Dreams that change, but also stay the same.

a reflection on an admissions decision and on falling in love with new york city

It’s funny how dreams work.

Many will recount my naive proclamations of life as an Artist in New York City. The city that movies are made of, the city of creative energy and new beginnings. When I was ten, that was my plan. I idealised living in the big city while laying in my purple-tinted room. I had no concept of reality but clearly imagined creating art and wandering the streets.

But approaching sixteen, things changed. I took a trip to London and fell in love with the days and became awestruck by the space. Over the following months, I rationalised this sudden change of heart by relating it to my vagabond fears of existing in my own society. London was my idea of the perfect cultural centrepiece to the values I admired at home. It was the artistically enhanced and historically embellished Singapore and that sounded comforting to me. So when I found out that my future after high school could place me in the top art schools in the new city of my dreams, I remodelled everything I had previously planned out. I would go to the city of my new dream: directly to London. I could remain a traveller for the rest of my life. It further concretised my resolutions about living in America with the current news cycles, it facilitated the argument that I was not American and would never need to subscribe to any sort of nationality. I could remain forever a citizen of the world and my incomprehension of any sort of patriotism could remain comfortably as it was. So when the time came, applying to schools in America felt like an unnecessary nuisance. It was a back-up of a back-up, forced upon me. The need to write additional pieces about the schools in passionate language exceeded my capacity of putting up a facade and was a consumption of time that I would otherwise happily devote to art. By that point, I had completely abandoned New York City. The youthful dreams of the Big Apple had been dismissed as baseless ideals that didn’t seem very meaningful anymore. Throughout the application process, all that circled my mind was Location, Location, Location. And, with absolute certainty, location was London. Its crazy to imagine that I had reconstructed a year’s worth of dreaming from a single visit.

On the 14th of January, I sent in my UK applications which I had mulled over tirelessly for weeks. The essay was submitted and a terrible emptiness overtook me. I had given up control over my future and my track record with patience wasn’t promising. Out of pure restlessness, I made a rash decision to send in just one more application. It was in that same instance that I felt a hit of nostalgia for the city I had forgotten. Suddenly, I needed New York City—but for now, simply as a possibility. I spent the whole day sunken into the chair crafting another unfounded essay one day before the final deadline. I was to spend a month in New York in a couple weeks’ time, I’ll check it out, I thought.

My long-awaited adventure to visit the schools in London arrived. That week I spent in the city of my dreams was full of all the charm I had imagined it would have; beautiful and quiet neighbourhoods between the bustling cultural centre, international faces walking by me, and the melody of every foreign accent. I had arrived and my love had been validated. The schools seemed like what I wanted since I had nothing to compare it to, and I was satisfied. Unwillingly, I flew across the pond into Chicago and Baltimore. On the tours, unfortunately for me, I was impressed with the schools themselves. I am afraid to say that I may have even liked them more. But my stubborn stance remained. Location Location Location and no extensive facilities could be better than life in London. At this point, NY was still an afterthought.

In the final days of February, I came into New York feeling simply homesick. It had been two months of withdrawal and all the loneliness that London had clouded started flooding in again. All I wanted was to be back home: to home in Singapore. But I knew that if I came home now, I’d spend the days reluctantly unemployed and aimless. And so I decided to suck it up and be grateful for the incredible opportunity to stay a month with no responsibility in the heart of New York City. It started off slow. I went to museums and Pinterest-recommended tourist spots, and spent a whole lot of time in cafes with writer’s block. I scheduled a campus tour of the New York school and carried along with the program. It impressed me just as much as the other American schools…

It is hard for me to pinpoint exactly when things started to change, when my mind and heart started to battle. Very early on I don’t believe I was even aware of a battle ensuing. I woke up one morning to the final two acceptance letters: New York and London were now up to me. I’d let that sink in for the time being. I attended classes and found a studio to work in. I began to enter a routine of productivity. I began to understand the Subway map and the exits at Union Square. As a city girl embarrassed to appear lost in a hectic city, getting to know my way around was a welcoming feeling I noticed coming along. The energy of the city engulfed me. The musically-hypnotised buskers in the stations and the risky performers on the trains. The people that stopped rushing for a few minutes to enjoy the music and give a dollar in support. The immense number of art galleries and the edgier artsy areas where it seemed every young person introduced themselves as an artist. The historic tenements and the graffiti of extraordinary scale and vibrancy. The small coffee shops that you could lose hours in reading. The durian stalls in Chinatown that gave me even just an inkling of home; Brighton Beach that felt like a piece of land extracted directly from Moscow just for me; Coney Island that was an escape from reality altogether. I walked through the crooked streets downtown on a late Monday Night and there was no suggestion of anyone going to bed. I strolled the avenues towards the horizon with an uplifting feeling because nobody eyed me in judgement of my clothes or gait. I was charmed by the small apartments that weren’t a bother because as long as you’ve made it here and worked tirelessly at what you love, you’re amongst all the lovers and creators and dreamers and the beautiful energy that makes it truly the most amazing city.

I began in New York counting down the days until I could go back home, but time passed fleetingly—as it does when you’re falling in love—and I boarded the plane feeling like my time had run out and the idea of home was more ambiguous than ever before.

Although with each passing day in NYC, I felt more and more sure of my commitment decision, I thought it best to wait until I was detached from all of it for confirmation. More practical things were falling into the spreadsheet of evaluation. America had incentivised me with pecuniary lures. In New York, I could earn two degrees instead of one, I could develop more structurally and technically but also be pushed towards social justice. New York, as such, would give me greater purpose.

Now, the final issue, which I had casually expelled with naive dreams of London crept back in, terrifying me yet giving me clarity: Immigration, Citizenship, being employed or being kicked out. All this stung me rather painfully right after high school graduation and the arrival back into Singapore officially in the tourist aisle twisted the knife. It was time for me to find my bearings, to be unafraid of status and secure with my identity. All of this pointed in only one direction and everyone wondered as to why this was even a discussion. Why was I uncertain about a dilemma that didn’t exist? It took me a while to understand myself, but the answer was simple: sometimes dreams change. Sometimes those gut feelings in a moment of restless hollow are the ones to trust with your destiny and sometimes the naive ten-year-old version of yourself is wiser than you could ever envision.

With love, Anna Scola

April 2018