A fluctuating pace of life.

Dolores ParkThe pace and energy of New York embeds itself in our daily lives. When Daniel Quinn is following Stillman Sr. he had trouble keeping pace with the old man: “He was used to walking briskly, and all this starting and stopping and shuffling began to be a strain, as though the rhythm of his body was being disrupted. He was the hare in pursuit of the tortoise, and again and again he had to remind himself to hold back” (71). Though Quinn is quite familiar with both the City itself and wandering its streets and avenues aimlessly, the pace throws off his sense of place and he is suddenly unaccustomed to the task at hand. “The feel of a place is registered in one’s muscles and bones. A sailor has a recognizable style of walking because his posture is adapted to the plunging deck of a boat in high sea” (Tuan 184). Like the sailor, Quinn’s sense of New York is fast-paced; the physical movements of his body reflect this sense of place.

Quinn’s physical reaction to pace implies an innate sense of place that he denies (whether consciously or not) in the opening paragraphs of the novel. “New York was in inexhaustible space, a labyrinth of endless steps, and no matter how far he walked, no matter how well he came to know its neighborhoods and streets, it always left him with the feeling of being lost. Lost, not only in the city, but within himself as well… On his best walks, he was able to feel that he was nowhere” (4). It seems that, even in a trance-like state, the City’s energy influences the way that Quinn behaves; otherwise, it would not be such a challenge for Quinn to adapt to Stillman Sr.’s pace.

My own routines and habits in this City reflect the energy that New York represents for me; but, like Quinn, I am more attune to these changes when I am removed from my comfortable environment and my behavior is out of synch with another situation or place.

I find myself riding my bicycle faster and more aggressively than necessary when in San Francisco, for example. I’m accustomed to vehicular traffic barreling down the avenues. Without bike lanes (and sometimes even with them—6th Avenue comes to mind), my only hope to avoid the dreaded door zone is to take a lane and try to keep up with traffic. In SF, however, my riding style is unnecessary—rude even—and I struggle to adjust to the new place.

In other aspects, however, the Californian in me cannot adjust to New York’s frenetic lifestyle. Like Quinn, when he finally stops following Stillman Sr. and realizes that he can no longer sustain his previous pace, whenever I return from the west coast, I’m always shocked that I can manage to live here. Transitioning from entire days spent eating burritos, reading books and drinking beer in Dolores Park to a city where lazy days are seen as “unproductive” or, worse, “boring,” forces me to change my habits in accord with the location I’m in. When in Rome…