The Bird Lady of Union Square Park

Hola mi Gente,

A consequence of my mediation practice has been a tendency to move away from “autopilot” living. In other words, I pay attention in ways I never did before I started my daily sitting meditation practice. In some ways, this attentional shift brings gifts in ways I never imagined. The following is an example.

* * *

The Offering/ La Ofrenda

What you think you are is a belief to be undone.

What is the real New York? It’s all real, actually. But the core question here is: where does one get the genuine stink of authenticity, where does one find the essential essence of The City? Of course, the answer depends on who you are. Perhaps the real New York is the attractive alcoholic woman, obviously going downhill fast, who stands by the entrance to my subway stop some mornings asking for spare change -- and who flirts with me (“Damn, you look hawt today, papi!”) whether or not I give her a dollar. Sometimes weeks roll by and she’s nowhere to be seen and I wonder. Then one morning, she’s there again, asking for change, that undeniable intelligence in her eyes, her fading beauty still there, a tattered paperback peering out of the plastic Chanel bag that serves as her purse.

Or perhaps it's the bird lady of Union Square Park... 

One day, a couple of years ago, I played hookie from work. It was one of those early spring days and though it started with rain, a recalcitrant sun eventually vied with obstinate clouds for control of the day. It was lunchtime in one of my favorite reading spots in The City in Union Square Park. There’s a life-sized statue of Gandhi there and people sometimes put fresh cut flowers in its hands.

I have done this many times. I have several “power spots” throughout the city where I go read, observe, and contemplate, alone yet surrounded -- I like the feeling of stillness surrounded by frantic activity. On that day, no sooner than I had settled on a bench, a woman with long white, wiry, wild hair came shuffling toward me. I was hoping she wouldn’t sit next to me; I didn’t want to smell yet another homeless person (such is the way people become invisible). Perhaps reading me, she sat down rigidly across from me. I wanted to get back to my reading. But she stared at me intensely. Then slowly, reflectively, as if following some unknown anointment ritual, she emptied a bag of birdseed on her shoulders. It was a strange sight even for La Gran Manzana -- the capital of weirdness. I noticed how the seeds clung to her hair and clothes, pooled onto her lap, into the folds of her worn clothes, and scattered over her soiled sneakers. Then she leaned back and, after fixing me once more with that intense gaze, she stretched her arms and closed her eyes.

A brief moment passed and first one pigeon flew to her and then several more, and then a dozen or more. They congregated on her arms, pecking at the seeds and one another as they fed greedily. Soon the edges of her body were blurred in a flutter of wings. I sat there transfixed thinking this was an act of madness -- clearly this woman was crazy; it seemed as if the birds were devouring her. But paradoxically, the act took on an aura of magic. All the while she was disappearing into this chaotic mass of feathers, she was whispering an incantation in a language I couldn’t make out. I sat there hypnotized, my open book now forgotten.

I noticed that others were staring also. People glanced up from their paper bag lunches or from reading their tabloid newspapers and gasped. Young mothers pushing strollers stopped and gawked. It was a gesture of such tremendous force that it took us out of our little protective shells, the cocoons of fearful lives, and we forgot ourselves for that brief moment. We were her audience -- witnesses to what was clearly her offering -- and we came together for that brief moment and we were connected somehow. It was as if her act served to break down the walls between us.

In a few minutes, the birds had their fill and one by one, flew away, and the woman calmly grabbed her bag and shuffled away.

Such was the power of her act that for hours afterward I felt as if in a dream and the streets of The City seemed to me new again. 

And such is life in The City -- if we stay here long enough, we become immune and lose our sense of awe and forget even that we once possessed it. Then something happens to shatter the routine: a blizzard, or a blackout, even a terrorist act and for a few miraculous hours, we come together as our lives are upended and we notice each other’s presence and come into the awareness of the possibilities of human connection. Strangers reach out to one another; aid is offered without condition, hearts are opened. In a sense, this awareness, this presence, is, at least for me, a form of meditation-in-action.

