Time Marches On

I remember when Chris and I first moved to NYC and my dad would enquire what I was doing day-to-day. Where did I go on the weekend, for dinner at night, what museums had I visited. We were lucky in that we moved here in July and Chris didn't have to return to school to teach until August and I was without a job- so we just explored the city together for a few weeks, which was really very nice. However, even before the school year started we were in a routine.

Doing things costs money! Museums, plays, musicals, lectures, dinners, cooking classes, dancing classes, sewing classes- they all cost money. We quickly settled in to our new NYC life. (I think my dad remained unimpressed, wanting to hear stories of who we saw and what we experienced.)

We have been in NYC for almost three years now and many ways it's hard to recall living any other way. I commute through Grand Central Station each morning and eat my lunch there each day- now that it's cold. In warmer weather I prefer to walk up and down Madison Avenue in search of sunlight. I love Grand Central Station. It's old, it beautiful, it has a high ceiling and lots of sunlight. I love the energy there, all the people going and coming. I love people watching.

It's hard to communicate what goes on in this head of mine, but pretty much at any given time when I am pounding the pavement in these three inch platform booties, I am "writing" something in my head. Something that usually begins with a person I see, a conversation I overhear or something totally random, yet unexplainably New York , that comes flying my way. If the thoughts could just be immediately transported onto paper from my very brain- then I'd be in business. Usually, I forget these one-liners or life altering phrases before I swipe my Metrocard and barge my way through the turnstile, always leading with my right hip - knocking the metal bar around when prompted "GO."

People inspire me. They give me stories. I can always tell you the plotline for any person that I see: the man reading a magazine on the bus, the woman eating a salmon, caper and cream cheese bagel for lunch, and the head bobbing kid, tapping his foot and mouthing the words to a song all 100 of us passengers in the 4 train can hear. I have stories for all these people.

Like I had to stop and wonder how awful is your life if you have to use the payphone in the subway? Then I saw this middle aged woman on the payphone one day while I was waiting on the Uptown train platform. I could hear her crying over David Crowder Band playing in my ears. She covered her face with the paperwork and folder she was carrying; hiding from the whole wide world -hundreds of us waiting to board a train.

You get used to seeing the same homeless people at their posts: the man with the Juniors Cheesecakes bags, the man with the dreadlocks, the woman with the "bad heart" as she has posted on her piece of cardboard. These are the three I pass at GSC. I wonder where they stay at night and why they come to these exact same spots every day. I don't know what to do for these people. I don't even know what to do for the people I love the most when they hurt. And I'm not talking prayer or serving at a soup kitchen, I'm talking..."unto the least of these." I'm tired of being so self-righteous that I forget how very blessed I am and how much God can use me if I let him.

And it's not so much what we do, but why we do it that matters. Is our motive behind the action selfish or selfless? We all want recognition, success, to know our lives mattered for something- anything. We want to be seen and thanked and congratulated. Or maybe that's just me.