Astoria

Living in Queens is a funny thing.

If you want to feel completely out of place, devoid of any similarities to what feels like millions of people around you, it’s entirely possible. You can walk four blocks from the subway to your apartment, and never hear a single conversation in English. You can smell the restaurants that line the streets and not recognize a single scent. Brazilian, Greek, Thai, Chinese, Mexican, Spanish, Japanese. I never before realized that a scent could be both distinct and completely unfamiliar at once.

However, if you’re in need of some comfort, if you want to feel as though you are exactly where you’re meant to be, you can simply notice the overwhelming amount of twentysomethings navigating that rocky transition into adulthood. You can read on their faces the same worries and anxieties you carry on your own. You can go to yoga class and forget, if only for 90 minutes at a time, that you’re no longer living on campus in a house with 41 of your closest friends.

The beautiful thing about Astoria is that there is no pretense. It’s not Manhattan, where every night is expected to be the best of your life, or Brooklyn where one must constantly worry about looking cool without appearing as though they worry about looking cool. I almost want to go as far to say that Queens is filled with normal people, but then I remember that guy who sits on the stairs at the subway station singing reggae in pajamas, and I catch myself. It’s still New York.

It’s comforting to look around and not feel like you’re sticking out like a sore thumb, which only works here, because everyone sticks out. There is no norm. There is no cultural manifesto to fit yourself into, no checklist to ensure you’re perfectly matched to the borough in which you’ve landed.

Because sometimes, just hearing someone order a coffee and pronouncing it the way you’ve always known to be right is as much of a sign as you’ll ever need.