I’m grateful to the City because it doesn’t make me forget about what life is about, what death is about, what money and lack of money are about.
The City (and the Subway most of all) doesn’t allow me to forget me what urine, shit, and spit smell and look like when they are out in the open, communication devices as much as bodily excretions. I come home and wash my hands, but I cannot wash my soul clean and blind as I did when I lived in the suburbs.
At night, the City is magnificent, paralyzing in its beauty of lights and skyscrapers, crowds of people and cars, loud noise and incessant movement, a futuristic dance of humans, buildings, and machines.
I’m grateful to the City because it reminds me every moment what being human is about: in small gestures, in the kindness of strangers, in the expressions on people’s faces early in the morning.