*crash*

Today one of the program directors talked about what it feels like to get sick of the city. 

Too much pollution. 

Too much noise.

Too fast.

Too many people.

And later, in the hot afternoon sun, as I walked down a busy, smelly, dilapidated sidewalk, I remembered the feeling I had alone in Hotel Roma. Phone-less, internet-less, and far from the downtown streets, I felt isolated. I kept BBC World on at all moments, including while I slept, as a reminder that there are indeed people in the world. I yearned for human interaction. My conversations with cab drivers were the highlight of my day. I needed so badly just to be in the presence of people. 

But oddly, in reality, in big cities like Rome and Buenos Aires, the presence of people is actually all there is. It's easy to feel a bit isolated when you don't have many relationships in the city, but the simple presence of people is ubiquitous. You see it directly, when you dodge the hordes of traffic and pedestrians. But you also see it in the very establishment of the city itself. Buildings, signs, graffiti, trash, lights, noise--it's all human creation. And embracing these things is like feeling the beating pulse of the city. As the pulse becomes a constant force in your life, you are naturally connecting with the other human beings who are dependent on its continued beating.

I didn't always feel the pulse at home. I seem to have been spoiled by my hometown. I'm blind to much of the struggle in the world, because it seems like in Boulder, everyone is "happy." And if they aren't, well by golly, they'll do what they need to do to change it. Most people have a means to happiness in Boulder--the resources to create the life they need. If things don't go perfectly, well shoot, we've got those Rocky Mountains and one of the most beautiful views in the country. Life isn't so bad, afterall. 

But what happens when you don't have the luxury to escape into nature? What happens if you live in a big, stinky, dynamic wave pool of a home in which very little is at your command?

Well, you breathe the pollution, you argue fruitlessly with taxi drivers, and you learn to sleep to the noise. 

But what is beautiful is that all of the city breathes pollution. And everyone is arguing for the same reason: because they need this money. And each person hears the same harmony of cursing and honking as they drift off to sleep each night. 

The city is a living, breathing organism, dependent on the endurance of its organs--the people. Everyone is in it together. When I think about that, all the noise, the grime, and the subsequent growth...well, I realize how truly nourishing it is to witness them.