Friday, March 10, 2006

There are certain things about New York that you can’t get anywhere else, basic things that you would ignore in other situations, but in New York, they make you smile. It’s almost magical the way it works, really, because as an outsider, before coming here, people dream of the special experience they will find here, and then it comes true. New York is important because it quivers with the possibility of what is yet to come, with the daily circulation of people as they weave through their patterns that have so ground down the city into a smooth arena where anyone and everyone performs.

Today was a New York day. Not because it was the first day that tingled like spring, but because it was the first day in a while when everyone could guiltlessly run through the streets with that little extra step that said “happy” is on the way. I love this city because as soon as it’s warm, people start blasting music out of their apartment windows at three o’clock in the afternoon. Girls start wearing open-toed heels. People leave their blinds up and give us a peep show into their lives past dark, probably weighing that they’d rather have the crisp breeze flowing in than their secrets kept hidden.

Perhaps everywhere on the east coast today, people felt warmth. People stopped and smiled because they thought they smelled spring. Well I smelled roasting nuts on the street corner, which still smell overpoweringly of sugary butter no matter what the weather. But people in New York felt possibility. The turning of a new season, the abandonment of the cold, is the symbol of our boundless possibility. The warmth means that our smooth stage will once more be filled with the realm of insanity that hides behind shaded windows. It is a reminder of our constantly rotating, twisting, changing lives. It is the feeling of collective smiles in a city where we’re all so very different.

posted by iliza @ 6:58 PM

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