Rhapsody in Blue is such a city song, and not just because of that scene in Fantasia 2000. It's a raucous and unpredictable song. Just when it seems as though it's fading out, BAM! It's all crashing piano and cymbals like a traffic jam of angry cabbies. I'm listening to Rhapsody in Blue on repeat. I'm also listening to the salsa band that's playing in Morningside Park, and some indistinguishable music that's pulsing through the wall. I get fleeting earfuls from cars that idle down the block. Now that's a city song.
I'd like to make a semi-regular habit of sitting on my stoop. I've never had a stoop, really, at least not one that was worth sitting on. Or I guess it's more accurate to say that I've never had a stoop in a place where stoop-sitting was such a worthwhile activity. In any case, I sat on my stoop tonight until the sun went down. I was inspired by the other stoop-sitters in my neighborhood. I thought you could only sit on your stoop if you were smoking a cigarette or talking on the phone, but plenty of people in New York just kind of hang out there. It was a beautiful night, and a holiday, and it felt a little like summer's last gasp. Maybe that's why there were so many stoop-sitters and families walking and kids staying up past their bedtimes to play in the park. As I parked myself there, I watched all the people around and thought about how healthy communities are those that foster human interaction among strangers. That's why neighborhoods with houses built close together and close to streets can feel so much more "charming" and comfortable than those with sprawling houses separated from each other and the road by expanses of lawn and long driveway. A lot of it has to do with scale. We're humans--we want our surroundings to fit us, but we end up living in places scaled to cars instead of people.
So I was thinking about that as I watched people come and go on the block, and I realized that cities, even cities like New York, are, in some ways, more people-friendly places than suburbs or even places like (gasp!) Sonoma. After all, where else can people walk to get their groceries, take public transportation anywhere, sit on their stoops and come into contact with dozens of people over the course of a night? This was turning into a wonderful, redemptive understanding of city life when the woman next door came out with a bag of trash. I smiled at her and said hello, but she didn't look at me. I kept smiling and looking and smiling while she unlatched her gate, put the bag in the trash can, latched the gate again, and went back inside without even glancing at me. Then I realized that I hadn't even made eye contact with any of the people that had passed by over the course of the night. Not for lack of looking on my part, that's for sure. It's hard to say hello, let alone meet someone, when you can't even look each other in the eye. So there's where cities suffer, I guess. We're all here, walking, biking, lounging around in close proximity, but the lines of communication have snapped close.
Okay, so New Yorkers are notoriously rude, and I guess it's not exactly safe to make eye contact with strangers here. Survival in the concrete jungle, etc etc. But I'm hardly posing a threat, hanging out on my stoop with a book, attempting to look as friendly as possible. It's not even as though I'm trying to start a block party. We don't have to be friends, but can't we just acknowledge each other? I sound naive, don't I. I just figure, here we are, packed together so tightly, our music becoming one cacaphony of a song, sitting almost elbow to elbow on our stoops, we might as well say something.
How am I? I'm adjusting just fine, thank you.



























