054. Everybody's looking up

There’s another one. Standing on a street-corner. Arms down slack by her sides. Head tilted upwards and lips slightly parted.

"Birds", she says, "I saw a hawk, or maybe a falcon. They’re rare in the city aren’t they?"

I don't know, I say. I don’t know anything about birds.

"It just started out like that", she continues, "I saw a hawk or maybe a falcon. But now I see all of them. Up there. Not just the way we see them avoid us on the streets or quickly slip in for crumbs we leave behind. Not just the great migrations or the murder of crows. I don’t think of pigeons as flippant about us anymore. I can’t. It takes courage to come near us when you have the ability to be that far away".

Almost imperceptibly she nods upwards and I edge away.

Then I see another one.

"Jetliners", he says, "airplanes paint jet vapor trails across the sky. I don’t care much where they’re going or who they are. The passengers, I mean. Get right down to it even the biggest planes can carry over 500 people and there’d be, what? five? Maybe six. Tops. Six people with a story you would enjoy over the hours those giants fly. Down here it doesn’t matter who they are. Or where they’re going. But I know they’re going somewhere and that they’re someone. I don’t think of people on the subway like that. Or on the bus. Or passing on the street. Why do you think that is?"

I don’t know, I tell him.

Look, I tell him, I got to run, okay?

"Yes", he says, "everyone always has to run".

Then I see another.

What are you looking at, I ask her.

"Nothing", she says. And after a little while:

"Would you like me to make something up? I’ll make something up for you. Here:

Did you know that sunbathing is the only socially acceptable way of doing absolutely nothing? And now they’re taking that away from us as well. Because the sun kills. Is there anything that won’t kill me?

I don’t know, I tell her. Seems everything could be dangerous if taken too far. Like standing on a street corner, staring at the sky, and not caring about what happens all around you.

At this she looks at me. She’s the first one to look at me. And she smiles and she says

"Don’t you wish you didn’t care?"

And she says:

"Or if you value your awareness so much, don’t you wish you could direct someplace else? Or just throw it up there and let it fall where it may? Let it zig-zag down like a leaf, drop like a snowflake or plummet like a cannonball and land on someone else. It’s more likely to land on someone else. We move so much we might as well be everywhere at once".

She says:

"I believe that if you let it go for a second, just let your mind wander freely, it won’t land on a new car, or a jacket, or an expensive piece of new furniture. But on another human being. There’s millions of them here, all around us, haven’t you noticed?"