Angeleno Femme

Assigned Seating

With my suitcase rolling behind me down the aisle, I began to regret boarding the plane so late. Too much time spent in mass market bookstores or Cibo Expresses debating about the likeability of granola, and suddenly I’m the third to last person on the flight. The issue isn’t the overhead compartment space (though that does tend to be quite sparse before the cabin doors have closed), but rather the sheer number of humans packed into a very small area. When a plane’s cabin is comprised of empty seats and shuffling bodies, nothing really matters. But with rows and rows of seated people squished so closely to one another that their elbows seem like infringements on arm rests and dignity, the mind begins to spin with claustrophobia and recirculated air.

I’m at an advantage, though, because I’m petite. I can sit comfortably in airplane seats, I can snake my way through congested bars, I can curl up on small couches and, with a little meditation and patience, doze off. In spite of this, I’ve never liked large crowds. Once, while at a Girl Talk concert at Terminal 5 in NYC, the crowd around me began to cave in and I went down with them. Completely overwhelmed and almost in tears from a near-trampling, I left in the middle of the show, bought a Lean Cuisine at Food Emporium and spent the rest of the night watching Dateline alone in my room.

I avoided riotous crowds after that. I passed on most concerts, music festivals and raves. And I only went to Disneyland on weekdays.

With my leopard print bag in an overhead compartment, I took to my 21C aisle seat. Around me: a professional thirty-something woman wearing mascara and a wedding ring, tinkering with a Powerpoint presentation on her PC laptop; a sick girl struggling with a cough, sporting her most comfortable running shoes; a Hasidic Jewish family, the girls all in skirts, watching something called the Yeshiva Boys Choir concert; men wearing flannel, clearly from Brooklyn with Ray Bans tucked into shirt pockets; and me, still with last night’s makeup smeared under my eyes, dizzy from lack of sleep. I drowned out the plane with my headphones and iPod, and tried to do as I always do when I fly: create a bubble around me, and pretend the rest of the flight doesn’t exist.

My exhaustion stemmed from a 5am night in New York City, a typically normal evening made painfully real and consequential with the onset of an AM cross-country flight. Before a nausea-inducing cab ride to JFK Sunday morning, my Saturday night had begun at 6:30pm at Irving Plaza. A friend and member of the band Falling In Reverse invited me to see his show, and, with a VIP sticker on, my plus-one and I settled into seats on a balcony overlooking what was slowly becoming a massive, packed crowd.

“Holy shit, Diana,” I said. “That crowd is my worst nightmare.”

I’d met my musician friend while on a flight to Las Vegas. We boarded together as strangers and, after much awkward toiling with our carry-on bags, found ourselves seated next to each other. Unaware of the surrounding passengers, I was suddenly acutely aware of the guy seated to my right, and he of me. After 45 minutes of small talk and the plane touching down at McCarran, “I’m AJ,” hands shook, and a friendship blossomed.

Now in New York, Diana and my eyes widened during the opening band performances as mosh pits opened up and teen boys, their blood pumping furiously with testosterone, swung their arms at fellow moshers’ faces and launched their bodies towards one another like atoms finding their path. The crowd near the stage, packed so tightly that it appeared to just be a sea of heads and shoulders, swayed back and forth, its inhabitants unable to stop the momentum as the group of hundreds was pushed to the left, then right, then left again…

We sipped our ice waters upstairs, watching the madness unfold below like spectators at a death brawl in Ancient Rome.

My musician friend finally swooped us and led us backstage where, under harsh vanity lighting, we chatted about leather, spikes and “Taco Bell” knuckle tattoos before he sprayed his hair one last time and tuned his guitar. Outside, the crowd continued to churn, working itself up into a frenzy before FIR lead singer Ronnie took to the stage later. While positioned out on the balcony again during the Falling In Reverse concert, I watched the crowd erupt into shaking screams as Ronnie emerged with the rest of the band, fans worshiping him with outreached arms and devoted sweat. They yelled the lyrics along with Ronnie like gospel, entranced by the guitars, the drums, the energy of the surrounding crowd. And in the balcony, Diana and I began to throw our heads to the music too, the music engulfing every single person in the room.

Maybe, I thought as FIR raged on stage, I could handle this crowd. Maybe, with the right shoes, my hair in a ponytail, and my soul hellbent on soaking itself in music, I could do this. Girls chucked their bras on stage and teen bodies, possessed by the force of the concert, were passed overhead until burly security guards grabbed the crowd surfers and led them away from the crowd. To feel a part of something, to feel that oneness as you and every other person around you are screaming the same words, falling in line to the same beat, is a powerful experience. And while up in the safety of the balcony, away from the kicking legs and flailing arms of moshers, away from the ribcage-crushing force of the crowd, away from the sweat, the blood, the insanity boiling below, I realized I envied those kids, those fans. They had something I didn’t have: the ability to feel at one with a crowd of strangers.

