FACE TO FACE
I.
I have roughly 2-5 minutes upon entering a space to explain who I am, what we’re planning to do and the most important part: getting them to like me. If I can get them to like me, then my job is a lot easier. If I bumble over my words, act unsure of myself, or freeze like a deer in the headlights - then I’m just some blonde chick with sweaty palms still wearing her backpack while sitting down mumbling nonsense. Psyching myself up before I walk in has become key. Sometimes it’s clapping. Sometimes it’s taking a deep breath. Sometimes it’s a double time hop and shaking out my arms like a pre-race ritual. It all depends on the level of the ask and how fair I think it is.
I’ve realized that the trick is to get them to laugh before I mention the word “film”. And once I get them to laugh, I preface what I’m about to ask by acting like they’re an old friend I need an absurd favor from. I gravel. I admit I might sound crazy and often I do sound crazy. Often I have a laughable budget to work with. But often, the kindness of strangers surprises me.
And sometimes it’s relatively easy to convince people to let us use spaces because the whacky decrepit basketball court in some church basement hasn’t had any human contact in years. Those situations feel mutually beneficial. But sometimes it’s difficult. Sometimes I’m running from newsstand to newsstand at midtown trying to convince men, who don’t always speak the best english, to shutdown during peak hours and let a drag queen stand behind their counter. And just my luck, that day the odds of a powerball payout are ten times higher. Oh and there’s a Verizon protest happening right next to the newsstand.
Other times, I get asked if it’s possible for me to shut down busy Manhattan streets with 24 hours notice so 3 women in heels on motorcycles known as the “Lady Ryderz” can tear shit up and burn some rubber off their tires while doing donuts. Knowing it’s impossible in that time frame, I try to bypass the system and call my old basketball coach who is a retired cop. We haven’t spoken in a few years. He makes some calls and we learn we need to reroute an MTA bus route. More importantly, we catch up, he tells me about his kids, I tell him about my life. I can’t shut down Delancey Street but I feel okay about that. I always knew we’d still burn a bunch of rubber with or without a permit or street closures.
I go into buildings I walk by every day but never have any reason to go into. I go to neighborhoods I’ve never been to. I meet people from all walks of life I’d otherwise never know. I see a slice of the city I grew up in unlike any I’ve ever seen before.
What always surprises me is people’s willingness to help. They don’t know me. I’ve given them no reason to trust me. But they often do and they often agree to what I ask, knowing they’re doing a favor for a complete stranger.
II.
My job likes to throw me head first into things. The first job I was a location manager on, I almost got arrested. Or I was threatened - but who knows how close to being arrested I truly was. The second job I was a locations manager on, the project called for 26 separate setups. For a three day shoot in Manhattan that culminates in a 3-5 minute video, this is a lot of locations. For one of the last projects we did I was a producer and it was very much a hands on job. And so for this particular project I also got thrown head first into street casting. It was the midnight hour and we were in desperate need of older folks. So I got sent out to the streets. I had to walk up to complete strangers, often people who were trying to go somewhere, and ask them if they wanted to spend all day in Staten Island for no pay. Metaphorically, I was saying “hey get in my sketchy ass van”. Literally, I was also saying this too I guess because we were offering to provide rides to Staten Island Saturday morning. But this is neither here nor there.
I walked to Washington Square Park and did three full laps before I said a word to anyone. I spotted an older woman sitting on the bench. I built up the courage to sit down next to her. Apparently I hadn’t built up enough courage to say anything. So I sat there like a total fucking weirdo. Except then I realized that most people go to parks for the sole purpose of sitting on benches so I relaxed. I finally mustered up the courage to say something but the woman only spoke Italian. And we could both only say the same respective phrases in our opposing languages. All I could say was “non parlo italiano” and all she could say was “no english”. I thanked her, got up feeling a little less tense and kept walking.
