tales from the city, new york- part three: "searching for serendipity"

living in one of the largest cities in the world is a lesson in loneliness; in isolation. although that may at first seem a bit contradictory, it isn't.

the experience of being constantly surrounded by an incomprehensible number of people does a really bang up job of enforcing the singular aloneness of each and every individual for- if you can't immerse yourself in the masses of humanity within an arms length, amidst this onslaught of commonplace living-well then, what hope have you (one of billions) that it will ever be other than this (one in a billion, now and forever).

rather than attempting to bridge this gap (infinite in scope) the city dwellers, the subway riders, the Individuals (identical in their isolation) withdraw farther within. they close themselves off. to do otherwise is nothing if not impossible for how can you choose among the multitude of faces and personalities surrounding you which to identify with; who to reach out to? how do you pick which one of the endless array of beggars, all needy in comparison with you, to help out? you can't and so you don't. you are overwhelmed by the overwhelming.

nowhere brings this feeling home more poignantly than the new york city subway; a place where everyone is touching and everyone is alone.

riding the subway home from work one morning i watch the commuters on their way to work. i've just finished a 12 hour overnight shift at the bar and look no less worn out and delirious than i feel. settling back into the hard plastic of my seat, hand on the grimy steel pole beside me i look around.

at first i try to be somewhat discreet about it because it seems invasive- this watching when those being watched are so withdrawn; staring, eyes glazed, at some inner thought.

i cast safe, sidelong glances around the train car.
i look outside at the people dejectedly waiting to board.
i watch the reflections in the windows of the passengers i can't actually see from my own vantage point.

i'm on my way home from work. most of them are headed to work from home. the funny thing is- we are indistinguishable in our listless fatigue. we are all the same.

so i watch the commuters, undisturbed in my intrusions. i watch these people that are just like me but are really nothing like me at all and i am alone, just as they are. in this state of abject sleepiness i pass the time and no one meets my eyes and i am glad. and then my own sphere of self closes and i, too shut off.

somewhere along the way, under the labyrinth of streets and tunnels, a girl entered the train and sat down opposite of me. at first i didn't notice her and then i did. and once i noticed it was impossible to take it back. and she was nothing to me but for the span of five minutes she became everything. for those five minutes she was it.

my five minute obsession.

i could describe her to you in detail. what she looked like. what she was wearing. how she moved. her own manner of not looking. i could describe all of this to you but i won't because it wouldn't explain a thing and none of it matters. you wouldn't get it because the girl could have been anyone; was, in fact, anyone. it just so happened that, in this particular moment, that anyone was her.

she became the humanity that i had lost. she became everything (my link) but, the thing is, i chose her for the role. i chose the person just as i chose the role for her to play. the girl herself had nothing to do with any of it. all she had to do was be there on the train sitting across from me.

even so, this girl gave something back to me in my state of skewed delirium. she gave me exactly what i wanted and needed right then in those few minutes. in those few minutes i created her.

moments later she got up from her seat, adjusted her skirt and headphones and, without once looking directly at me, left the train.

less than a minute after that, lost again in my own sleep-deprived thoughts and foregoing further observational attempts, the girl was forgotten. she was gone.

a few weeks later, working at the bar, i handed a man the beer and shot of whiskey that he'd just ordered. opening his wallet, he removed a handful of bills and counted the ones. thirteen ones. he owed me eleven dollars for the drinks plus the standard dollar tip for each drink. thirteen dollars.

smiling, he handed me the money and said, "now if that isn't the definition of serendipity, i don't know what is."

turning away with the money in my hand i thought to myself, "if that man is right, then i want no part of this."

at this moment i felt as far from this man as any two people could be- joined only by our common misunderstanding and isolation.

turning back around to face the bar i was relieved to see that the man had gone. the man left and in his place, i thought of the girl. i thought of her for a moment and then she, too, disappeared.

tales from the city part two: new york- "lessons in stoop sitting"

as many of you know, i'll be leaving the lovely town of athens in approximately 1.5 months for the jungle known as new york city. having lived in both dublin and chicago, i am familiar with the ways of city life. even so, new york is a different beast entirely. or so i'm told.

luckily, the city already comes equipped with a number of my jaded, new york-wizened friends in varying stages of familiarity (and, consequently, degrees of love/hate) with the fair metropolis. these friends from my past have, in turn, introduced me to new friends who have their own unique histories and perspectives on functioning in the city. one of these new friends is a guy named fletcher. now, as i really like fletcher, and he insists that i mention his name as often as possible as it is his mission to build fame and notoriety for himself, i will do what i can to comply.

