NYC, What Makes it Good Makes it Hard

So today I listened to inmates serving life sentences talking about a scene in their head, played over and over, of that first moment when father reunites with son. Is it sad? Is it angry? Is it loving?
I listened to an old couple share their very first date, their very first daily love letter (a sort of romantic weather report), and their last week together as they said goodbye and acknowledged an unstoppable cancer. Is it sad? Is it angry? Is it loving?
I listened to executioners explain how quickly they can secure a man about to be executed, how quickly the drugs go through the bloodstream, and how long they stare right into your eyes during the whole thing. Is it sad? Is it angry? Is it loving?

I'm quickly learning that JSchool, as the sort of incubator of lives and ideas, is the place where New York passes through the halls daily. In a single, overly-air conditioned room today, sixteen students produced two-minute audio tracks profiling sixteen strangers from around the city. We worked for hours, staring at the screen, messing with sound levels, rewriting narration, and grimacing at the sound of our own voices. The whole time, I felt wildly out of control. I was rushing to meet a deadline. I was sifting through an interview that ran thirty minutes over because I couldn't stop it. But there must have been something else, because beyond the usual anxiety of a deadline, I felt emotionally out of control. I couldn't sort through the emotions but as I was editing this man's life, a steady rush of something I can only translate as "NOW! NOW! WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN THIS ROOM, IN THIS SCHOOL, IN THIS CITY, WITH THIS STRANGER'S VOICE ON YOUR COMPUTER? NOW!" dominated my thoughts.

And later that day, listening to David Isay of StoryCorps present his interview pieces described above, I started to sort it out. New York isn't just a big, bustling, anonymous city. It's a million jarring experiences. Not loud noises, bright lights, or strange smells. It's a million unexpected moments of clarity, of seeing another person and suddenly realizing you've been seen too. Seen in a way you've never been seen before. And journalism isn't just a million pieces of information and noise. It's a million, painful moments where you heart is pierced with needle and thread and tied to somebody else's and you didn't even know you had one. You had forgotten.
Is it sad? Is it angry? Is it loving?

Whatever it is, it's all any of us can offer.