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As Eastern artistry goes, the heart folds under pressure.
Yet their creases are not lamented, they are celebrated. After all, cranes are formed by creasing diamonds over and over and over, until a crane begins to take shape.
My heart folds under pressure.
In these waves of constant uncertainties, I often find myself staying still, voiceless. Letting the chaos rush me by like an autumn wind that never seems to breeze past this corner of the world. There is something quite comforting in finding myself amidst the endless stream of people also caught up in their own bubbles of chaos and unknowns. All of the stories being written, characters being born, memories being captured. Everyone is fighting a battle no one else would ever be able to comprehend. Deep in my own hecticness, I always slow down and become quiet, and start listening to the world around me revolve in its usual disorder. Every piece of that disorder tells its own story, I just have to be attentive and observant enough to capture it.
Having recently moved even further from downtown Austin, I still do take my downtown walks often, regardless of how even more difficult the commute is than before and how progressively busy my life gets. I listen with my eyes and watch with my camera. The liveliness of a city that encapsulates everything that accompanies a metroplex undergoing its rapid growth. Laid back bars with businesspersons in suits and casuals in summerwear alike. Jazz clubs with highballs and saxophones glistening in their dim-lit auditoriums. Clear glass ballrooms with people of all generations dancing their hearts away to a tune oh so nostalgic. Local coffee shops catching a snippet of the daily lives of familiar faces amidst their hustling shifts. Parks being lit up with greenery, physical energy, conversations, smiles, dog barks, and the corporate city skyline.
The more I listen the more I see. The more I capture the more I understand. It’s hard to be lost in a city where everyone moves at their own pace, and the ones who move with yours are the ones you call community. You can’t be lost when everyone, in a sense, also is. For the longest time, my perception of Austin was that it was a city that had its growth outpacing its character development, that the city was growing way too fast for its own good, and was left in an identity crisis as to who it really was. But the longer I’ve been here, the more I realize that what I thought was its flaw is actually its main strength - the harmony in chaos. The city has a lane for everything and everyone, and every path shines just as bright as the next. The heart of the city reveals itself in the pressure of growth. In parallel, my heart folds itself amidst the pressure of chaos. As I observe the city, I am also deep in self-reflection. As I sit and listen, I am also listening to my own heart. It folds itself together into neat sections and speaks its own tune as it finds resonation within fragments of the stories it hears. Amidst a sprawling urban jungle where walks of people cross paths, everyone is trying their very best. The Origami drips through every crease as it extracts every note from a myriad of grind sizes before coming together in a coherent stream of experiential nectar. Like coffee, life is citric but sweet with a float of velvet passion.
After all, it wouldn’t be a bittersweet New York Sour without a touch of red wine.
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