Trees / Forest – Forest / Trees

August 24, 2010
Montreal, Canada
Elevation: ?
Montreal. Clean, modern, friendly, with a skyline that is occasionally pierced by a gothic spire from churches built ever so long ago. I am here for less than 48 hours as I desperately needed to get out of NYC. A friend’s invitation came at the perfect time.
Before I moved to NYC, I knew of the city being a ghost town in August, I knew of people vacation up in the Hamptons, Cape Code, where ever they can get away to. Before I moved here I didn’t really understand why people would want to get out of NYC. Why would anyone want to leave the center of the Universe!?
An hour into this north bound journey on interstate 87, I understood why people leave the city.
In center of the Universe, the rhythm is unrelenting. You drive yourself to higher grounds as the city pushes you to be ever better day by day. I often have trouble thinking about the creative aspect of my work when I am at “home. ” It is not until I leave the elements I know so well can I step back and see the forest from the trees.
Perspective sometime is an issue of time. Yet at other times it is actually an issue of actual space.
We leave home to learn about ourselves. We leave home so we can finally exhale. We leave home so we can step back and contemplate the forest.
A friend said that he could probably live in a different city every year. That sounds really exciting to me. As I wonder the streets of downtown Montreal, I ask if I could live here!? Then I realized that I thrive on the sense of choas. Montreal is too clean and orderly. So back to the center of the Universe I go, but now with a little tiny bit more knowledge about myself and a renewed sense of perspective of what the forest looks like.
A few lines of lyric from Phoebe Lyng’s “I Hate New York”
“…Power tower looks down at us so we can keep our egos high.
Otherwise they will shrink our dreams the way they shrink the sky.
…The world loves her and leaves her but she is keeping near her the ones with the guts to make her grow.
If you can’t do it, she is gonna chase her home, she is gonna chase you home.
You gamble your life when you move to New York City!”
When is the last time you step away and had a good look at the forest you are growing!?
Charlie Grosso
www.charliegrosso.com
310-592-0895