Magical Things I''ve Seen in New York It all started with a grumpy September afternoon. Two weeks after moving to New York, I was walking down Second Avenue in my least favorite kind of weather--overcast but humid, the worst of both worlds. I was carrying a grocery bag that was going to fall apart at any minute and wearing the wrong shoes, and I was sweaty in the long sleeves I''d ambitiously worn that day in hopes that early fall would deliver a nice chill. Silly me. Mindlessly devouring Twitter for news as I waited to cross the street, I was startled by the sound of two pigeons arguing about something in the road. They were pecking, squawking, generally making a very unnecessary ruckus. When the traffic began moving, a young, hip guy on a bike braked with a screech and pulled over toward the sidewalk. Getting off his bike, he quickly looked both ways and walked right into the street to lightly stomp near the birds.
"Hey, guys, knock it off!" he yelled, and the pigeons broke off their fight. It was so absurd it made me laugh, but he earnestly got back on his bike and kept going. Sort of a magical New York moment. I made note of it in my journal. Since then, I''ve kept a running list of "Magical Things I''ve Seen in New York." The criteria: they have to take me out of what I''m doing and immerse me in the city''s human landscape. The experience may only last a few seconds, but the effect lingers for hours. Instead of whisking myself away from the city, as I sometimes dream of doing when I''m carrying a heavy grocery bag in grey humidity, these observations wedge me in deeper.
After scrolling through a depressing comments section and concluding that "humans are awful," joining people on the sidewalks of this city changes my stance to "humans are complex" and even "humans are wonderful." When I decided to move to New York, I could barely finish my sentence "I''m moving to Ne--" without someone piping up "I like New York but I could never live there." Outrageous living expenses aside, I wonder why people feel that way, and so strongly. As a highly sensitive introvert who can barely listen to chewing noises, much less a cacophony of sirens and honking, I of all people should be going around announcing the same stance. Instead, I think sensitivity is a strange asset in a big city; you''re more naturally attuned to secret moments and nuances that make it feel cozy and kind. It''s not easy to be attentive, just as it''s not easy to be optimistic when the world is feeling overheated and overwhelming. While attentiveness might come a bit more easily for the super-sensitive, it still takes a lot of effort for anyone to stop and really look around. But to love New York, you have to train yourself to be attentive and to be on the lookout for the moments that make it feel homey; otherwise, you''ll probably feel like you''re being swallowed up most of the time.
It takes energy to observe, not simply just to see. Of course, it''s way easier to be attentive when you''re new to a city or when you''re on vacation there. That''s the allure of travel for me: it''s amazing what I notice when I have an excuse to be wholly present. Everything is new and darling, even when it''s inconvenient and confusing. To become as present in your own city as you would be while traveling, you have to make the city feel new: take a different commute home, listen to different music, go into restaurants where you haven''t looked at the menu beforehand and may not be sure what to order. You have to get a little disoriented, even annoyed. That''s what it''s like to be around humans, who are unpredictable and often annoying. Trust me, treasures await among the noise and energy: a sign on a bakery door will melt your heart or you''ll overhear an interaction so sweet that your massive city feels like a fictional town from a Christmas movie.
When I encounter tangible kindness in front of me in my own city--not just cute viral videos but kindness I can see in my own bustling neighborhood--it makes me want to be better. It makes me feel like the momentum of our humanity is not plunging into mayhem but gliding into slow and gentle progress. The sirens become tolerable to me when I imagine them as wild opera singers who have gone rogue. If someone is walking very slowly in front of me, I imagine the possibilities that could be contributing to their leisurely pace; perhaps they are recovering from an incident that could have taken their life but that was gracious enough to take their fast gait instead, or perhaps they are too early for a first date, or perhaps they are trying to align their steps with the rhythm of their heartbeat. I decide to take a detour past the dog park and watch a golden retriever take a bath. The street appears as more of an invitation than an obstacle. I miss New York when I''m in New York. I either feel this way because I love it so much that being here is not quite enough to satiate my longing, or because I miss the way New York felt when I visited for the first time.
Before I had a quotidian experience of the city, I had a wide-eyed tourist''s experience. Every fire-escape staircase, every subway ride, and every front door was magnificent. Once a place becomes home, it rarely remains magnificent. It''s comfortable, and even Manhattan can feel a little boring on a humid Tuesday. That''s why it''s a discipline and a practice for me to keep it magical. Especially when I feel like the internet is yelling at me, or when I''m so irritated with my commute that I begin cursing the crowd like it''s a singular unit rather than a mass of individuals like me. In those moments, I take a pause and try to pretend I just got here. I listen, and I watch, and I make lists of magical things.
I record the split seconds of magic, humor, kindness, and grace that give me the sense that I have escaped into the kind of world I dream of inhabiting. I''m not away from the chaos--rather, I''m right in the middle of it--but I am away from the despair, the disorientation, and the easy irritation that I''m so desperate to flee when the weather is bad and the news is worse. Here''s my list so far: 1. A sign on the window of a pet food store said that two senior cats that had lived there for months had been adopted. On the sign, people left Post-it Notes reading "We love you guys!" and "Enjoy your new home!" 2. A seventy-six-year-old woman at a nightclub on a Tuesday 3. I witnessed a secret code between a bartender and a regular who brings her dates to that bar. One ice cube = staff likes him.
Two ice cubes = they don''t. 4. A couple danced the tango five stories above the sidewalk 5. I had an ear infection that prevented me from using earbuds for a few days, during which I learned that the man who stretches by the fountain every morning does so while jamming to opera on an emergency radio 6. A bench at the park dedicated to "Writer, gastronome, polymath, bon vivant"--the kind of legacy that provokes you to consider your own 7. A subway door opened and two friends were perfectly lined up facing each other. They squealed! 8. A taxi driver dropped me off and said, "Whoa! I lived here forty years ago! We had a baby and a piano! The neighbors hated us! But they couldn''t hate away our love!" 9.
Two doormen did a secret handshake of delight when a resident took a date home 10. I sat next to a group of teenage boys at Hadestown. At first I was skeptical about their desire to be there, but they were so excited and enthusiastic and engaged, it made the experience 10,000x more joyful. 11. A couple holding hands through an entire play squeezed each other so hard at the emotional peaks that it shook the row 12. A secret garden 13. Window cleaners gracefully glided in sync to the Brahms sonata playing via my headphones 14. A museum security guard practiced bachata moves in an empty room 15.
A kid made his mom laugh with his observations about his classmates, and she said, "I needed that today." 16. A gruff-looking, no-?nonsense businessman gave fifty dollars to a street musician playing "Maria" from West Side Story 17. An elegant dame dining solo asked the waiter to take her photo so she could "remember this pleasure" 18. I shared a communal coffee-shop table with a father and his two-year-old son. The dad told his kid, "Be very careful when drinking water around the lady''s laptop--water and computers are not friends." The child looked up at him and said, "Maybe they should try just talking to each other." 19.
An Arabic speaker and a Korean speaker were trying to remember the English word for something, which turned out to.