://tr2.freeshop.com/pg00029.htm">Completely <option value="http://tr2.freeshop.com/pg00029.htm">-FREE Offers </select></td> </tr> </table> </form> </center> </td> <td valign="TOP" width="100%"> <basefont size="3">   <p> <p> <center> <img src="../../../tripod/letters/img/www_subdomain/letter.top.gif" alt="from tripod..with love.." width="401" height="124" border="0"> </center> <br> <center> </center> <br> <br> <p> <blockquote> <b>From Michelle Chihara, (the section formerly known as) TriTeca Editor:</b> <p> <ul>"Hungry and frozen, it's the life that we've chosen." -- Jonathan Larson, in <b>Rent</b><p></ul> On Christmas day, when I was about nine, I insisted that my father watch, in the rain, while I used garbage bags as galoshes to wade waist-deep into a field-turned-lava-pit of manure and mud, calling my rented pony Chester's name. Needless to say, my parents stopped supporting my horse-riding habit soon after. But I nurtured a dream of living on a ranch well into junior high school.<p> Now, people call me a City Girl. It's true that I've never lived anywhere as rural as Berkshire County, Massachusetts, before. But people call me a city girl primarily because I maintain an irrational attachment to Manhattan. <p> <p> At thirteen, I visited the city for a week. Had high tea at the Plaza. Spent a day wandering around trying to prove wrong the theory that people in New York don't smile. I succeeded. At seventeen, I accompanied my uncle, the composer, to opening night of his show on Broadway. His music was extraordinary; the production was terrible. It flopped. But in those few days before reviews came out, I was related to a star. Maitres'd were nice to us. I got to wear an extravagant dress to the cast party, and met all of the leads. Enthralled, I was desperate to go back. <p> I ended up near New York for college, and spent the summer after my junior year there with a boyfriend. Totally overcome by the gruesome real estate market, I managed to live in a number of apartments over the course of three months. Most were in the East Village  this was when it was actually a more affordable region. As soon as we walked by Tompkins Square Park  and the squatters, dogs, cafes, bars, bodegas, community gardens  I fell in love with the whole heady, over-stimulating mess. I didn't know that I wouldn't be able to afford the cafes with tables on the sidewalk. I didn't know that I wasn't the first to discover the Life Cafe on the corner of C and 10th (if you don't know it, let's just say that it's an East Village institution). I loved it that my friends' parents didn't want their progeny to visit my neighborhood. I just wanted to live there. <p> I wasn't alone. <b>Rent</b>, the Broadway musical about a crew of young artists, rode the rising crest of the East Village's popularity all the way to a box-office hit. I think once a piece of popular culture glorifies a neighborhood, or a group, or a generation's Bohemian nature, it's a sure sign that the Bohemian nature is gone. I know a fair number of starving actors. Most of them can no longer afford to live in the East Village (they live in Brooklyn). <p> I saw <b>Rent</b> (and paid 20 bucks for rush tickets, thank you) when I still lived in so-called Bohemia. But the show only aggravated my nagging feeling that I was, well, a poser. Sure, I was living paycheck-to-paycheck at a job with no guarantees. And yes, I was tormented by soul-searching thoughts about how to stay true to myself. And I was living with a starving actor, a writer, a filmmaker, an activist... <p> But we were all relatively privileged. We weren't junkies. We didn't have AIDS. Was I a real East Village-ite? Did I need to get an eyebrow-ring? Would that make me more  or less  of a poser? <p> So, when the job came up at Tripod, I couldn't say no. It was exactly what I wanted to be doing  online editorial, creative control at a great company. I had never dreamed that I would move to a tiny town in the Berkshires. But then, as a kid I had always thought I would grow up, buy a ranch, and raise thoroughbreds. Besides, I didn't move to the Berkshires, I moved to Tripod. Companies and jobs like this are rare. The decision was painful, but not hard. <p> Now, my wonderful new housemate insists that people stare at her when she goes to New York. I say they just think she's cute, that no one cares what you do in New York. When I visit the city now, I lose myself in the anonymity of the crowds. Once I've ditched my car in an over-priced lot, it's a gift to walk from place to place, distracted by the smells and colors like a kid who needs her Ritalin. I lose hours wandering around. Manhattan has started to feel like some sort of Holy Grail for me. I feel like I'm destined never to live there, only to pine for it. <p> But what I realize, when I'm being truthful to myself, is that I pined for New York while I was there. I pined for an even truer New York experience  even more intense, more transformative. I miss the museums and the nightlife, yes, but I couldn't afford most of it while I lived there. What I had, what I miss most, are the people who live there. I have a lot of friends there. Most of them don't have eyebrow piercings. A lot of them don't even live in the East Village. Leaving has made me realize how most of the people I hold dear have, if you'll pardon the expression, stayed true to themselves. <p> I would never want to be the kind of person who judged others by zip code, so I cannot do the same to myself. I plan to visit New York regularly. But I also plan to continue soul-searching while living here in North Adams. <b>Rent</b> is a crock. It's a glorious crock, and I recommend seeing it. But Bohemia is where you find it. <ul> <a href="/">Michelle</a>, (the section formerly known as) TriTeca Editor (2/14/97) </ul> <p> <center> <hr width="330"> <p> Read more "Letters from Tripod" in the <a href="../../../www_subdomain/tripod/letters/archive.html">archive</a>. <p> <hr width="330"> </center> <br> </blockquote> </td> </tr> </table> </td> </tr> </table> </body>