Good to See You, Brooklyn Bridge…

…and Chelsea, and Fort Lee, and Hoboken, and Greenwich Village, and Central Park, and Chinatown, and SoHo, and Manhattan, and the West Village, and the subway and the sweaty, sunny tumult…

Just back from a fast trip to New York City. Business, also a chance to visit relatives in New Jersey. I am country to the sod beneath my boots, and it was good to shoulder a bag of feed and carry it out the green lane for the hogs in the early-morning quiet today, but New York City ranks high among my favorite places. The energy, the smells delightful and otherwise, the endless sidewalk flow of people proving there are a million ways to be beautiful, the canyons of steel and glass, the taxicab cacophony, the subway crush, the sweaty laborers in the crosswalks shoulder-to-shoulder with the $uits, and in the middle of it all the amazing green gathering place of Central Park. We – I – love to talk about small town hospitality, but at one point while shuffling up the subway stairs amidst every creed and color it struck me again how in the big picture your average New Yorker has to get along with all sorts. It’s not about the friendly nod (although against provincial stereotype, your requests for directions or subway line info from the average New Yorker will average well over 90% helpful) or the hug or the backslap or bonhomie, it’s about simply agreeing to coexist in the moment so that each may get through their simple day.

One of my favorite moments this trip was waiting until after dark and then taking the subway to Times Square with my wife. She has traveled over much of the United States, Central and South America, and Europe, but had never been to New York City. To come up out of the ground at 1o:30 p.m. and be greeted by the full-on otherworld daylight glow of Times Square while holding her hand was at once utterly unreal and yet somehow soothing. There is this temptation to say something self-deprecating about being hick tourists, but I am not possessed of enough post-hipster cynicism to pretend that the sight and the hum and the gawk of Times Square on a fine summer night is anything other than fantastic.

Although for my money, walking hand-in-hand through the Ramble or sneaking a kiss here ranked a tad higher…