in any case, i met fletcher back in february when he came to visit athens and had the pleasure of hanging out with fletcher again on a recent trip to new york. i can't say that i know him (fletcher that is) well yet, especially as he seems to be constantly reinventing and cultivating his fletcher persona, but i am thus far intrigued. to give you a little background on the man behind the name, fletcher is in a few bands (and listens exclusively to music written by himself) and he works at a trendy clothing store (and has a policy on fashion summarized by this idea: find one thing that you really like and wear it until it falls off. then replace it with something else that you like and repeat the process ad infinitum. in his own words- "i only care about first impressions. if i meet a chick and she doesn't want to make out with me the first time, she probably isn't going to change her mind later on."). he is also a writer (nothing to add here as of yet except that fletcher and i are planning to start a new writing revolution in brooklyn sans coffee and whiskey as he doesn't drink either. i'm sure i, however, can manage to drink enough of both for the both of us). despite having his finger in so many pies, fletcher frequently (perhaps daily?) makes time for his true occupation: stoop sitting.

i'll admit, when i first met fletcher i was a little leery of this "stoop sitting" business. i pictured a fancy sex in the city manhattan stoop with wide stairs and a cold, austere feel to it. here fletcher would sit, lonely and ignored by the busy new yorkers on their way to wherever it is that new yorkers go. alternatively, i imagined a dirty, littered stoop where passersby glanced into the shadows to see a motionless figure huddled in the corner. not really knowing what to think about his dedication to stoop sitting, i asked fletcher if people ever thought he was homeless and tried to give him money or food. fletcher though about it and admitted that once someone threw a quarter into his cup of coffee and he was irritated because he wasn't done drinking it yet. "that's too bad", i replied, still confused by the situation.

in reality, fletcher's stoop isn't like either one of my imagined scenarios. it's a normal stoop- small, with broken concrete stairs, situated in a busy, trendy brooklyn neighborhood in front of an insurance company or something. i know because i have now been there. i've seen it and done a little stoop sitting of my own...

after meeting up with fletcher for lunch one afternoon, we headed to his usual spot- "fletcher's stoop". i had seen it earlier that day when a friend pointed it out to me, but this was to be my inaugural stoop sitting experience. fletcher settled into his groove, back up against the railing at what he claimed was the most comfortable angle. an angle that i was unfortunately unable to duplicate as the railing kept digging uncomfortably into my back the entire time. stoop sitting apparently takes some practice and dedication to master. more on that later.

so we sat in our varying degrees of comfort and watched people. and judged them. according to fletcher, that's part of the stoop sitting process- judging passerby. i'm still confused on what exactly fletcher was judging because i know what i was judging, and it was people's fashion sense (or lack thereof). as we've already discussed fletcher's fashion policy, i believe that it's safe to conclude that fashion wasn't what he was judging. well, whatever his judgments entailed, we sat and watched and judged and discussed the art of stoop sitting, among other things of course (like fashion and writing).

looking to my right, i saw another stoop that looked cleaner, more comfortable, and all around more inviting than fletcher's stoop. when i asked him why he chose the particular stoop we were on instead of the one right next to us he replied that the stoop to our right was traditionally occupied by "hush hush", a homeless man who stoop sits and begs for money in a voice so low that no one ever hears him. a quiet voice is an unfortunate handicap if one's occupation is panhandling and, according to fletcher, hush hush's enterprise doesn't usually seem to be a very lucrative one.

it was at about this time that i was truly initiated into stoop sitting. i mean, if stoop sitters had a fraternity, their hazing rituals would most definitely involve this: getting shat on by a pigeon. yes sir. there we were- minding our own business, enjoying the day and stoop sitting to our hearts' content when the magic of the experience was interrupted by a warm splash on the back of my neck. one. then another.

i froze, knowing instantly what it was. moving very slowly so as to avoid any further soiling caused by the mess running down my shirt, i eased my gaze upwards to see a pigeon butt slyly peeking over the edge of the roof about 40 feet above my head. yup. pigeon shit.

eyes wide, i told fletcher the sad news. he shook his head in denial and suggested hopefully that it was just rain or condensation from an air conditioner. no dice. i gestured towards the offending pigeon butt still visible roosting on the roof's edge and he accepted the truth of the situation. i had pigeon shit on me. here is where our new friendship was put to the test. i needed a paper towel, and quick. i, however, was loath to move lest the shit create an even bigger mess. the closest place to get help was at thai thai, a thai restaurant across the street where, according to fletcher, all of the employees hate him because of his habit of getting take-out from them and then proceeding to eat it across the street on his stoop. the judger has been judged in this situation in that they all believe that fletcher would really prefer to eat the food in the restaurant but is just too cheap to tip. obviously unaware of fletcher's stoop sitting duty, they judge him in error. nonetheless, fletcher clearly isn't keen on the idea of running across the street and asking the waiters at thai thai for some paper towels. even so, he senses the urgency in my wide-eyed stare and after a moment's hesitation, dashes to thai thai to return momentarily with the goods.

good guy that fletcher.

that pretty much ended my first stoop sitting experience. i actually found it all to be pretty appropriate and hilarious. lesson one in stoop sitting (not to be taken lightly): do not, repeat, DO NOT stoop sit under any sort of overhang or you will end up with shit on you. lesson learned the hard way thank you very much. i think fletcher may have felt a little bad about it, but the way i see it, my stoop sitting experiences can only go up from there. i hope. afterwards, i did notice that fletcher's chosen side of the stoop was free of any overhanging objects that might be attractive to pigeons. so there is more to choosing your stoop position than mere happenstance.
smart guy that fletcher.

