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19 years ago. I want to say to remember what it was like in the city that day, but I was stuck at friend’s house in the Hamptons. I watched it unfold on TV like everyone else in the world.
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![19 years ago. I want to say to remember what it was like in the city that day, but I was stuck at friend’s house in the Hamptons. I watched it unfold on TV like everyone else in the world.[THREAD]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EhpBQmtX0AAGOfA.jpg "19 years ago. I want to say to remember what it was like in the city that day, but I was stuck at friend’s house in the Hamptons. I watched it unfold on TV like everyone else in the world.[THREAD]")
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What I do remember was it was my 21st year. I had just graduated college and moved back to NYC to start my life as a would-be professional musician. I played the first gig of my own songs at Sidewalk Cafe a week later.
I spent that entire summer going to open mics to get that 30 minute, 7pm slot. I went ahead and played the show, despite a handful of people in the audience and an atmosphere of mourning. I was in denial.
The New York of my 20s and 30s was defined by the aftermath of those 16 minutes. It separated the city I grew up in from the city of my young adulthood. Now here I am, in my 40th year, and the city is being transformed yet again, but in a much slower, duller and crueler fashion.
I, like so many others, am faced with yet another reinvention: then it was college kid to rock star wannabe. Now it’s piano man to father of two and who knows what else. As unsettling as it is, times like these are a reminder of what it means to be an artist.
It shows us the tightrope of uncertainty we walk. 19 years ago I had the naïveté and cockiness to waltz across the wire. This time around, the drop feels all too real.
Today I look to this image for inspiration. We are all between 2 buildings. I’m trying my best to be like Phillippe & put one foot in front of the other. On good days, I find his bravery to stop and lie down and take in the view. We’ll be on the other side before you know it.
