A traveling Texan returning to the lone star state

Whenever I'm walking around the city by myself (wait...when am I not walking around NYC by myself?!) I always wonder what the soundtrack to my life would be at that moment. Sadly, my mp3 player broke long ago so I can't necessarily hear music while pondering things like this. There are certain bands that I can correlate with different time periods in my life, however, without headphones and an ipod, I'm starting to associate city sounds with New York instead of actual music. I sit on the subway each morning and gaze at all of the people around me who are plugged into some kind of electrical device. Their ipods, iphones, dvd players, etc. Before I moved here I was constantly surrounded my music...at the gym, in my car, at my store, my mp3 player was always in my purse. However, I feel like I would be missing out on so much around me if I still had my headphones constantly in my ears. I really enjoy walking down my daily route to the subway each morning. I live in a Polish neighborhood and there are always locals hustling and bustling at 8 in the morning while they prepare their bodegas and corner shops for the day. I enjoy standing on the subway platforms listening for the faint sound of the train coming down the track. Even if you can't hear or see it at first, you can always tell when it is coming when the humid, stagnant, sticky air begins to move just the teeniest bit around you. It lifts up patches of peach fuzz that you might not have even known you had. I would totally miss out on the sound of commuters in taxis whizzing down the streets and the faint honking noises coming from blocks away. On a daily basis, I overhear random snippets of conversations that leave me wondering what kind of book I could write if I pieced together each remnant of these stories that pass me by while I walk.

This evening I walked down my little Brooklyn street after work alone in the dark with my umbrella while hurricane Hannah poured down above me. I listened to the water slosh underneath the cars and onto the sidewalks. Although my ballet flats squished as I walked from the rain water inside of them, I didn't mind the weather. I realized that being alone isn't so bad because I definitely wouldn't appreciate these tiny moments if my attention was focused elsewhere, whether it be on my ipod or the companionship of others.

Good pick-me-up from yesterday.