I Noticed

Earlier today, when I was heading through midtown right around the time it was getting dark, I randomly looked up at the Empire State Building from the corner of 32nd and 6th. The lights had just come on and there was still that ebbing glow in the sky, the shade of blue I like, slowly dimming into black. And I had this moment where I realized that I haven't really paid attention to things for a while, and I haven't appreciated the things I have noticed.

I don't know what it is, maybe it's just about getting jaded or becoming the sort of New Yorker who speeds between the lumbering tourists because, somehow, you're always running late and getting there a little less late than you otherwise would is suddenly the most important thing in the world. It's like the only thing in the world. And not too long ago, it was just you standing on random corners not knowing where the hell you were because the City, even with its numbered streets, still made absolutely no sense to you. Being lost had its own magic, because you could smile at the little things you saw even if you had no context to go off of. A little community park you passed was just this weird little jungle that you didn't know how to get back to, that made no sense and that was OK, because it didn't need to. But then things become common and everything seems ordinary, already seen, grasped. You convince yourself that you understand it all, so it makes less sense to care. When do you become just a spirited walker who heads from point A to point B with seldom a though to what happens in the middle?

Two people stop me in the course of 5 minutes after I leave that corner. They don't know where they are, but I do. There's a power in that, and a self satisfaction that, for whatever reason, they see you as the type of guy who might know, the type of guy who they'd want to stop and ask. Whatever that means. But the knowing doesn't have to have a price. It doesn't have to be just the flat map of Manhattan etched into a corner of your thinking, ripe for recall when you need to orient yourself outside the subway or toss a smile to the confused girl flipping through a guidebook.

"You need help?"

She looks you up and down suspiciously, but then her eyes soften. She points to something on the page.

"How do I get to Times Square?"

There's still something about this place, and it's when I notice it that I feel this crazy joy about being here. It happens suddenly, its always totally unexpected, and it comes from nothing more than seeing the steam coming up out of your coffee on a cold night in December, or watching some little kid running after pigeons in Washington Sq. Park. I think of all the times I've thought of leaving, but for whatever reason couldn't make it out, whether it's because of fate, with things just not working out, or because I couldn't bring myself to do it. I think of all the times I've wanted nothing more than to vanish, because of the craziness and the way that you get so wrapped up in today's crap that you stop thinking about yesterday and tomorrow. You've been in love before, and you remember what it feels like, but you forget to believe in it. That's the first step in disappearing. Most people you see on the streets, they're already gone.

I noticed New York today, the way I used to notice it all the time, and I wish it was always like this.