60 Minute Cities: Buffalo

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"The more one was lost in unfamiliar quarters of distant cities, the more one understood the other cities he had crossed to arrive there; and he retraced the stages of his journeys, and he came to know the port from which he set sail, and the familiar places of his youth, and the surroundings of home..." *1

As with cities, it is with the self. At age 18 I left Buffalo and at age 24 I returned / I brought back a perspective of life colored by experiences in Ithaca, New York; New Haven, Connecticut; Port-au-Prince, Haiti; Dhenkanal, India; Accra, Ghana; and a few cities in Guatemala (of which Quetzaltenango was the one in which I became most lost) / Sometimes memories of the places of my past superimpose themselves on my present surroundings (e.g., a bench by the side of a metro stop in Buffalo is for a moment the very bench I sat on as I lost myself in the fountain’s song in Antigua’s Parque Central two years ago); sometimes the effect of distant cities on "the port from which [I] set sail" is less tangible, being no less significant / These recordings, recorded in the fall of 2019, helped me unearth the parts of me, past and present, that tend to hide away when I ponder what is meaningful to me; they have helped me bring to light parts of life that describe my psychosocial milieu in Buffalo / I hope these 60 minutes can illustrate in part the city of Buffalo in a way which provides the listener a space to perceive, to reflect, to be present (in memory or imagination), and to create meaning //

* 1: Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino

Connor Orrico is a medical student interested in global health, mental health, justice, and stories of people and place, based in Buffalo, New York //