New York

It has been a long time since I've been in New York City and so much has changed since my last visit that it feels new and strange, while at the same time feeling very familiar. Perhaps it is like T.S. Eliot talks about in the Four Quartets about returning to where I started and approaching it as new, but not quite like Robert Pirzig as he set out on his motorcycle to re-encounter ghosts from his past.

Yet the guide book that feels most applicable, and one that I have in my satchel, is Thoreau's Cape Cod, so perhaps I shall write from a frame closer to his.

I embarked out of Milford on a warm grey morning. The humid air had an almost tropic feel to it, like it did shortly before Hurricane Irene hit, but it was not to be a stormy day. The train was part of the new fleet. It was all bright, clean, and shiny. The stainless shell fixtures were stylishly curved and there were power outlets for each row of seats. The train was packed so I sat next to a young woman traveling from New Haven into New York. I would have to reach past her to use the power outlets, but my devices were well charged so I ran off of the batteries.

I checked assorted messages on my cellphones and did a little writing on the laptop I was carrying; a MacBook Pro, provided by work, primarily for video editing but also for times when I travel and need a laptop.

The young woman was reading a copy of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. She had a small star on the back of each of her hands between her thumb and index finger, and a tattoo on her right wrist of a rubber duckie. Her eyelashes were darkened with mascara and there was glitter around her eyes. The curve of the black eyelashes set against the glitter looked like a stylized teardrop.

I disembarked from the train in Grand Central Terminal. It was a familiar old venue with the constellations on the ceiling, the clock where I've often met friends, the escalators, ticket booths, and commuters scurrying to their destination. They were the extras that have been appearing in The Daily Commute since I first started commuting into New York over two decades ago.

It was when I exited Grand Central Terminal that I really noticed the differences. A decade or two ago, I was one of these businessmen, thinking about calculations of asset values. I have long since discarded the business suit, but I remembered those days. Was I less observant of the people around me in those days, as I was caught up in my career, or is it simply the passage of time that has erased the details of the characters I daily walked passed? I'm not sure. Perhaps it is some of both, because even as I write this later in the day, memories of the people around me have faded.

Yet one thing that does stay with me is the sense of Walt Whitman as he crossed Brooklyn Ferry and reflected on his fellow travelers. How curious they are to me. As I crossed one of the major avenues, I found myself behind two impeccably dressed young men, one black, one hispanic, both carrying white mannikins wrapped in plastic. They maneuvered their cargo past the stainless steel coffee cart on the sidewalk, surrounded by construction workers who looked on at the comings and goings of the city showing no interest in the men with their mannikins.

Soon, an older hispanic looking man, carrying a platter of pastries and a carafe of coffee passed me heading the other direction. As I approached Time Square the businessmen and the secretaries heading off to work decreased and the number of folks from out of town, looking at the sights increased.

Years ago, when I had lived if rougher parts of New York, I had learned not to make eye contact with the people on the street. Yet I was curious. What were the stories off all these people? What would they write on their Facebook walls when they got their chance? I wished I could read some of their status updates, but I knew that would not be. Instead, I entered the Marriott Marquis where a conference on social media was about to begin. My compatriots for the day would be from publishing, advertising, agencies and brands, exploring how to exploit social media to get their message out, and not the writers and thinkers that had accompanied me in my mind in my trip to New York, Thoreau, Eliot, and Whitman.