Note: Originally intended for publication on Friday, February 19th. My tablet had other ideas.
Jennifer Lopez’s breakthrough in the 90’s came from riding the 6 train to and from the Bronx. Needless to say the song circled my head as rode the 6 train, first to McNally Jackson, dropping a few dollars on books on Mulberry street, then riding the train back. I finally got the hang of the subway system after feeling nervous yesterday. Scratch that. I felt scared.
Learning anything new will come with a load of fear, but the New York subway renewed my empathy for anyone attempting to ride transit. I know Winnipeg transit. I know what buses run with large gaps, what buses do run a bit more frequently, and to forget it about it. (Translation: Take a cab.) To New Yorkers used to riding to and from their borough, it’s second nature. To an above ground Winnipegger it looks daunting.
Until today. Andrew, my guide on a walking tour, said most people concentrate on the colour. The secret comes in the number and whether it goes uptown or downtown. Suddenly I got it. My adventure taking the subway to the Natural History Museum made me feeling rather foolish. I felt like the hick Winnipegger, the unseasoned traveller, the 45 year-old going on 15. Richard Armitage had practice with this form of tranportation on the tube. He’s used to it.
Speaking of the bloke, he’s not home. Any self-respecting fangirl would know two things:
1. He’s in Berlin.
2. Even if he’s not in Berlin, and I see him on the street, adopt a do-not-approach approach.
The village, especially the West Village, has many people of note doing what people do. In other words living their lives. In my case, I am on vacation. If it’s not a convention forget about it. (Don’t ask me to write it in the vernacular. It’s like me speaking French. In short not a good idea.)
I have noticed a certain boldness in my blog posts. I see sentence fragments. I see me just speaking without worry about my words or my structure. In short I feel free. Today at a bar called John Doe, I felt stunned by the death of Harper Lee. She has eight years on my mom, but I remember the story of a couple paying an entire year’s living expenses so Lee can write. The book she wrote thanks to that patronage?
Too Kill a Mockingbird.
The woman from Alabama came to New York later writing a story exploring courage, bigotry, and humanity. Brene Brown once wrote about how she hoped to go to New York and be like Annie Hall. I confess to wanting to be Miranda or Carrie from Sex and the City. I hated Winnipeg. I hated its small-minded thinking, but for some reason I can’t stop thinking about the place. In the end you can’t run from where you come from, only embrace it and take off in the direction of long-held dreams.
Speaking of dreams, time for bed. Sorry again for typos or awkward phrasing. I have fallen for my tablet. Now’s there’s a relationship.
Unpaused Life 