I guess part of the reason I live here because the challenge of The City is to figure if this experience of openness can be cultivated and made to last.

My Name is Eddie and I'm in recovery from civilization... 

Sunday Sermon [La Ofrenda/ The Offering]

Hola Everybody...
When I first wrote this, I had some responses along the lines of, “it was just some deranged lady... ” And I guess perception is an important consideration. However, being present (which is what this post is really about) is everything. As a teacher used to tell me, life is like the Lotto, you gotta be in it to win it.

* * *

La Ofrenda/ The Offering

What you think you are is a belief to be undone.

One day, a few years ago, I played hookie from work. It was one of those early spring days and though it started with rain, a jealous sun struggled with obstinate clouds. It was lunchtime in one of my favorite reading spots in The City in Union Square Park. There’s a life-sized statue of Gandhi there and people often put fresh cut flowers in its hands.

I have done this many times. I have several “power spots” throughout the city where I go read, observe, and contemplate, alone yet surrounded -- stillness surrounded by frantic activity. On that day, no sooner than I had settled on a bench, a woman with long white, wiry wild hair came shuffling toward me. I was hoping she wouldn’t sit next to me; I didn’t want to smell yet another homeless person (such is the way we make people invisible). Perhaps reading me, she sat down rigidly across from me. I wanted to get back to my reading. But she stared at me intensely. Then slowly, reflectively, as if following some unknown anointment ritual, she emptied a bag of birdseed on her shoulders. It was a strange sight even for La Gran Manzana -- the capital of wierdness. I noticed how the seeds clung to her hair and clothes, pooled onto her lap, into the folds of her worn clothes, and scattered over her soiled sneakers. Then she leaned back and, after fixing me once more with that intense gaze, she stretched her arms and closed her eyes.

A brief moment passed and first one pigeon flew to her and then several more, and then a dozen or more. They congregated on her arms, pecking at the seeds and one another in a feeding frenzy. Soon the edges of her body were blurred in a flutter of wings. I sat there transfixed thinking this was an act of madness -- clearly this woman was crazy; it seemed as if the birds were devouring her. At the same time, the act took on an air of magic. All the while she was disappearing into this chaotic mass of feathers, she was whispering an incantation in a language I couldn’t make out. I sat there hypnotized, my open book now forgotten.
 

I noticed that others were staring also. People glanced up from their paper bag lunches or reading their newspapers and gasped. Young mothers pushing strollers stopped and gawked. It was a gesture of such tremendous force that it took us out of our little protective shells, from the cocoons of fearful lives, and for a brief moment we forgot ourselves. Her audience -- witnesses to what I call her offering -- came together for that ephemeral time and we were connected somehow. It was as if her act served to break down the walls between us.

In a few minutes, the birds had their fill and one by one, flew away, and the woman calmly grabbed her bag and shuffled away.

Such was the power of her act that for hours afterward I felt as if in a dream and the streets of The City seemed to me new again. 

And such is life in The City -- if we stay here long enough, we become immune and lose our sense of awe and forget even that we possessed it. Then something happens to shatter the routine: a blizzard, or a blackout, even a terrorist act and for a few miraculous hours, we come together as our lives are upended and we notice each other’s presence and come into the awareness of the possibilities of human connection. Strangers reach out to one another; aid is offered without condition, hearts are opened. In a sense, I see this awareness, this presence, is a form of meditation in action.

I guess part of the reason I live here because the challenge of The City is to figure if this experience of openness can be cultivated and made to last.

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…

The Plantation in Puerto Rican Popular Music

I wrote the following for another site and I don’t believe it migrated here. I’m in a Puerto Rican Studies mood today, so I’m sharing.