This was the same envy I’d felt watching attendees of church sermons, or groups of the devout as they chant. It’s the oneness, a spiritual oneness that seems to only arise in crowds sharing a consciousness. Perhaps my mind is too shrouded in its own thought to ever experience this, but I want to. Somewhere in me, I want to sit in church and feel at one; I want to be at a concert and, while being almost suffocated by a crowd, scream lyrics with my eyes closed, the other concert-goers magnifying my own voice and the voice of the lead. I recall a group meeting where a woman sat sobbing out, “I’m trying to find God, I’m trying to find the light,” and the oneness was almost there for a moment, because maybe I was too. In search of something that staves off loneliness by replacing it with collectiveness. To dig up the self from layers and layers of protective walls and allow it to hold hands with strangers caught in a shared experience. My friend lifted his hands from his guitar during a song and clapped them above his head. The crowd, almost instantly, began to do the same. And I looked at my hands, resting against the balcony railing, and maybe it was the distance from the crowd, or my mental distance from the world that seems to pervade most waking moments and lead to hyper-observation, but I couldn’t put them together, and I watched from afar instead. I was like an agnostic in church, feeling an inescapable urge to believe.

Diana and I left during the last song to avoid the door rush upon exiting Irving Plaza. I ate pasta and garlic knots at a pizza joint down the street, and when I arrived back at the venue, the concert hall was nothing but empty space, sticky floors and crushed plastic cups. The only sound echoing across the main floor were my six inch heels heading towards steep stairs.

The rest of the night unfolded as most New York nights do: bars, yellow cars, drinks on ice, smiling an inch or two closer than what constitutes “friends,” avenues streaming by with windows rolled halfway down, until finally you are alone again in the backseat of a cab, the night leaning towards dawn, too tired to even eat. The crowd conundrum of NYC echoing once again on the Williamsburg bridge where all you can hear is cab tires whirring against hastily paved highways. The glimmering lights of the city the only thing saying good night. And you are at one with no one, no one but yourself.

And then, clicking my seat belt while sitting in 21C. A flight attendant who could moonlight as a linebacker asked me to follow along with the safety information in my seat back pocket in front of me, but it’s garbled because of my headphone’s music, and I already know that there is a life vest beneath my seat and that every bathroom is equipped with an infant changing table. The Hasidic Jewish family took pictures of one another, and the kids and teens ran up and down the aisles, clearly traveling for pleasure. I wondered if they were allowed to watch MTV on the inflight televisions. They practiced Jewish scripture and ate crackers, and I felt a small pang of envy upon seeing them as well. Though I am a city girl with a nose piercing and mouth like a sailor, there they were — sitting peacefully in the oneness, even on average society’s fringes.

The flight occurred with me drifting in and out of a light, unfulfilling sleep. And upon landing, seeing the contentment in other passengers’ eyes: we were all back, or something like that. “Welcome home,” said a flight attendant. And for a transient blip, a oneness, then smothered by us pulling out our smartphones and forgetting about each other once again. I didn’t speak a word to my neighboring passenger, except a polite “Sure” when she got up to use the bathroom.

At baggage claim, waiting for my belongings and ride, I felt one with nothing but my backpack and exhaustion. No longer contained inflight, passengers from Jetblue’s flight from JFK to LAX dispersed like atoms into an open system, not smashing, not even bumping into one another, arms and legs carefully heaving luggage onto push-carts and into trunks. Myself, one of the smaller atoms of the bunch, found a corner, a balcony to watch from, as a conveyor belt spun out bags and boxes. And that night, as my friend brought unifying metal gospel to a crowd of screaming fans in Massachusetts, his guitar wailing into ears of the believers, I turned my phone off early, flipped off the lights, too tired to even pray, and listened to Hollywood, to the car tires whirring against hastily paved streets.

And I told the cabbie a specific address instead of a cross street — I was for sure a foreigner.

During my first night on my own in New York, back in June 2007, I walked to a pizza shop while crying. I had flown to the city for freshman orientation at NYU, and all of us at that session were housed in NYU’s popular dorm, Hayden. The beautiful building sat at the west end of Washington Square Park, not that “west” meant much to me at the time. I had no coordinates and maps didn’t make much sense. I was lost — I didn’t even know where a pizza shop was until I saw the green awning down for Ben’s on Macdougal about two blocks away.

I had never lived away from home before, and had never been by myself in a foreign city. I knew no one. I knew no streets, no buildings. I had said yes to New York, accepted NYU’s offer, and walked into a world of strangers.

I wandered the halls in Hayden with my suitcase when I’d arrived that early evening, and kids cliqued up in rooms, laughing and talking about where they were from. Being a part of their conversation felt like an intrusion, like they were already friends and I was just floating by, meant to go unnoticed. At a reception desk I was handed a room key, a rudimentary map of the park and its surrounding NYU buildings, and a plastic wrapped blanket for me to sleep under. It smelled like chemicals so I slept in two sweaters each night instead. I had the dorm room to myself for the first night and I set my bags down next to the small bed. The room had one dull, flickering fluorescent light, 2 nondescript dressers, 2 desks, and a bathroom.