The next woman I spotted looked lost. She was spinning aimlessly while trying to open the wrapper of a sherbet she had just bought. I took a deep breath and went up to her. She reminded me of my Mom. I could do this I told myself. I explained the project and asked if she wanted to be a part in it. She unfortunately was busy on our shoot date but we exchanged cards in case another project came up.
Every single person I spoke to was incredibly warm, open and kind. I was expecting to feel like those clipboard people. The ones you avoid making eye contact with in hopes that they don’t see you because if you can’t see them then they can’t see you but they’re there and they’re speaking to you and you want to acknowledge them but you feel like if you engage then of all a sudden you’ve been standing on the sidewalk for 20 minutes and you’ve agreed to donate $20 a month to Greenpeace. Not that Greenpeace doesn’t deserve that but now you’re late for work and you feel personally accosted in this weird way even though it’s for a good cause.
I felt like that except that I didn’t have a clipboard. Just my backpack, a lot of lower back sweat because I was dumb enough to bring my backpack and a bunch of business cards in my pocket. But to my surprise everyone listened, most were interested, and one woman literally without saying much or knowing anything at all said “tell me where to show up!”
I probably would have cast more people had I not spent 45 minutes speaking to two older women. I couldn’t remember the last time I had a conversation with strangers for that long. They laughed in my face when I said Staten Island and politely declined but wanted to chat and let’s be real, so did I so I sat next to them on the bench. I didn’t know how old they were but they said and I quote “you know you’re old when you remember the 30s” My gut tells me they were in their late 80s. Though one mentioned being 94 and I couldn’t tell if she was kidding or not. She didn’t look 94. I told her that. She didn’t care to clarify.
I asked them about their lives. I learned that the woman sitting immediately to my right was from the Netherlands and had fled during the holocaust in order to survive. She went to Columbia and then went on to work for the Guggenheim as the Director of Library and Archives for 30 years. The woman next to her grew up in Connecticut and worked at the hospital Mount Sinai which was coincidentally right next to where I grew up. I asked where in Connecticut she lived and she said some small town no one has heard and always gets confused for another. I asked where and she said New Milford. She was right. Most people always confuse New Milford for Milford. Except what she didn't know and I proceeded to tell her was that I played travel and premier soccer for New Milford for 14 years of my life. She hadn’t been there for 15 years but we spoke about what it was like when she lived there. They asked where I went to college and I said Bowdoin. Both of them nodded their heads and said “oh yes, our friend Esther went there, we’ll have to tell her we met you”, as if Esther would have any fucking idea who I was. I thanked them for speaking to me and hoped we might cross paths another day in the park. I've yet to run into them since but I keep my head up when I walk through the park every day to and from work.
However many months ago I read Aziz Ansari’s book - Modern Love. The one where he looks into modern dating in a digital world. The reason I bring this up is because the one part of the book that really stuck out to me was this minor portion where they interview people our age and people our parents age. Before the interview started they noticed that the room had naturally divided itself by age. One half were the millennials, the other the baby boomers. One half of the room was silent, the other half hummed. I’m sure you can guess which. The younger kids were disengaged. On their phones. Older folks? Chatting. Making casual conversation with people around them.
When people ask me how work is - I spit back generic statements: “It’s good. I like project oriented work, really like the people I work with and feel challenged”. And all these things are true but when I look back and think about why I like what I do, I think the biggest reason is these seemingly small moments.
They’re the moments I love. The ones I realize I really need more of. And it’s assuring to know that they’re out there. Sitting in front of me. Sometimes on benches in Washington Square Park.
III.
A week or so later I was sitting on some steps around the corner from my apartment. Rewind 6 hours. It was a weekday, I had planned on having a super basic evening by myself. I picked up a vegan salad on my way home from work, cracked a bottle of white wine, may or may not have put ice cubes in said glass of wine and caught up on The Bachelorette. I won't pretend that's not the whitest, most basic thing I've ever admitted, said, or shared outloud. But if anyone wanted to know..yeah. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
The Bachelorette is long, white wine is great and so I had 2 or 3 glasses. I looked down at my phone and saw a text from a friend saying he was in the neighborhood and wanted to watch the soccer game. We met at a bar down the street - he had already ordered me a shot of whiskey and a beer. He knew me too well. My casual weekday night by myself somehow managed to turn into a "wake up at 6AM and need water"the following day. Once the soccer game was over my friend and I parted ways.