* * *

Plantacíon Adentro: The Plantation in Puerto Rican Popular Music

Sombras son la gente…

The connection between the Cuban “Son” and Salsa is undeniable, but whereas son is Cuban country music, salsa was the child of an inner city identity movement wrought by the mass migration of primarily Puerto Rican Latin@s to New York in the 50s and 60s. Hence Salsa, right off the bat, is overtly political. The Panamanian-born actor, songwriter, poet, Harvard-trained lawyer, and politician, Ruben Blades (who sings lead here) once asserted that salsa was more than a musical genre, it was a way of life, an “urban folklore.” Eventually that urban folklore -- that cry of the urban Latin@ working class -- would reach 100s of millions of Latin@s in Barrios the world over. Eventually Europe and swaths of the Orient would come under its rhythmic spell (salsa dancing and salsa bands still very popular in Japan -- Google Orquesta la Luz).

While some salsa songs, for example, take up the theme of the sweetness of the sugarcane as a way to explore nostalgia for the good things of the old country, others explored the politics more trenchantly. What ultimately appealed to the young Puerto Ricans in New York and Latin@s the world over were the songs that documented (and in that way validated), celebrated, and explored life in El Barrio.

As an example, Willie Colon and Ruben Blades collaborated on a viciously wicked song called “Plantación Adentro” (literally Plantation Inside). Though it deals with a coffee rather than a sugar plantation, the system of oppression is not much different. Written by one of the greatest Puerto Rican composers, Tite Curet Alonso, the song is notable first for its black humor, which is used as a vehicle to expose the hypocrisy and cruelty of the entire system:

Se murio el indio Camilo por palo que daba el mayoral

que medico de turno dijo asi, “muerte por causa natural.”

¡claro! si despues de una tunda de palos, que se muera es normal

English translation:

Camilo the Indian died from the beating the overseer gave him,

and the doctor on shift pronounced it,

“death by natural causes.”

Sure! after a rain of blows naturally one dies!

Not much different from the reality that many Puerto Ricans and other minorities experience: so long as everything is certified by a specialist (in this case the doctor on call) the status quo holds and the system is legitimized by its social institutions and proceeds business-as-usual. Of course, the meaning of that “natural” death is open to interpretation, and while it results from a natural or normal chain of cause and effect, it is not legally a “natural” death. This highlights the essentially violent nature of capitalism, as experienced in the postcolonial context.

The song also utilizes a theme that centers on the paradox between secrecy (a proactive blindness?) and revelation. This is an inspired bit of writing on the part of Alonso: the plantation presents us with a conundrum, as it is at the same time hidden (“adentro”) and out in the open. Its marginal status virtually ensures that few people outside the industry would or could penetrate the boundaries erected by social prejudice, geographical isolation, and poverty.

The song begins with the news broadcast of a death and then proceeds with the following lyrics:

Sombras son la gente, sombras son la gente

Plantación adentro camará, e' donde se sabe la verdad,

e' donde se aprende la verdad,

dentro del follaje, y de la espesura, donde todo viaje, lleva la amargura . . .

Camilo Manrique fallecio por golpes que daba el mayoral

y fue sepultado sin llorar, una cruz de palo y nada más.

English:

People are but mere shadows... there's a plantation inside there,

that's where the truth is known, that's where the truth is learned,

inside the foliage, past the thickets, where everyone passes, there is bitter grief...

Camilo Manrique died from the blows of the overseer

and was buried without tears, a cross made from sticks and nothing more.

While the song is a lament for the cruel murder of an Indian, its genius consists in the way it builds its meaning around symbols of boundaries that simultaneously define and blur the spaces they delineate. The foliage marks the borders of the plantation, inside of which “the truth is learned.” 

Paradoxically, the thickets serve to hide this inside knowledge from those who pass by without entering. The grave marker is merely two sticks that reinforce the anonymity of the death. It marks the grave but not the body interred within it. Nothing more can be known about the deceased or the circumstances of his death. The fact that the sticks are of the very same material that killed the Indian is an irony that would escape notice were it not for the narrator's constant repetition of the word “palo” used here both in the sense of “stick” and the “blow” dealt by a stick (“palo” is both a noun: stick; and an action: a blow).

In fact, the entire incident, along with the presence and significance of the plantation, would escape notice, were it not for the narrator's own transgression, which means that the plantation now bears scrutiny and exists as a kind of “clue” or crime scene that must be investigated, penetrated, brought to light. It is an open secret, the dirty laundry of the captains of industry.

