post-storm sunset
the view from my balcony is really hard to beat. on the downside, the storm caused jake's flight to be rerouted to dc, where they sat on the runway for five hours before being cleared to finally fly to nyc. he's on the subway now, making his way to my place.
on the train to the airport earlier (where i tried and failed to meet jake) - the e train on the way there, through midtown and queens, and the a train on the way back, through brooklyn and lower manhattan - there were a whole bunch of kids coing back from a field trip (asian and black kids, but not together. all the asian kids and their asian teachers got off in jackson heights, and the black kids and their black teacher stayed on the train until jamaica), and i got teary looking at their young faces, alternately exuberant and pensive, kids who at 7 or 8 or 9 already do the blank on-the-subway stare. teary because i was moved, in some way... because i felt weirdly tender toward them, and because they were black and asian kids intersecting in the same spaces, but not interacting at all. like oil and water? not quite. two substances which mingle but then pull apart effortlessly without having really changed each other. but they must, in some small ways, that might later become big ways (the sneaked glance of curiosity, interest, one day sprouting into conversation, or settling deep down as affinity...)?
so much proximity to so much humanity. i've had more conversations with strangers (almost all pleasant) within the past several days than i would have in la in the same number of months.
anyway, going to sign off on this rambling post 'cause i have to go meet jake at the subway stop soon, but the short summary is that, after a very strange first few days, life in nyc is looking up. i can feel the first stirrings of the city working on and in me.