later on in the week, i decided to give it another go. i was by myself and it was nighttime so i figured i would be safe from pigeons and humiliation, if it came in another form, would be witnessed by none besides myself. leaning against the railing on fletcher's side of the stoop (better to be safe in some cases...), i imagined myself in this same spot in less than two months, a legitimate resident of this strange city. homeless still, maybe. poor, definitely. but ready for this anonymity and solitude. for this change. for this. all of it.

the last moa (by request)

the moa (pronounced "mower") were a group of about ten related bird species from new zealand that became extinct after the arrival of homo sapiens (and dogs and rats) between 1100 and 1700ad. large and flightless, the moa varied in size but the largest weighed upwards of 500 pounds. before the arrival of humans, their main predator was a giant eagle. (how awesome is it that there was once an eagle that could take out a five hundred pound bird?) that predator, the harpagornis is, of course, also extinct.


moa belong to a genetically related group of flightless birds known as ratites. living members of this group include emus, ostriches, and kiwi, among others. interestingly, the moa are the only birds that have lost any physical trace that they once had wings and flew. (shit, even whales still have pelvic remnants. but the moa? no skeletal indications of an upper limb at all.)

ratites are an interesting group of animals in that they exhibit reverse sexual dimorphism, meaning that the females are larger (sometimes even twice as big) as their male partners and that the male birds raise the young while the females gallivant about in the forest, eating large quantities of leaves and shrubs to keep up their massive size so that they can compete with each other for the choicest of the little male birds. there is actually an article on the moa entitled:

"Female Moa Bird Liked the Little Guys, Studies Suggest"

the article settled the issue of how the large female moa got it on with the tiny males by explaining that "In ostrich, following prolonged courtship, the female sits before the male jumps on. Presumably, with some maneuvering, such a system may have also functioned in Dinornis."

(hmm. that ridiculous image is possibly why i've never been able to date anyone more than a few inches shorter that me. i guess if i were a moa or an ostrich i might feel differently.)

(ostrich mating dance. the little one is the male. the tall, bitchy one is the female)

there you have it. the moa, in summary.

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a bird-obsessed friend of mine told me about the moa and said i should look them up. so i did. and then i got to thinking. not about the moa per se, but about extinct animals in general. about what it might be like to be that last one of your kind. what would you do? would the last of the moa have been lonely? would it have known that there were no others left? that it and all of its ancestors amounted to a great big genetic zero? that it was at the end of its line and had nothing to show for it? would the last (had she been female) giant moa have kept searching until the end of her days for her tiny romeo or would she have eventually given up? would her drive to pass on her genetic information to another generation have consumed her being or would she have just been like "fuck it, what's the point?" and gotten it on with some other little male bird? an emu maybe? just for fun? ducks do that interspecies breeding thing. why not the last moa?

i guess i'm projecting too many human qualities onto the moa, but still...

what if you were it? the last representation of a lineage millions of years old. when you died your life would have meant nothing. would have been irrelevant and pointless.

i think that every person i know feels that way about themselves in some sense. maybe that explains why so many people have such a fear of death. why people need religion. need a meaning beyond simply living. we've forgotten that we are part of such a long-spanning and interconnected history and see ourselves as individual and unique species in our own right. individuals whose death will blot out for ever our lives that will have essentially meant nothing in the grand scheme of things. we'll become another big zero, just like the moa and all of the moa that came before. just another nothing in a history of 99.9% zeros. just another ending in this ongoing continuum of genetics and time.

continuum.
continuing.
a true end really makes no sense when we're talking time and genetics.
meaninglessness negates itself in such a perspective.
even for such as the moa (genetic zeros though they are).
and humans (self-absorbed fools that we are).

cultivated isolationism

i left the house the other day in a mood. in a zone.

i put my sunglasses on even before i stepped out of the front door. wanting that extra bit of isolationism offered by the dark lenses that might keep my expression hidden.

i wanted to cultivate my own bit of separation, drag out my sense of being alone. to masochistically enjoy my depression and protect its fragility. from people. from light. from my own emotional flagellations.

in the car i put on my favorite depressive music, guaranteed to further draw out any feelings of sadness that threatened to dissipate or, at the very least, lessen in severity.

there, caught up in an environment of my own creation, i set out on a drive.

egotistically absorbed in my own self, i looked up to see two birds flying high above the highway. two birds flying in perfect synchronization. for one second. maybe two. then their beats became once again unique but for an instant i was witness to perfection in coincidence. to something meaningless acquiring a meaning beyond the simple happenstance, the accidental beauty of the event.

i removed my sunglasses only to realize that the day was completely overcast. gray and sunless.

watching the birds (no longer representations of something larger. now only birds), i put my sunglasses back on.

indecisively removing them once again, i squinted at the sky but then gave up and wore the unnecessary glasses.

it was only later when i noticed that the passing cars had their headlights on that i decided to finally put them away.

even so, in the protective darkness of nighttime i kept looking to the sky.