116th st / 120th st

4.98 miles

today is a bit late and i have rather forgotten my walk on saturday. take what you wish from these ramblings interspersed with a heavy dose of other people’s words.

i have been easily moved by words these days. easily moved by the day to day. moved to tears, both sadness and joy.

fitting for the week of thanksgiving, this past weekend i took a moment and realized how selfish i have been lately— self-absorbed, self-pitying, self-centered. i was struck by gratitude in that moment. for the warm november that has made walks with friends still pleasant. for letters in the mail and for my phone— for the words of people far from me. for a loving family— how could i ever complain?

and yet this past month has been selfish. my november into december resolution is selflessness. as c.s. lewis said, humility is not thinking of less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less.

what has moved me?

this part of meghan markle’s piece on loss:

When I was in my late teens, I sat in the back of a taxi zipping through the busyness and bustle of Manhattan. I looked out the window and saw a woman on her phone in a flood of tears. She was standing on the sidewalk, living out a private moment very publicly. At the time, the city was new to me, and I asked the driver if we should stop to see if the woman needed help.

He explained that New Yorkers live out their personal lives in public spaces. “We love in the city, we cry in the street, our emotions and stories there for anybody to see,” I remember him telling me. “Don’t worry, somebody on that corner will ask her if she’s OK.”

Now, all these years later, in isolation and lockdown, grieving the loss of a child, the loss of my country’s shared belief in what’s true, I think of that woman in New York. What if no one stopped? What if no one saw her suffering? What if no one helped?

i remember a moment of my saturday walk now, sitting in the comfort of a warm and quiet apartment. as i walked back west on 120th, as the light dimmed and i walked faster, as i passed by marcus garvey park, i saw a man on a bench beating up another man, gaunt and in faded clothing. i paused, i winced, i kept walking. they were two men and i was me. was there anything i could have done? i ran in the other direction. i wince now, a twang of remorse, wondering what happened, melancholy.

what has moved me?

the sweet elderly lady going home on the great british baking show.

this piece on thanksgiving by an indigenous woman.

a long conversation with a friend on the rocks in riverside park, staring at the ripples in the hudson river, as the sky morphed golden to ruby to indigo.

this book. this BOOK. I am unreliable narrator, hypervigilant to the point of being paranoid, imposing all my own insecurities onto ().

this song and this performance.

the man who asks for change on the corner of 116th and broadway, who pleads, who stumbles, who is ignored over and over.

my mother, who sent me homemade english muffins and peanut butter cups.

these words: you do not have to sit outside in the dark. if, however you want to look at the stars, you will find that darkness is necessary. but the stars themselves neither require nor demand it. annie dillard.

the sun and the moon. i am easily enamored these days.