you just stop and smile

However, stopping in NYC doesn’t really exist.  How can it when there are thousands of people all moving in many different directions…and being that it was my very first time there, it was hard not to imagine that there MUST be some kind of event going on; something bringing all these people there.  I was right and wrong.  Not one single event but many many events that happen every day at every hour.  The event of moving forward.  The event of choosing your own path and going towards it.  And there are so many ways of transportation to help in this kind of event: taxis, bikes, speeding subways, trains, and the trustworthy tread of feet.  Your either apart of it or your a bystander.  I was mostly a bystander yesterday.  Taking it all in.

I was taken to NY by Casey.  Never did I think it was going to be her.  For awhile I thought it was to be my dear sister.  She talked highly of it at one time and I foolishly believed her.  And then he said he would.  He said that he would take me to his favorite chinese place…something Woo.  I treasured knowing that I’d get to see the city through his eyes.  He grew up on Long Island and I was to see it with him.  We always had plans to go.  And on the train into the city (by the way, Casey, announced to the entire back part of the train that it was my first trip into the city so the conductor put his hat on my head)   My face turned red…as red as the glass of wine we had at a Scottish Pub once we finished with little Martin’s agent meet and greet.  I cannot imagine seeing the city with anyone else but Casey.  Her brilliant energy matched all those strangers around me.  She bought me a beautiful purple scarf from a street vendor in honor of my initial visit.  She paid for us to go to the top of Rockefeller Building to look over and feel like King Kong.  We laughed.  A lot.

She said that I must experience the subway.  Casey instructed me with each step.  How to purchase a subway card, how to put money on it, how to understand the signs down below: she pointed out the tiles indicating where we were in relation with the streets above us.  We quickly board and unable to find a seat so we stand.  Casey was still instructing me about something else when the damn thing lurches forward, fast.  Instinctually, I grab a bar.  She does too.  We both grab the stroller.  Casey smiles and her eyes sparkle “I forgot mention that part.  Hold on.  Always hold on.”  As we braced ourselves, I smiled back.

And in complete awe, I smiled again.  They say, well some say, that new yorkers are too busy to be polite.  They actually are far from it.  There was the woman who helped Casey carry down the stroller a flight of stairs while I grappled with the car seat carrier.  There was the gay angel who gracefully rode up the escalator  and saw Casey scrutinizing over a map and offered up his assistance.  And then the woman who gave me a bouquet of yellow tulips.  Because I opened the door for her at Grand Central Station.  A minute went by and she came back and found me.  She took out the bouquet from her shopping bag filled with other flowers.  She genuinely thanked me.  I didn’t get a chance to thank her, too.