Tite Curet Alonso was arguably the greatest composer and interpreter of Afro-Puerto Rican musical and written art forms. He composed songs based on folkloric expressions of the very poor and downtrodden and wrote in a way that entertained, instructed, and elevated urban popular culture no other composer can claim. That his genius is barely acknowledged today is itself a crime.

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…

The Real New York Series [The Bird Lady of Union Square Park]

¡Hola! Everybody...
Click here to read my submission this week for Subversify, an online magazine offering an alternative, subversive perspective to mainstream media, starts...

* * *

-=[ The Offering/ La Ofrenda ]=-

What you think you are is a belief to be undone.

This is part of my non-official, Real New York series.

What is the real New York? It’s all real, actually. But the real question here is: where does one get the genuine stink of authenticity, where does one find the essential essence of The City? Of course, the answer depends on who you are. Perhaps the real New York is the attractive alcoholic woman, obviously going downhill fast, who stands by the entrance to my subway stop some mornings asking for spare change -- and who flirts with me (“Damn, you look hawt today, papi!”) whether or not I give her a dollar. Sometimes weeks roll by and she’s nowhere to be seen and I wonder. Then one morning, she’s there again, asking for change, that undeniable intelligence in her eyes, her fading beauty still there, a tattered paperback peering out of the plastic Chanel bag that serves as her purse.

Or perhaps it's the bird lady of Union Square Park...

One day, a couple of years ago, I played hookie from work. It was one of those early spring days and though it started with rain, a recalcitrant sun eventually vied with obstinate clouds for control of the day. It was lunchtime in one of my favorite reading spots in The City in Union Square Park. There’s a life-sized statue of Gandhi there and people often put fresh cut flowers in its hands.

I have done this many times. I have several “power spots” throughout the city where I go read, observe, and contemplate, alone yet surrounded -- I like the feeling of stillness surrounded by frantic activity. On that day, no sooner than I had settled on a bench, a woman with long white, wild hair came shuffling toward me. I was hoping she wouldn’t sit next to me; I didn’t want to smell yet another homeless person (such is the way people become invisible). Perhaps reading me, she sat down rigidly across from me. I wanted to get back to my reading. But she stared at me intensely. Then slowly, reflectively, as if following some unknown anointment ritual, she emptied a bag of birdseed on her shoulders. It was a strange sight even for La Gran Manzana -- the capital of weirdness. I noticed how the seeds clung to her hair and clothes, pooled onto her lap, into the folds of her worn clothes, and scattered over her soiled sneakers. Then she leaned back and, after fixing me once more with that intense gaze, she stretched her arms and closed her eyes.

A brief moment passed and first one pigeon flew to her and then several more, and then a dozen or more. They congregated on her arms, pecking at the seeds and one another as they fed greedily. Soon the edges of her body were blurred in a flutter of wings. I sat there transfixed thinking this was an act of madness -- clearly this woman was crazy; it seemed as if the birds were devouring her. At the same time, the act took on an aura of magic. All the while she was disappearing into this chaotic mass of feathers, she was whispering an incantation in a language I couldn’t make out. I sat there hypnotized, my open book now forgotten.

I noticed that others were staring also. People glanced up from their paper bag lunches or reading their newspapers and gasped. Young mothers pushing strollers stopped and gawked. It was a gesture of such tremendous force that it took us out of our little protective shells, the cocoons of fearful lives, and we forgot ourselves for that brief moment. we were her audience -- witnesses to what I call her offering -- and we came together for that brief moment and we were connected somehow. It was as if her act served to break down the walls between us.

In a few minutes, the birds had their fill and one by one, flew away, and the woman calmly grabbed her bag and shuffled away.

Such was the power of her act that for hours afterward I felt as if in a dream and the streets of The City seemed to me new again.

