6th ave / minetta lane / mercer st
6.39 miles
hello. i keep forgetting to write this entry, which is sad, as it was a very good walk, and it slips away from me with each moment i do not write it. but, i have finally checked off enough things off my todo list such that the next imperative thing is writing my thesis… so i will now write about my walk.
the sights and sounds: three young girls boarding the subway, no fear; a really small dog wearing slippers the size of toothpaste caps; two young guys eating halal guys on that bench outside a nice building where everyone eats halal guys (but it was only them two); a woman sitting on the sidewalk and crocheting something colorful; long lines for magnolia and kinokuniya; yellow beanie; snow melting drip drip drip on my jacket sidewalk puddles; ‘aqua cycling’; day drunk twenty-something-year-old women; boys huddled in baggy sweatshirts ‘hey we’re from jersey we don’t know where we’re going’ ‘shut up’; blaring sirens, doppler effect; a dead baby pigeon.
as i worked my way downtown, restaurants became more plentiful, and my stomach became hungry. i ate a vanilla pastry cream brioche donut from mah-ze-dahr and a falafel and baba ghanoush sandwich from mamoun’s. both were $5. only one would i eat again. minetta lane is heavily populated by restaurants, and too many people too close for comfort. i ate my falafel on a side street sitting at an unopen outdoor dining structure.
mercer street books and records was as fulfilling as expected from a store that sells two favorite things (and whose name makes me think of hamilton). the store was filled with stoic studious looking young people and old people, silently moving through the shelves. except for a man who came in and was very excited about an optical illusion book.
i had two interesting encounters on this day. under scaffolding, a man sitting on the sidewalk was writing intently in a notebook. i passed by, but then paused, circled back, gave him a buck, and asked him what he was writing. i expected that he would be a storyteller, but in fact he told me he was writing about a novel theory in physics and told me about relativity and concordance and the interconnectedness of the sciences.
later on the subway, a man worked his way through the train car, trudging slowly on his knees, asking for change. i gave him some money; it is very difficult to not when someone is on their literal knees. after he passed through our car, a man seated a little away from me began to go on a tirade to the guy across from him about how he does not give money to homeless people. how he works hard and made his way to where he is and how the man was dirty and he wasn’t going to touch someone’s dirty hands and …
the stranger whom he chose to subject to this rant was in my eyeline, and i glanced at his face a couple of times. he was silent but listening with focus, nodding but not contributing any words. wide-eyed.
i don’t tell this story to make me appear like a good person, because i feel conflicted every time i give cash to a person asking on the sidewalk. i feel guilty when i pass by, and i feel guilty when i give, because why am i not giving more? doing more? writing politicians? fighting for affordable housing? listening to the needs and dreams of each of these human beings. giving someone change is the most temporary of solutions, and it is often, for me, fueled by guilt. i imagine the ranting man on the train feels guilt as well.
what is my individual responsibility in a very broken world?
what will i choose to be responsible for?
i spent my walk listening to this podcast about bon appetit and the experiences of people of color there, and it sent my mind racing. i can’t do the interviews justice, but these were some of my muddled takeaways as i listened, one world trade center in distant view: bon appetit is a magazine about image, about the image of a stylish and cool white man.. but at some point, ‘ethnic food’ became part of what that style and cool meant. intersectionality, or lack thereof, makes it possible for a toxic space to stay toxic— the women of color feel oppressed by the white women feel oppressed by the white men feel oppressed by the white management— and so each is worried about themselves and not about the (greater) injustices towards those lower than them on the hierarchy. ethnic food from an ethnic person is too ethnic, but ethnic food from a white person is approachable. who is doing the diversity work? never the white people. the magazine was made by white men for white women (with people of color doing the actual work). certain things can’t be shared with white people, even white friends. who is the service staff?
anyways.
a tear welled up in my eye at 22nd street because of soup dumplings.
