e pluribus unum

It’s finally feeling like spring here in the Big Apple. We got teased a month back with mild sunny days and then we were plunged like screaming newborns at baptism into the cold rainy gloom again. It was torture.
Today, Stuart and I dragged our pale winter-weathered selves blinking into the sunshine, with thermos(es?) and books and blankets in hand, to Astoria Park for the afternoon. For reasons I swear I will go into soon, as soon as The Jinx Cloud has passed (hopefully this week), this is* our last spring in Astoria and I’ve been getting very nostalgic at every turned corner **. The flower guy knows me! There’s a new cafe! How can I ever leave my home of five years, that I love and identify with so much?
Which brings me to one of my favorite things about Astoria. It’s this modern day Babel. I get this flush of satisfaction when I’m in a shop and I hear the proprietor talking in an accent, to someone else with a different accent. Neither of them are speaking their native tongues. It’s Greeks and Brasilians and Czechs and Poles and Pakistanis and guys from Jersey (ha) and every stripe of person you can imagine. I come from a huge mishmash of people, too, so I guess I feel at home here. I mean, I guess the whole city is this way but Astoria pulls it off with such charm and ease.
The subway was really crowded last night, at 1 AM. It’s hard when that happens because I’m exhausted and quiet and I don’t much feel like listening to you talk about that stoned guy, at the bar, MAN, he was so wasted! But I reminded myself, this is why I love it here! Enjoy this! All these people and their stories, people with whom you’d never socialize, with whom you’re nonetheless rubbing elbows.
And it’s true. It’s comforting. I guess sometimes it’s irritating when the crush of humanity is everywhere but the alternate – living in a world isolated by cars and parking lots and subdivisions – doesn’t make me feel part of the world around me. In the park today, a few Brasilians walked by; a guy was asking a woman about Ceasarians. He noticed me watching, must have seen that I understood the language, and laughed and said, “curiosity!” in Portguese. I answered, “killed the cat!”, right back. We laughed.
The park was full of noise. A jazz trio competed with the kids practicing soccer and the parents playing with their kids and the passel of teen girls cooing at dogs and the trains on Hell Gate and the cars on the Triboro and the speedboats whizzing by on the East River. Stuart raised his head from drawing and laughed, pointing out that this is what passes for quiet in New York.
And my god, I love it.

* Probably. PROBABLY. I can’t talk about this without killing all of you before your eyeballs finish the sentence to avoid the Jinx Cloud, also known as I Am Of The Greeks And Thus Superstitious. But I’ve decided that the blockage on my brain is too great and after Something Which Should Happen This Week, I will tell you about it without needing to kill you. Or use quite so many capitals.
** After the Thing Which Should Happen This Week, I will also regale you with endless stories about how incredibly nostalgic I can get. You think I got sappy when I met that Englishman? You have no idea.
[ed note: By the way, does anyone know how to do those nice linky pop-up note things? I love those and they'd make these asides a lot easier, don't you think?]