Travelogue: Transition, Day 4

Last year when I was working at a bookstore in Brooklyn, I was chatting to one of my coworkers (as you do in retail) and he asked, "is there anything that makes you cry that you don’t think makes most people cry? Like, certain things that aren’t really sad, but trigger something for you?"

And the answer, of course, is yes. I suspect we all have things like that. (For me--certain works of art, especially Vermeer paintings, the end bits of some operas, certain letters and emails, and every single Pixar movie.)

I then asked him if he had anything that made him cry and he wasn’t sure why. He thought for a bit, and said that if he had been outside of New York City for the weekend or something and was on the Amtrak back into the city, the first look at the skyline, particularly at night, would make him cry. Despite being Brooklyn born and bred, he said he forgot how miraculous that view of Manhattan is until approaching it from the Amtrak.

Tonight, as I took the Amtrak into the city, I understood.

Even better than that view, though, was the people watching I got in on the subway. NYC, whatever one can say about it, is not dull, and I could use some not dull right now. Some things that I saw:

--4 teenage boys giving each other hugs before they got out at their respective stops.

--2 older women discussing Japanese flower arranging, Bonsai trees, the Botanical Gardens, and their community garden. One of them was the chair of her community garden and had just taken a class on pruning, and when her friend asked if she had a committee to help her, she replied, "sure, I have a committee, but they are a bunch of New Yorkers. What do New Yorkers know from trees and grass? Nothing."

--2 very tall, very thin 16ish year old boys with an 8ish year old girl (their sister, I assumed) on the shuttle. She kept chattering at them about her school day, and when they got off, they told her they would pull her flowered backpack. She started giggling and said, "you look so silly!" and a guy and I behind them started laughing and one of the boys said, "hey! this isn't my backpack, alright?"

--a man swing dancing by himself on the subway platform.