I was famished from a long day of traveling from the west coast, and since I didn’t know anyone I walked to find food alone. And as I stepped outside, back into the summer night’s humidity, I looked to my left, my right, and realized I had no idea where to go. Where was I? Why was I there? Who was going to be my friend? How do I even make friends, after running with the same crowd for 6 years? What the hell am I doing here, in New York city? How do all of those other kids already looks so comfortable and happy?

I turned to my right, began to walk south and felt the tears coming. For the first time, the future was right in front of me. It wasn’t an online application, a congratulatory letter, or pictures of school buildings from Google Images anymore. Now, the future was me in an unwashed t-shirt, disoriented, and scared about the sun disappearing as I wandered out into an unchartered city to find a meal. I remember thinking to myself as I tried to hold back my sobs, I don’t know if I can do this. I’ve never done this before. I truly don’t know if I can do this. I miss my mom. I miss home. I miss knowing where to go.

New York is sink or swim in that sense. There is no coddling in the form of a grassy quad, a sorority mixer, a football game. Sink or swim, I’d allowed myself to be tossed from my dock back in LA towards the east coast, and while sailing through the air, while wandering Macdougal looking for cheap eats, I realized the permanence of my decision, and wondered if I’d made the right choice. I could have said “yes” to USC. I could have stayed in LA, where I understood the freeways, the streets, the culture. But instead I was in New York, wandering into a pizzeria called Ben’s, squinting in the bright, sterile restaurant light.

“Whatdya want?” a man with an apron said to me from behind the counter. I hoped that my tears had somehow been reabsorbed into my eyes and that he couldn’t tell I had just been on the verge of a meltdown. “Uhh, pepperoni, I guess.” He handed me the greasy slice on a paper plate and as I sat down on a stool by the window, watching friends and couples walk by, I had never felt so deeply alone.

That night I did get invited by a group of NYU kids to go smoke hookah in the West Village. I threw on my silver door knocker earrings and thought, Okay AJ, this is where you make yourself some friends. I only spoke to those kids a handful of times during the rest of my career at NYU, but during that night, they were all I could have hoped for. But when I got back into the dorm — that lifeless, undecorated cell — I bundled up in what clothing I did have and with the lights off, stared out at New York. I could see the Empire State Building from my window. It was like a myth in the distance, a poster taped against the 10th floor window from outside. I couldn’t make sense of it. I tried to doze off, but the loud crashing of a subway line — the A, C, E — rattled up into the night and jolted me awake every hour.

Of course, this story has a happy ending. I made friends. Best friends. I came to know the campus, New York, and even the A, C, E line intimately. I always thought it would be hard to recreate that first evening, when I felt so scared and truly lost. Even living in a foreign country doesn’t seem as intimidating, because at least I made it through that first night in New York, I can remind myself.

These days, my surroundings could not be more familiar. I live back in my hometown, Los Angeles, and could tell you five different routes to get to one place, depending on the traffic. But as it turns out, that lost feeling is not just reliant upon surrounding. In fact, surrounding is just an element of being lost — a physical, obvious manifestation of unfamiliarity. I have recently been exploring what it means to just be alone — to not need from another person, to not “have” another person. It’s unchartered territory, much like the surrounding streets of Washington Square Park were 4 and a half years ago.

It’s the feeling of uncertainty, of no answers, of at times believing that I don’t have anyone to turn to because the questions I have cannot be answered or solved by another person. Only time answers them. I told my mom about it through a late night text and when she asked me if there was anything she could do, I said, “No ma, nothing can really help — this is adult loneliness.”

When I was younger, even during that first slice of pizza in New York, loneliness was a matter of not understanding a city and not having friends. Now, I find the concept being redefined. Loneliness creeps up like uncertainty’s best friend. They tend to go hand in hand, it seems. I have friends, I know LA, but I also am unsure about my career path, where I will live in the coming months, if I will ever meet whatever potential I may have, if I made the right decision by moving back from New York, and if I will ever find a romantic partner who will stand by me.

Loneliness can come through questions, but as we get older, I’m realizing that the questions become harder to answer — they are more subjective. When I was 18, my question was, “Where is there a coffee shop near the CAS building or near the park?” I literally doodled on my map where I was in the Hayden dorm, and where the nearest Starbucks was. It was directly across the park, but I drew a line from me to the coffee shop anyway (just to be safe!), and walked carefully in its direction the morning after my first slice.

But many new phases in life do not have the luxury of a map or a welcome group to introduce you to new people. Many begin in your most familiar setting — your home. With time comes answers, even if they are indirect. I don’t really know what I’m doing right now in life, and I jokingly call it “flailing,” but like most people my age, I’m just nervous and unsure. I have questions, and I wish they were simple ones like Should I invite myself to the dining hall with this group? Where do I get the free student planners? Do I call this cross street Washington Square Park South, or 4th street? But if my frightened moments in this new place still leave me wanting to go home to the past, at least I can remember that I was once able to silence the questions for a brief moment, eat a slice of pizza by myself on my first night in a new city, and end up being just fine.