this trip is different than my other trips to new york city. i definitely feel like less of a tourist this time. i have no desire to take pictures and i feel much more familiar with the people here, as well as the surroundings. i feel extremely comfortable. and i think it shows. i have had a couple of "locals" assume that i am a student here. this, to me, is a sign that i have graduated from that deer-in-the-headlights tourist to a knowing and confident traveler. this is a good thing.
i'm staying with my friend's sister and and brother in law on the upper west side in a very quaint spanish neighborhood. its a fairly painless ride into the meat of manhattan on the subway. i find it quite easy to get around. i love walking up the stairs at the end of each exhausting day and smelling the overwhelming scent of spanish food cooking in the homes of all the families in the complex. there's a spanish convenience store on the corner that makes me feel like i'm in a different country and a different time. the men hang in the back of the store next to the meats and happily chat about who knows what. and somehow the store still sells novelty food items that i haven't seen on the shelves of our own grocery stores in years.
i think one of the most overwhelming things i have noticed on this trip is the kindness that seeps out of the cracks of this hardened city with a bad rap for being dirty-mouthed and unforgiving. everyday that i am walking the streets of this city, riding the subways, riding the buses, i see people doing truly kind things for others. men are always offering their seats to women, children, and the elderly. and yesterday, a man slipped in the subway tunnel and three teenage boys, who easily could have been misconstrued as rough or dangerous, rushed to the man's side to help him off the ground. i found myself shocked at these random acts of kindness in the city. but why? why did i expect there to be no happiness, no kindness, no forgiveness?
i think sometimes i get caught up in a world that lives in skepticism. it's a bad habit to assume the worst, and never hope for the best in people. and i don't like this about myself. after all, if new yorkers can find it in themselves to be helpful, kind, and compassionate, then so shall i.
