October 31, 2006

There's something about New York...

I've received many requests to promulgate about our recent trip to NYC and, though I thought about the city all the while I was there, all the trip home and more than ever now that I'm back to my old routine, I just can't seem to get it right. So here's the best I could do. It's a start. It's the beginning.

There is something about New York. It’s in the air, it’s on the street, it’s not in the alleys, but it’s up high on a tenement fire escape. And at the very same moment it’s not, because it’s reaching out to shelter the sidewalk traffic while pushing a stroller and sleeping on church steps. It is walking one of those unimaginably small dogs. It is driving a sailboat on a shallow pond in the park. It is sitting next to you, pushing by you, stepping on your foot in the subway, showing you the way. It is ignoring you. It is hurried.

It’s dancing in the subway. It’s selling tamales. It takes your dollar with a genuine smile. It’s just trying to get by. It’s lining half of central park west with patriotic lights spinning. It’s frontin’. It’s real. It’s cursing, spitting, slurring, working the angles. It’s seen it all. It doesn’t see a thing.

It is immense in a way that consumes you the second you enter it. It is red, brown, yellow, grey and smoke. It laughs. It plays. It is running, running, running. It is in uniform. It talks too much.

It is unsure how it's going to make it through the night. It is cold. It is just asking for a moment of your time, just a moment, and maybe a quarter. It is passing God's blessing on to you.
It’s a battleground for lost souls. You can look for it, but it will find you first.

It is all this, and much, much more. It is something I can only see a little of as an outsider, and can understand only by letting my imagination run with the idea that someday I may be able to see it from the inside. It'll get me yet, moreso than it already has.


More to come... and love to all.. Victoria.

3 comments:

Julee Ann said...

I must go to this place of which you speak.
A. Julee

savvycityfarmer said...

What a perfect scenario to be in with the one you love...



love, mom

gng10to7plus1 said...

Almost makes me want to go there. Almost!!

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