Do It For The Story!

I love watching Casey Neistat videos on YouTube. I think they are really well-made, frequently uplifting, and, most importantly, spread great advice on how to live your life to the fullest. Although there are so many people in my life giving great advice, sometimes hearing it from someone you don’t even know is what sparks change. One piece of advice I’ve gathered from watching Casey’s videos is to do it for the story. What does that mean? It means sometimes you have to just drop everything and do something spontaneous for the good of telling the story later on. I’m not a spontaneous person. I like following a plan, and I don't enjoy it when plans change. I hear this advice and wish I could be that type of person. From time to time, I think I do follow Casey’s advice, and this post is telling one of those stories. If you haven’t read my post from this past Friday, I highly recommend reading that before you read the rest of this post. This is a continuation of that story and the night that followed a wonderful concert. We left the Barclays Center a bit after eleven at night. There was a flurry of concert-goers finding their way to the cab-lined street. Originally, that was our plan too. Find a cab or Uber and take it all the way back to FIT. As each cab was occupied, one by one, I suggested to my dad, “Why don’t we walk all the way back?” I think I didn’t really think it would happen. I thought he’d concede and find us a car. He asked a driver if he would take us to Manhattan, and the driver asked, “Cash or Card?” We both had no cash on us, and the driver said he was only looking for cash only. I later found out cab drivers aren’t allowed to refuse service like that. With no car left to try, we decided to walk all the way to FIT. I suggested we do it for the story. It may take a while and be a bit long of a walk for nearly midnight, but it surely will be a great story to tell. It will be a great way to cap off a great night. As we reached the Manhattan Bridge, we thought we made a wrong turn or something. It didn’t look like there was a walkway. We started to turn around until my trusty SnapMap showed us there was a cycling lane nearby. We had to walk through a small shady field, a place I never thought to see myself with my dad. We then had to hop over a small concrete wall to get onto the path. I think we knew it was a cycling-only path, but we thought that late at night we would be okay. There were plenty of cyclists blazing past us. It began to drizzle a quarter of the way onto the bridge, and that didn’t make things much better. I’ve never been a fan of heights. Before walking over the water, you walk over a bunch of buildings. That gave the distance down to the ground much more of a scale. I just had to stare at my feet and put one in front of the other. Once we got over the water, it was better. The void of pure black made it easy to think it was a small drop. My dad jokingly said, “At least there hasn’t been a subway passing us by to shake our feet!” Of course, right as he said it, with perfect timing, a subway car came thrashing by. The noise was really loud, and our feet began shaking beneath us. It sucked. I was thinking, “Dude, you had to fucking say that.” When we finally got off the bridge, we tried making it towards familiar ground. We wanted to get to Bleecker Street Pizza. We made our way to SoHo, and it started raining more consistently. We weren’t quite sure that Bleecker was open, so we were also looking for other food. There’s a café In SoHo I have always wanted to go to, so we tried to see if they were open. They were, kind of. They had just closed down their kitchen, but the bar was open. My dad and I got a Guinness, carried on our lengthy conversation, and kept on walking. It was still raining when we left the café, so we wanted to get going. We finally made it to Bleecker Street Pizza, and they were open. Thank God! We ate our pizza, which my dad liked, but not as much as L’Industrie. I walk back from Bleecker Street all the time. That walk feels routine. After walking from Brooklyn, it is no longer routine. The last few streets felt long, but eventually, we arrived at FIT. We ended up watching some TV and falling asleep. I love walking and talking with my dad. We always find some topic of conversation that is followed by another and another until we reach our destination. This long walk was no different. We talked non-stop for the whole two hours, in the rain, it took us to make it back. We walked for the story and made good memories out of it. There are many places and things I have done with my dad that I’ll never forget, but this walk is one I certainly won’t forget. Do it for the story, and it’ll pay off, I promise. Happy Wednesday!