I dunno if this happens to all you people who moved here from somewhere else. But. This city. Like, usually, you’re running to the subway, or late to work, or to meet a friend (sorry guys!), or need to get to the right train car before it gets too crowded, or are stumbling home tipsy or exhausted from a bar and just want to catch a fucking cab so you can get home without that ten minute walk from the train to your house because you forgot your umbrella and the rain drops are starting feel like fucking ice.
Then. You catch that cab and don’t call or text anyone and just look out the window. Or you take the train and it goes over the bridge and realize you just caught the sunset. Or you find that tiny umbrella you bought a million years ago at Daffy’s in the bottom of your purse (they sell good umbrellas) and can relax for a minute dry and in the rain. Or you just remember to look up.
And for me I smell that smell the rain makes when it hits the sidewalk and it’s just warm enough to soak the concrete through. Or look up at the sunset hitting the skyscrapers the way it did when I was three and we’d be driving back from my grandma’s house on the FDR and I knew we were almost home. Or how I feel lonely if I live somewhere where I can’t hear my neighbor’s shower through the wall. Or how I know that all those people on the street I don’t know and would never make eye contact with, some of those people would do more courageous things to help a stranger than non-strangers have done to help loved ones. That’s New York. Not some weird hype or making it or fame or whatever that new miniseries on hulu is about. This city is hard, this city beautiful. It’s huge and amazing and could not give two shits about who you are. So instead we have to look out for each other. We’re not gonna bake cookies for our neighbors (poison!) or say hi to a stranger on the street (rapist!). But we will tell you if we think another train will get you there faster, or if the subway turnstile is broken at that entrance. And if you’re passing out drunk outside a bar I will ask if you are ok and call you a cab home.
