A Mi sconception

Admittedly, I was staring.  At his arms.  The weather was warm and I was trying to figure out from the distance of my seat on the bus, what he had on his arms.  Was it tatooes?  Was it skin grafts….? I had to really stare at him to make my brain interpret.  At the same time, I was uncustomairly listening to music with earbuds in.  The bus was stopped in traffic for a long time so I had a long stare.  Finally, I could decipher it.  The design on his arms was the sleeves of  his shirt which he was wearing under the leather vest; his arms were not bare.  However, my staring had caught the attention of one of the 4 men around the table and he saw my stare as intrusive and inappropriate.  I was also wearing sunglasses, so as well as not being able to read my mind, he couldn’t see my eyes.  All of a sudden, this table mate started acting up.  Gestures and noises that brought my attention to him.  A few of them outspoken.  And then I realized that I had been staring at 4 gay men who were celebrating something, but obviously he thought I was staring at 4 gay guys… As he made some other movement, I lifted my sunglasses, smiled and waved.  Caught him off guard and he stopped mid movement and waved back, just as the bus began to move.  He had no idea it was all about the arms.

The Traveling Plant

There was a deep sweetness to the scene:

At the 42nd street stop today, a young woman, carrying a small upright potted plant in her left hand stood up to exit the subway car.  She held the plant firmly, about eye height, so it would be seen and not crushed by the crowd.  The door opened and she and the plant along with the two bags in her right hand, exited amid the jostle of other passengers.   There was something about the thought of this plant taking a trip. It radiated an energy, a contentment. I know it sounds like I’m losing it, but the plant in pot had started someplace and now was traveling with her to another destination.  What had it seen and heard along the way?  What had it experienced?  I don’t know, all of a sudden it took on a life of its own with ears and eyes wide open.  I swear it had a leaf smile.

Bustime

This is truly the very best thing since sliced bread. On a smart phone, just by googling Bustime, you can follow the progress of the bus, as it makes its way along the route. If waiting for the M11 and you can’t see it coming down 9th Avenue at 11:20 pm and don’t know whether to gamble a wait, or walk the 5 blocks to the metro, [and can imagine the bus arriving as you arrive at the metro-the bus is a better end stop], enter the bus number, anytime of day and see where the bus is,  One can gauge whether to ‘hang out’ or leave or take a cab.  A winner!!!

What Do You Do?

Options:  Scream, yell, curse, curse and yell again. The train has just entered the station and is pulling to a stop. There you are at the turnstile, swipe the card in the card reader.  The train door opens.  You bump up against the turnstile, expecting it to flip over and it catches the top of your thigh.  Hard. It has not moved. You look down,  don’t have time to read the green message, swipe the card again, push up against the turnstile with already insulted thigh bone.  No give.  Now you bend and read the green message, by squinting and it says, “Swipe Again”. The train doors have now closed.  You swipe again, read the green word “Go”, move the turnstile forward as the train pulls away and out of the station.  Repeat first options?

No Good Deed…

Tuesday morning the weather turned cold, and the City awoke to big white snow flakes floating to the ground.  My good-sam mode kicked in and I decided to gift a homeless person a warm pair of wool blend tights.  At the bottom of the 4th Street station, the very bottom, is where I, as previously reported, see the largest gatherings.  [I’ve decided it must be one of the entrances to the underground life complex.]  So on the way to my appointment I look across the tracks and platform, see a couple of carts and figure I will ‘gift’ on my return.  I return.  I step out of the train, and just 10 steps away, under the shelter of the stairs is a small Asian woman.  She cannot be more than 4’6″ and is leaning forward on the pulled up handle of a suitcase, working with a pencil on a piece of paper.  She is wearing quilted pants, in a shade of red with black trim, dusty, scuffed black boots and some sort of jacket.  Her black hair is straight, she had on a hat, but I don’t remember the description.  She is standing, marking with a pencil the top paper of a sheaf of papers.  She is very intense.  In addition to the suitcase in front of her, flanking her on her right and left side are two stacks of belongings.  On the far side, the stack is a bit higher.  On the near side, my side, the stack is only two items tall.  The bottom item is square and about 15″ tall and sitting on that is a neatly tied white plastic bag about 12x 10×10.  That all is so meticulously arranged, although she is clearly deeply grimed, strikes me.  In the next nano seconds I make the following decisions:  I wait for the subway train to close its doors and move on.  Then I will approach her.  However, the train is delayed.  The doors don’t close and the train doesn’t move.  A few seconds have passed and most every one else who disembarked when I did, have left.  I was waiting because I didn’t want to make a show of gifting, I wanted to be circumspect.  But nothing is happening and I am caught in this freeze frame.  I decide to approach her, train and occupants or not.  I move forward the 10 steps and three steps away I begin to say “Here are some war….” and I bend through my knees to place ‘my gift’ atop the white rectangle plastic bag.  At the moment of my downward movement, she turns away from her ‘work on the paper’ and toward my intended destination at the same time letting loose with a screech the likes of which I have never heard.  It was an enormous sound of terror and panic and the volume was larger than the space in which it was delivered.  I froze once again, in my tracks.  In that instant I was aware of the stillness of the train, the doors being open and all the occupants within witnessing what no one could possibly understand was happening.  I wasn’t frightened, I was instantly struck by her panic and her flight or fight reaction.  I realized that I so did not understand what made her tick and that my gesture was from her point of view 180 degrees from the one swimming around in my head.  I closed my hand around the warm tights, unbent my knees and straightened myself.  I walked away.  At the other side of the stairs was one of those tall, black, round tidy trash receptors found on every train platform.  I approached it and draped the tights over the edge, with the thought that someone might find them that way.  I walked to the escalator.  It was only as I was a few steps up the escalator that I realized the train was just pulling out.

Dead of Night

Passed by these blossoms in the dead of night, and for some reason was astounded to see them in full bloom.  Don’t know what I expected, if I thought they would close up at night, as some do.  There they stood in beauty.