New York, New York

I've been doing a study on people's lives in large cities for a month now. I guess this could be why I've been unwittingly, or subconsciously, drawn to films about, or set in New York lately. Just yesterday, I saw three: New York, I Love You, The Visitor and Precious.

The first gives glimpses of love in the city, the other two discuss the hopes and dreams of New York's marginalised illegal immigrants and minorities. All have an ephemeral quality to them, which makes me very sad.

New York is a city of impermanence. Family is not permanent, but poverty creates troubles in places once sacred. Troubles are not permanent, but the road leading to the exit is treacherous, the only guiding light is one's own strong will. Like Precious'. Maybe the dire conditions she's been born into, psychological more than physical, have given her strength to clear her own path.

Love is not permanent. Neither is hate, loneliness, life. Everything comes and goes at will. It will be very easy to meet people and make friends in the Big Apple, just as easy as it is to lose them. That is why there is this constant dynamism that is the shifting undercurrent of the city's social fabric. Always nudging, pushing, shoving. Like the loom. In and out in a rhythm of beats that ease coloured threads of any make and quality, this way and that, to form and reform complex patterns on this giant piece of fabric that is New York City.

This outsider remains intrigued. For all the impermanence that it offers, she hopes to satiate this permanent dream of return to the City since that fine September day in 2001. This October.