And such is life in The City -- if we stay here long enough, we become immune and lose our sense of awe and forget even that we once possessed it. Then something happens to shatter the routine: a blizzard, or a blackout, even a terrorist act and for a few miraculous hours, we come together as our lives are upended and we notice each other’s presence and come into the awareness of the possibilities of human connection. Strangers reach out to one another; aid is offered without condition, hearts are opened. In a sense, this awareness, this presence, is a form of meditation in action.

I guess part of the reason I live here because the challenge of The City is to figure if this experience of openness can be cultivated and made to last.

My Name is Eddie and I'm in recovery from civilization...

Sunday Sermon [La Ofrenda/ The Offering]

¡Hola! Everybody...
When I first wrote this, I had some responses along the lines of, "it was just some deranged lady... " And I guess, perception is an important consideration. However, being present (which is what this post is really about) is everything. Life is like the Lotto, you gotta be in it to win it...

* * *

-=[ The Offering/ La Ofrenda ]=-

What you think you are is a belief to be undone.

One day, a couple of years ago, I played hookie from work. It was one of those early spring days and though it started with rain, a jealous sun was attempting to break through obstinate clouds. It was lunchtime in one of my favorite reading spots in The City in Union Square Park. There’s a life-sized statue of Gandhi there and people often put fresh cut flowers in its hands.

I have done this many times. I have several “power spots” throughout the city where I go read, observe, and contemplate, alone yet surrounded -- stillness surrounded by frantic activity. On that day, no sooner than I had settled on a bench, a woman with long white, wild hair came shuffling toward me. I was hoping she wouldn’t sit next to me; I didn’t want to smell yet another homeless person (such is the way we make people invisible). Perhaps reading me, she sat down rigidly across from me. I wanted to get back to my reading. But she stared at me intensely. Then slowly, reflectively, as if following some unknown anointment ritual, she emptied a bag of birdseed on her shoulders. It was a strange sight even for La Gran Manzana -- the capital of woerdness. I noticed how the seeds clung to her hair and clothes, pooled onto her lap, into the folds of her worn clothes, and scattered over her soiled sneakers. Then she leaned back and, after fixing me once more with that intense gaze, she stretched her arms and closed her eyes.

A brief moment passed and first one pigeon flew to her and then several more, and then a dozen or more. They congregated on her arms, pecking at the seeds and one another in a feeding frenzy. Soon the edges of her body were blurred in a flutter of wings. I sat there transfixed thinking this was an act of madness -- clearly this woman was crazy; it seemed as if the birds were devouring her. At the same time, the act took on an air of magic. All the while she was disappearing into this chaotic mass of feathers, she was whispering an incantation in a language I couldn’t make out. I sat there hypnotized, my open book now forgotten.

I noticed that others were staring also. People glanced up from their paper bag lunches or reading their newspapers and gasped. Young mothers pushing strollers stopped and gawked. It was a gesture of such tremendous force that it took us out of our little protective shells, from the cocoons of fearful lives and we forgot ourselves for that brief moment. Her audience -- witnesses to what I call her offering -- came together for that brief time and we were connected somehow. It was as if her act served to break down the walls between us.

In a few minutes, the birds had their fill and one by one, flew away, and the woman calmly grabbed her bag and shuffled away.

Such was the power of her act that for hours afterward I felt as if in a dream and the streets of The City seemed to me new again.

And such is life in The City -- if we stay here long enough, we become immune and lose our sense of awe and forget even that we possessed it. Then something happens to shatter the routine: a blizzard, or a blackout, even a terrorist act and for a few miraculous hours, we come together as our lives are upended and we notice each other’s presence and come into the awareness of the possibilities of human connection. Strangers reach out to one another; aid is offered without condition, hearts are opened. In a sense, this awareness, this presence, is a form of meditation in action.

I guess part of the reason I live here because the challenge of The City is to figure if this experience of openness can be cultivated and made to last.

Love,

Eddie

Of Love and Sports

¡Hola! Everybody...
Today, I wax nostalgic... somewhat.

* * *

-=[ Of Love and Sports, the Assassination of New York, and Blackouts ]=-

The two were meant for each other. One’s a born liar, and the other’s convicted.