Slightly drunk and hungry because I ate leaves for dinner, I decided to get pizza. It was a nice night so I ate my slice sitting on some stairs on Bleecker. I'm zoned out. My eyes refocus because I realize someone is walking towards me.
"How tall are you? You look tall. You're tall right?"
We're all told not to engage with people we don't know. You know, the clipboard people.
But I've always been the person who crazy people pick out and talk to. My friends, from high school at least, are the opposite end of the extreme. They're city kids and they ignore. I once was held in what felt like a 5 minute long embrace (the kind where your shoulders pop up and your arms hang by your sides) at Bonnaroo because some guy asked me where the water was and then asked if he could hug me.
I don't question why I'm being asked how tall I am. I was drunk. So I emphatically said "YEAH 5'8 but I can't jump for shit".
The guys name was Blake. He was from Jamaica and we ended up talking for at least 30 minutes. He was heading to midtown to get some jerk chicken and rice at his favorite spot. The kind that reminds him of home; the kind that comes in partitioned styrofoam boxes. We spoke about both having lived on remote islands and what it meant now to still live on an island, though very different, in the middle of the Atlantic. We wondered why New Yorkers are so angry. We concluded it's because we're all really dehydrated. Too much coffee, not enough water.
We spoke about politics, life aspirations, where we want to be in 5 years. I forgot that when he first approached me my mind immediately thought - what's his angle? Is he crazy? Is he hitting on me? What gives. I was waiting for that moment where it finally made sense. No one just comes up to talk to people. In New York we shut down those conversations. We don't even give them a chance.
We covered a lot in 30 minutes. And after some time, like conversations do, it just sort of naturally came to an end and we parted ways. Nothing exchanged but names and words. He shook my hand and said he was going this way. I shook his hand and said I was going that way. We wished each other well and walked away.
I'll probably never see Blake again. I'd be surprised if I ever did see Blake again but you never know. Life has it's ways.
IV.
If you know me personally you know that I spend a lot of time talking about how the world is a lot slower and less dense than the world we knew as students. High School, College, Secondary School, Grad School. Whatever. And yes, it's true. I could probably go an entire day without really having more than a 5 minute conversation with anyone. It would be weird but it's possible and knowing it's possible still holds the same weight.
I admit I miss the density of college. I miss the proximity. I miss the ability to pop in and say hey to the people I care about on a more frequent basis. To have late conversations. Impromptu adventure buddies. I used to go on rants about how all I wanted was to recreate the density of college in the real world. Accidentally said "commune" and lost all credibility. All I was saying was why don't we make a conscious effort to live in close proximity? Like a 5 block radius close proximity. Choose a city and just go.
I've realized through the experiences I mentioned above that the less structure we have in our lives, the harder we have to personally work to maintain that density. It means traveling 45 minutes on a subway to meet a friend halfway for dinner. It means deciding to schedule planned activities for a bunch of adults. Life will continue to get sparser but part of that is our fault. We focus on getting from point A to point B. We put our head downs. We don't look around. We cut ourselves off. We say we're tired. We don't engage.
All I'm saying I guess is dare yourself to have a conversation with a complete stranger some time. Call that friend you haven't spoken to in an embarrassing amount of months or years. Maybe even be so bold as to talk to a clip board person. But don't give them money. Ask them questions about themselves. They'll be totally caught off guard. Like when you ask a telemarketer if you could have their personal cell number to call them back.
Because when all is said and done life can be as full or as empty as you choose to make it. Somtimes you just have to jump into the deep end and trust that you'll float.