I just used the eyes today and kept the hands with the mittens - yes I found mittens - not cute - brown with flaps to uncover the fingers - kept them on the hands and in the pockets. I walked across to the Hudson from 5th Avenue and those blocks are long. I crossed and walked along the river to Chamber Street and Borough of Manhattan Community College. Yes, diversity matters and yes, it makes a difference. It was all over BMCC. I saw old friends from 1978 and we went back to my arrival in the US. Damn, I was 18 when I went to BMCC. I walked back to 14th Street and felt much better.
Having the hands in the pocket and the eyes on things made me reflect on Manhattan's culture. Are these people really so rude or have they just lost the minute? You know that minute that it takes to recognize someone else's humanity! It's funny how easily we change for the worse; we seem to adopt the ugly without much question. You ever pay close attention to how your mood and attitude changes when you get behind the wheel of a car? It just takes a minute. I had a minute tonight.
Walking down 14th street with the crowd; everyone was moving like a bullet, but these days a lot of the bullets have their heads down, something plugged into their ears, and fingers rolling over a 2 inch by 2 inch glass piece. If you have your head up you waiting for the crash because you swear accidents about to happen. But no, the animal in us still got a lot of instincts - navigation by any means is necessary and the ability still lingers.
A bullet almost side-swipe me. What's funny is that I didn't even realize that I was a walking bullet too. Cold fire my ass and it was still moving fast. Head up, I was walking fast to make it to a warmer place and as I was walking an oldish man was coming and it look like he had the same purpose, warmth. We were walking on the same slice of concrete but going in opposite directions; I move to my left and he move to his right; I decide to move more left at the same time he decide to move more right - you ever had one of those where you aiming to get out of the way, but that is in your head - the body on the other hand heading for a full on collision. My eyes saw it coming and my mouth - the one that gets born in the car, in rush hour, when another car cut you off, when you see someone with a phone glued to the ear, or when someone doing 50 on the highway - that mouth was getting ready to fire off a word or two; it clashed with a deeper need for simple calm and peace and that slow it down. Was the overwhelming human rush we were all caught in getting to me? I let the eyes move to the face.
Just then the minute happen. The face came into view; it was a little old, male, soft white skin with a few laugh wrinkles around the eyes, friendly lips; I glimpsed a little tremble; expectation of vocal blast, a stew teeth, a bark.. that was a few seconds...... 30 seconds there was eye contact, a hesitant smile... no words but I suspected a silent whisper to match the look in the eyes that said.. hey I didn't mean to block you; I'm rushing home to warmth too.... Instantly the vulnerability of my mother's soft skinned cheek came to mind and again I was human, his daughter, the someone at the kitchen table chatting over warm food. In just a minute.
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