-- Billy Martin on Reggie Jackson and George Steinbrenner

Meatloaf’s Paradise by the Dashboard Light is a song is about a teen-aged boy trying to convince a girl to have sex with him in a car. Baseball is used as a metaphor for sex. Sex would be the “Paradise” for him, but she holds out until he says he loves her and will stay with her forever. The young man almost “scores,” but is thrown out at the plate when the girl decides she won’t have sex with him. The voice of the sports announcer used in the song is none other than Phil Rizzuto, the long-time Yankee announcer.

It was only fitting that colorful Yankee owner, George Steinbrenner, passed away on the day the baseball All Star classic was to be played, therefore overshadowing the game. It’s fitting because old George loved the limelight. But today I come here not to praise Steinbrenner, but to bury him...

Whenever I think of the 70s, the Yankees, and my beloved City, I always think back to those hectic horny days of an abandoned New York reeling from a massive white flight and in the in thrall of a series of Yankee teams that rewrote the way the game is played.

The “Bronx Zoo,” as one of the players would later call the team, was a collection of high-priced baseball stars with huge egos and a determination to win that was only outmatched by their owner’s. They would fight other teams and one another. Everyday, there was some kind of drama brewing about in the midst of the assassination of one of the greatest cities in the history of humankind. One day, their most famous and controversial manager, Billy Martin, woke up and, in a fit of frustration declared that one was a “convicted liar” (referring to Steinbrenner’s conviction stemming from the Watergate scandal) and the other a “born liar” (referring to the team’s volatile superstar of superstars, Reggie Jackson).

Martin was promptly fired for the first of many times... (officially, he resigned, but he would've been fired had he not)

Whole sectors of the city was burned down or literally aflame as the real estate and financial Elites slashed city services, spurring slum lords to burn their properties down in order to collect the insurance. Even so, we had the Yankees to distract us -- and what a team that was! Who can forget the year they came back from insurmountable odds to catch up to and then beat the hated Red Sox in dramatic fashion during a special playoff game? Ask any real New Yorker, and he or she can tell you in vivid detail what they were doing when Bucky dent hit that famous homerun.

There was also that summer of the infamous Son of Sam and “The Blackout.” I remember that summer well; a sweltering city was caught in the grips of the actions of a lunatic, culminating in a total blackout one hot, and sizzling city summer night. Already economically devastated, the looting that took place during that blackout destroyed whole sectors of business districts throughout the city. So many people were caught looting, that the police stopped arresting them and instead beat them down and sent them packing.

I remember there was a downpour in the middle of that night, and it was then, while I organized demands that bodega owners give out candles and milk to women with children, that I fell in love with “La Mora,” a cinnamon-skinned, dark-haired Taina princess -- the same one who would leave me overfucked, underfed, and heartbroken that same cold September.

GAWD! What a summer!

Nevertheless, no matter what, there were the Yankees, fighting everyone including themselves. I remember Billy Martin pushing up on Reggie Jackson and challenging him to a fight on national TV one hot summer night. Martin was a scrawny, scrappy man, known for fighting dirty, drinking with his ballplayers, and his self-destructive tendencies. In short, Martin was the quintessential New Yorker and we loved his crazy ass because he didn’t give a fuck. A brilliant manager, the only way he knew how to motivate people was through intimidation. And here he was, in the midst of a high-powered, high-priced, highly talented group of professionals. There was never a dull moment.

All the while, up front and center and adding fuel to the fire was Steinbrenner. He didn’t understand losing, didn’t understand patience. He wanted to win everyday. He was a mess, and more often than not, his rash decisions often cost the club. But he was a brilliant salesman, a modern-day Barnum, and he understood how the game was changing and he pushed that too. Let’s be clear: Steinbrenner was essentially a right-wing prick. He took hundreds of millions from the City in order to renovate the Stadium and he reneged on almost all his promises. As bad as the City was doing those days, we never really saw a real profit from all those subsidies. It was welfare for the greedy, for sure. The Stadium itself is a dichotomy: situated in the South Bronx, the symbol of urban decay -- Fort Apache.

