Street Corner Symphony

It's been a rainy weekend here in Glens Falls and today I saw a discarded, mangled umbrella sticking out of a trash can on a downtown street corner. I don't see that in Glens Falls too much, but in Manhattan it's a common hilarious site when the weather turns.

I've been thinking a lot about my time in New York City lately and how proud I am of myself for making use of the years I spent there. I landed a most perfect job right out of college working here as a Junior Designer and moved up to Graphic Designer as I lost my Junior status. I worked in London for two weeks, I made amazingly great friends that became family. Some of them I have lost touch with because of miscommunications and hurt feelings, I think of them often and regret the situations that shook our foundation. That aside, the job and the friends at the time were nothing short of perfect. I always longed for that someone to be by my side, with my heart on my sleeve I romanticized and wooed and wanted but nothing ever quite worked out in that department. I wish I could have been wise enough to just enjoy the time and not be wanting this or that. However still I am proud of my actions to go for those Manhattan-working-woman dreams. While I loved my job at Nature, I always wanted to try something else, so I put myself out there and I interviewed at my dream store. Seriously, I sat down with their Marketing Director and we looked through my portfolio (which was chock full of medical publishing pieces) and he said, "well, this is great, but you're not showing me anything related to textiles, or home furnishing. Do you know what we do here?" Ouch. I was 23, I was young, I didn't tailor my book to the industry. @#%! Lesson learned. I also should have followed up with an industry specific thank you note, or something to get myself back in the door. I didn't.

Then I dropped of my book here, here, and here. Talk about quintessential New York City. When I followed up they had either already hired or the position was no longer going to be filled.

I interviewed here too. But as I learned through the sit-down interview, it was more of an on campus copy center job than a design job. Still not a bad place to interview. I could have gotten a free masters degree if I was up for it.

And finally in the spring of 2001 I interviewed here. Twice. I was offered the job. I hesitated, I countered, they countered. I hesitated more and then I turned it down. I would have missed my Nature family, the job was in the Bronx, I was living in Queens, it meant that I'd never be in Manhattan. Or I'd have to move to the Bronx and that scared me. It seemed lonely. And yet I always wondered what really would have happened, would I have loved it, would I still be there, or would it have been a big mistake? In the end everything has clearly worked out perfectly, I spent many years here and I am now happily right where I want to be. And thankfully for me, there is a mangled token of my Manhattan days on a street corner in my hometown.