new york moments

(weheartit.com)

6:13 PM, Lafayette and 4th Street
My boots click darkly, with an almost militant precision, on the gum-spotted sidewalk. Black boots, black coat, black bag. So New York, especially on a cloudy day. My phone in the palm of my hand, as if I were an important person. I toss my hair back as I look behind me, trying to hail a cab uptown. I turn around, walking backwards, raising my arm in the air. A black towncar pulls over to me, offers me a set rate of fifteen dollars. I take it. I have places to be. I slide in, across the smooth soft leather seats. We sit in traffic. New York at rush hour. Being in the towncar makes me feel like an important person.

6:49 PM, 23rd Street between 7th and 8th Ave
I settle into my seat at the free screening of New York, I Love You. With the girls from my a cappella group, we are a loud, giggling bunch. Happy to see each other, in breathless anticipation for this movie that pays homage to a city we live in and breathe in and love in. Raisinets and popcorn. Nostalgia.

8:47 PM, 23rd Street and 5th Avenue
While making my way across the street, I focus on the black and white stripes of the crosswalk. Why don't I ever look up? Someone throws a glowing red, half-lit cigarette into my path, and I compose a line of a poem. It's only poetic because of the alliteration: still-smoking cigarette on city streets.

9:30 PM, 23rd Street and 3rd Avenue
Text messages, high hopes, letdowns.

10:18 PM, Underground
I wait for the 6 and stare blankly ahead, fluorescent lights casting a dim glow on the platform. Listening to my own iPod, I wonder what the others around me are listening to. The jock-type who looks like he just got done pumping iron? What if he's listening to Amadou & Mariam? Why stereotype?

10:32 PM, Lafayette and Canal Streets
The movie has gotten me thinking. Movies always make me introspective. Good ones, anyway. It is a movie about love, about human connections and relationships--with each other and with this city; a city of great possibility, opportunity, where anything can happen. But New York is also a very lonely place, especially when you are busy. I am busy, and lonely. You really have to like yourself in order to survive in New York: you spend a lot of time with yourself. You can only rely on yourself. And when you like yourself, love yourself, you have high self-confidence. Maybe that's why New Yorkers get a bad rep for walking in like they own the place. You have to think that way in order to succeed. No room for passivity.

11:13 PM, My Bedroom
I really am lonely. Where is my New York moment? You know, the one where a beautiful stranger asks you for a light on a street corner and your life is forever changed. But I guess that only happens in the movies. That's why I love movies. They make me dream.

11:24 PM, Still My Bedroom
Goodnight.