What I See
As I rock along the subway line, and pass with throngs of others up and down the stairs, escalators, and ramps, and pour onto the city streets, I can feel the hum of the urban hive. Its rhythms, its rhymes, its pulse. It's heartbeat. These are the things I see.
On an average Monday, with mid-fall overcast skies and leaves beginning to change, billows of steam erupt from the sewers and rooftops. Those from the lower domains carry the odors of the city, those that out of towners notice and I've long learned to ignore. The ones from above, I look at them and wonder if they are the cast off dreams of New Yorkers awakening to find themselves in the cog again. Or, I wonder if they are the cast off dreams of New Yorkers who find themselves awash in regret the morning after, in the middle of, or years into the game. Are they the bellows of exasperated parents bemoaning weekends with ill children on a vomit train, to only awake on at 2 am Monday morning and crawl themselves into the bathtub to prevent tossing their own cookies or excrement across the bathroom? Are they lost cries of those without a voice, lost in the crowd, and cast off as an exasperation and waste of time?
I wander through Times Square and see the bewildered faces of travelers, seeing this city for the first or fourteenth time. Are they as enamored as I am? As I put one foot in front of the other, along the damp pavement, I can still remember my first view of this labyrinth. I was twenty, and I remember drinking soda and eating a bagel on 47th Street knowing this would not be my first or only venture to the center of the universe. A few more blocks and an older man touches me as we pass. I do not think he noticed, and I smile thinking “I must be a New Yorker” now that I don’t revolt in horror.
I find myself in my doctor’s office joking with the receptionist that it’s weird she works for a Greek physician and doesn’t speak the language, after all of these years. We joke about copays taking away my bourbon budget and the mundane things of the day to day. These are the rhythms of this city, the balance and the surreal, that volley us from day to day. The drummer on the subway, sans drums or a soundtrack, who rocks out and cheers for himself at the end of his show for the crowd that only he can see; the bodega owner on 72d—near Lex—who remembered me coming in from a handful of summers before after a day of vitamin D surfing between skyscrapers as he recalled the girl with the accent and smile; and the coffee shop I won't disclose as I love its seclusion and perceived obscurity: these are all the faces and layers that I see.
On the subway, heading home again it seems, I duck under a man’s arm and wonder why they still feel the need to do this. As I grasp a rail overhead, making myself just another straphanger, I overhear a French couple wondering how to get back to Union Square and I interject—shocking them—with a quick quip on stops and transfers. Somewhere, in the blink of an eye, the car fills up, and I look around wondering why we all are not gasping for air. The doors open, souls pour out, and souls roll in. Before I can blink again, my stop arrives and I push my way through the heard and out the door. On the platform the air hits me, the hustle of people nearly knocks me over, and one step in front of the other leads me home.
These are the things I see beneath it all. The breath of a new day. The question of life. The reason to go out. The dreams we all have, and had, that traverse in this city and weave through smoke, fire, wind, and rain to create the rhythms, sounds, and beauty we call home.
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