Feeding New York City

Jose Altamirano

photo credit: Jose Altamirano

Feeding New York City under cloudy skies, on damp streets, is a strenuous job. I’ve been hunched over for hours packing bags, repeating the same words in my mind – four potatoes, three apples, two carrots, one bunch of kale – one muscle almost cramping, sweat falling like hail.

“Hey look! It’s raining.” my co-worker tells me. I look up to face the dark clouds and the falling water droplets seem thicker than small grapes. Standing under the cover of a blue tent, performing my "essential" job, I realize just how much I miss the smell of petrichor—wet dirt after fresh rains. I stare and stare as the rain falls onto the garden’s fresh-laid soil.

After some reflection, I realize that there are only so many video games to conquer, so many Facebook stories to watch, so many TikToks to see, before the mind gets sick of being there.

I used to dream, throughout my arduous semesters, of being at home and doing the very things I am complaining of now.

Now, I wish that my wishes had remained just that—wishes.

Jose Altamirano is a student at CCNY who has enjoyed literature since he was in the fourth grade. As a child of immigrants with big dreams, his family wanted him to have the fancy title of medical doctor, but he went ahead changed his major from biotechnology to English anyway. @joaltami