Steinbrenner was an unmitigated pig who didn’t give a fuck about anything or anybody. Over the years, however, I learned to appreciate some things about him. For one, he gave people chances. He was a sucker for a redemption song, as illustrated by all the chances he offered to the drug addicted Darryl Strawberry, Doc Gooden, and Steve Howe, for example. So I guess Steinbrenner wasn’t all evil. He did give us the Yankees of the late 1970s, and the team’s antics served as the backdrop to my own hilarious crimes that have now grown to story-time delights and I guess for that I should be grateful. So today, I’ll bury old George, but I’ll do it while remembering Meatloaf, Phil Rizzutto, and, of course, Reggie Jackson (who was, after all, part Puerto Rican) hitting those back-to-back-to-back home runs during the playoffs.

Rest in peace, George...

Eddie

The Offering

¡Hola! Everybody...
Hope everyone had a joyous holiday celebration. It’s back to work and I have a huge week coming up -- lot’s of work. There’s a full week ahead, so keep your online shopping to a minimum! LOL

I wrote the following about a year ago. A friend was reading it and thought I should submit it somewhere...

* * *

-=[ The Offering ]=-

“What you think you are is a belief to be undone.”

One day, a couple of years ago, I played hookie from work. It was one of those early spring days and though it started with rain, the sun was attempting to make a reluctant appearance through obstinate clouds. It was lunchtime in one of my favorite reading spots in The City in Union Square Park. There’s a statue of Gandhi there and people often put fresh cut flowers in its hands.

I have done this many times. I have several “power spots” throughout the city where I go read, observe, and contemplate, alone yet surrounded -- stillness surrounded by frantic activity. On that day, no sooner than I had settled on a bench, a woman with white, wild hair came shuffling toward me. I was hoping she wouldn’t sit next to me; I didn’t want to smell yet another homeless person (such is the way we make people invisible). Perhaps reading me, she sat down rigidly across from me. I wanted to get back to my reading. But she stared at me intensely. Then slowly, reflectively, as if following some anointment ritual, she emptied a bag birdseed on her shoulders. It was a strange sight even for life in La Gran Manzana. I noticed how the seeds clung to her hair and clothes, pooled onto her lap, into the folds of her worn clothes, and scattered over her soiled sneakers. Then she leaned back and, after fixing me with that intense gaze, she closed her eyes.

A brief moment passed and first one pigeon flew to her and then several more, and then a dozen or more. They congregated on her arms, pecking at the seeds and one another in a feeding frenzy. Soon the edges of her body were blurred in a flutter of wings. I sat there transfixed thinking this was an act of madness – clearly this woman was crazy; it seemed as if the birds were devouring her. At the same time, the act took on an air of magic. All the while she was disappearing into this chaotic mass of feathers, she was whispering an incantation in a language I couldn’t make out. I sat there hypnotized, my open book now forgotten.

I noticed that others were staring also. People glanced up from eating their lunches or reading their newspapers and gasped. Young mothers pushing strollers stopped and gawked. It was a gesture of such tremendous force that it took us out of our little protective shells, from the narrowness of fearful lives and we forgot ourselves for that brief moment. Her audience – witnesses to what I call her offering – came together for the brief time and we acted as friends and not strangers. It was as if her act served to break down the walls between us.

In a few minutes, the birds had their fill and one by one, flew away, and the woman calmly grabbed her bag and shuffled away.

Such was the power of her act that for hours afterward I felt as if in a dream and the streets of The City seemed to me new again.

And such is life in The City – if we stay here long enough, we become inured and lose our sense of awe – and forget even that we possessed it. Then something happens to shatter the routine – a blizzard, or a blackout, even a terrorist act – and for a few miraculous hours, we come together as our lives are upended and we notice each other’s presence and come into the awareness of the possibilities of human connection. Strangers reach out to one another; aid is offered without condition, hearts are opened. In a sense, this awareness, this presence, is a form of meditation in action.

I guess part of the reason I live here because the challenge of The City is to figure if this experience of openness can be cultivated and made to last.

Love,

Eddie