NorthEastSouthWest

You sit in a tiny little café, you sip your overpriced latte and eat your muffin that unexpectedly has raisins in it, and you listen to bits and pieces of the conversations around you.

This city is huge.
Masses of people incessantly move through the streets.

It’s freezing cold.
It’s avenues and streets.
It’s uptown and downtown.
It’s subways. Sometimes the wrong ones.
It’s walking over the Brooklyn Bridge and looking back.
It’s huge distances.
It’s different food every day.  From Georgia. The Caribbean. Greece. Ethiopia. France. Italy. Yemen. Brazil. Poland. China. Malaysia. Mexico. Thailand. Vegan. And so. much. of. it.
It’s wind.
It’s walking between skyscrapers, on streets that never see the sun.
It’s about maps being folded.
Directions being asked.
Languages being spoken.
It’s museums at every corner and a million shops.
It’s about talking way into the morning.
It’s brick buildings.
It’s people from all over your life, in different times, all gathered on the same island at the same time.
It’s about connections.
It’s about memories. Remember that time when. Yeah, and then.
It’s about new encounters and new years, with a view.
Waking up and eating blueberry pancakes.
New faces and old stories.

Rockefeller Center. I am sitting on top of the world, once again, and there are canyons below me. Of cement and glass.
Streets running through them.
Yellow cabs.
People moving. Tiny. Anty.
Up here, the sun shines.
No wind.
Another level.
Thoughts.

It’s about moving, and it’s moving.
It’s about looking for things and not finding them, and about meeting the Cookie Monster twice.
It’s about movie-like encounters.
Rides on the train with strangers.
And about never meeting again.
It’s about sheep that go to heaven. And goats that go to hell.
It’s about taking busses with grumpy drivers.
It’s about strolling around alone, exploring, rediscovering, and kilometers accumulating.
It’s about diners.
It’s about Sunday brunches.
It’s about huge bookstores.
It’s about kitsch souvenirs.
It’s about not finding the entrance.
It’s about every building being something on the map.
It’s different from last time. A bit similar. But with Brooklyn.
It’s beards.
It’s sunsets on the wrong day, and clouds on the right one.

It’s New York.