New York Habits

I've begun essentially using the same route to walk to work and back, and because I'm consistent with time, I've finally begun to notice the people around me who are out and about at the same time. On the way to work I pass the preschoolers first, then the guy with three bulldogs, then the old couple with one little white fluffy dog and a Wall Street man who always seems to be trying to hail a cab on Laguardia. I go by a short Hispanic man who hoses off the front sidewalk of L'occitane every morning and the construction workers just taking their first breaks on Prince Street. I like this familiarity, smiling at these people I don't know and yet know so much about.

On the way home, I pass by the psychic woman (who was watching a rerun of Will and Grace last night, worn tarot cards laying in front of her, cigarette smoke pushing up towards the neon sign that advertises her services) and the flower woman, who I bought Iucky bamboo from when I first moved onto my block and who is always wrapping up bouquets for God knows who. They fascinate me. I wonder about them, about what kind of apartment they live in, about whether the psychic lady can afford her rent or the flower woman her cigarettes. I've also begun using the same corner store to get laundry quarters and small bits of weekend food, the same teller in the mornings I get cash out or make a deposit. It fascinates me that we know each other so intimately and yet they have no idea what my name is or what building I live in or what I do with my weekends. The same way I know so much and yet so little about them.

I love the old couple. I always want to stop them and ask how long they've been married and how they have stayed so happy. Becuase they very much appear to be. She always seems to be dancing around him, holding his hand or his arm while gesturing with the other and telling some story or another. I can't help but smile. Because we all want that, to be that intimate with someone always and not grow out of it or allow it to fade. Sometimes I even pass the same people on Broadway- bored, young nannies mixed in with the tourists who are forever snapping pictures, this woman who seems to be constantly shopping, the guy who runs the hotdog stand on the corner. It's nothing if not these routines that make the city feel smaller.

When I first came up here to look at apartments, my mother asked a broker we were using what she thought about the city being so big. And she said that your neighborhood becomes your home, that you become used to the bagel man and coffee shop and use the same newspaper and magazine stands. They get to know you. I'm reminded of a scene in Sex and the City where Miranda calls the same Chinese restaurant so much the girl has her order by heart and doesn't even need to hear it. This is why people live here. Because while those people know what you eat and where you do your laundry, you are in the safety of not having to share anything beyond that with them. Sure they can speculate over what kind of person you are, how much credit card debt you carry or what 's in your refrigerator, but they don't know for sure.

There truly is safety in numbers. With so many people moving around the city at a constant ebb and tide, it's easy to become lost in the masses, but also easy to fall into routines you may not in a smaller place. Or maybe it's just done without conciousness, awareness of how it should be. I like all the people that I see out in the street on Friday mornings or on Sunday afternoons, but what I like most is that we have an understanding. We don't talk or stop or pry into each other's lives. We are simply aware of our own prseence in an infinite world and then we keep walking.