Only Connect
A guide to throwing a word and why
On the N Train downtown from Queens Friday evening, a man got on at 59th Street. He asked, “Does this go to 49th?” Yes, I said, but he didn’t hear. “49th?” he said again to an oblivious car. YES, I said louder. He waved a thanks and got on. I turned to a younger woman looking at me, and said, “At least, it’s supposed to,” as another little man got on, grinning with an accent, “Brooklyn? Brooklyn?” and I called out, YES, and he got on and the door closed. The younger woman said, “You’re the subway tour guide.” “I was a school teacher,” I said, “brought students here for field trips.” I paused. We were seated in those L-arrangements peculiar to the N-W-Q-R line, so we were catty corner facing one another. A story occurred to me. Do I throw the word?
I threw. “Years ago I got off an exit to use the bathroom at a Wendy’s,” I said, catching her eye and she was attentive, so I continued, “and inside there was this officious kind of woman directing people to the bathroom, explaining, ‘That first stall is broken, keep going,’ and I looked at her and said, ‘You’re a school teacher,’ and she said, ‘Second grade!’ Teachers are fearless like that, and we help.”
The young woman advised, “Wendy’s has the worst bathrooms,” and so it was we chatted at each stop until she got off at 34th St—I was headed to Union Square. We talked about how strangers on the subway don’t chat the way they used to, everyone looking down into their phones, for one thing. She got off at her stop, and I said something about how you never know when you’ll see someone again. She said, “I’m Anita,” and I said, “I’m Lisa.” We said farewell at 34th.
And in NYC, these connections, however tenuous, matter. You are reminding another person, yourself, and anyone listening in, “We are nice people. There are nice people, people who think about things, who observe the world around them, and connect to other people. You can do that too, if you want.”
Outside at Union Square, I walked University Place toward Washington Square Park, heading to the Skirball Center to hear the New York City Gay Men’s Chorus, in its 45th year—one charter member still singing!—and gave myself time to wander Greenwich Village as dusk rolled in, the best time. In my walks I make a point of making eye contact, smiling—not idiotically, but because it’s a nice thing to do. It’s spring, be here, have this experience. The park is nice.
In the theater, I found my balcony seat. I’d never been to one of these concerts, but I’d learned that my boss was in the chorus, and I knew he’d be glad someone from the office came. Plus, it’s a chance to hear choral music, which I used to hear twice a year when I was a teacher going to high school seasonal choir concerts. I love choral music but never think to seek it out. Beside me to my right sat two young women, aged 30 at most. Like me, they were pouring over the list of names, and I found my boss listed in the basses, which surprised me—I took him for a tenor. Before the show, I asked the girls if they were visiting, and I got their stories: one had just moved here from Tennessee with a boyfriend, and the other was visiting because her best friend since preschool (!) was in the NYCGMC. Did I live here? Yes, for 23 years almost, and the recent arrival said, “If you don’t mind my asking, why did you move here?” And thence the story of losing my house to eminent domain, and she asked, “What is that?” And I explained eminent domain, and they were shocked. “They had to pay you, right?” Only because someone told me to ask about it. “What do you do here now?” I gave them every out, to be clear, so they didn’t have to listen to me, and tried to draw them out so they didn’t have to humor me in the story of my life, but weirdly they kept asking questions, learning about a life in textbooks—you’ve heard all this. But it was really sweet, this keen interest from the kids. Hopeful, I think.
The choir entered and arranged themselves on risers—some 250 men, all decked out in their own styles of white, gold, and silver. Long sleeves, short sleeves, net tops, sequined tops; accessories of gold and silver, the common ground the white pants. And I realized I had no idea where my boss would be, so I did what I had to do: I started at the bottom left and worked my way across the rows of faces, one by one by one, during the beautiful medley of “Pure Imagination” and “Over the Rainbow,” and the looking moved me as much as the listening—the unexpected specificity of all those faces, ages, races, sizes, heights, body types, styles of expression—all joined together by their shared struggle and triumph in the face of a hateful society, and meeting us all with love, dammit, love.
Finally, I found my boss, center, fourth row from the top, singing in his silver shirt. Next to me, I heard the girls finding their friend, “the brown shirt,” though there were a few fellows with golden brown tops. I was a little startled that the bff girl, during the performance, kept checking her texts; and at two or three moments she got up and went outside for several minutes at a time. At one point she returned and put her head on her friend’s shoulder. I’m glad I’d talked to them beforehand, because I might have been super annoyed and said something to her—but I couldn’t help feeling, because of our recent connection, that the bff girl had something very serious going on back in Knoxville, and she was only here in New York because she wanted to be here to support her friend. After the show, I never remarked on anything except to say, “I hope you gals have a great visit,” and off they went.
Out on the sidewalk, on the lookout, I saw my boss come outside looking for someone, turning to go back in when I caught him. He looked, his eyes got wide, and he embraced me—wouldn’t let go. Thanked me for coming, wanted to know how they sounded. “Great!” And they did. Then he said, “I have to thank you for being a rock on this project,” speaking of our work life, and it’s in these outside, joyful places we can tell people what we are thinking, what we don’t express. Nothing went to my head, believe me, and we parted with a wave as I set off back across Washington Square.
Back to a Queens-bound W Train at 14th St, a woman who looked like Taraji P. Henson (whom I’d just seen Monday in Joe Turner’s Come and Gone in the Broadway revival, and it’s splendid), in full glam mode, got on with her (I think) son; she sat down beside me, turned to me with her big lashed eyes and said, “You are so [unheard].” I said, “I’m sorry?” “Beautiful,” she said, “you are just beautiful.” Gray-haired ancient me said, “Thank you, so kind,” “I call what I see,” she said, and I added, truthfully, “You are gorgeous,” and she said, “I’ll take it.” We smiled. The young man, a big teddy bear, was standing with his phone, and I asked if he wanted to sit and I’d change seats—no, he’s good at the pole—and I admired his really cool green plaid coat.
And I share all these mundanities—here adding the glam woman’s call to me at 34th Street, where they were getting off (a lot of connecting trains lead there), “You have an amazing night,” and I said, “You too!”—because the whole evening had built to good fellow feeling, connections without fear, with compliments, good humor, hope; I was about as peaceful as I’d been in months.
This afternoon I took a break from work to run to the post office to mail a friend a gift of notebooks I’d picked out for her at the MoMA P.S. 1 gift shop in Long Island City yesterday. There was a line—six or eight people, only one person working a window (of course), but it was that really nice Korean lady who is super efficient and helpful and unfazed by all the different needs—a little family of three finishing a passport application for their baby, a woman in need of a money order, artist-sellers with envelopes and packages with special needs for sending. The worker asked a woman customer if she wanted to pay for tracking, and she’d said no, but a woman three people behind me in line said something to her in Spanish, and the customer said, “Oh, si, si,” and this other woman called to the postal worker, “She does want the tracking, she didn’t understand,” and I smiled at her (I was next to go up) and she said, “I’m bilingual but I couldn’t think of the word for tracking,” and the woman just in front of her turned around and told her the word. She practiced it. Amazing. I said, “I only speak one language, and I lose words all the time,” I reached in the air, “Words!” and she smiled. I went up, got the package mailed, and as I left, the translating woman caught me with her voice, “Have a good day,” and I said, “You too!”
Now here’s the crazy thing: As I’m going out the door to the little alcove area, I held the door for a woman with packages, and another woman in sunglasses walked in behind her, and as I went through the alcove to the street door, I hear, “Lisa?” and the voice takes off her sunglasses and I look and she looks, and she says, “The train,” and I say, “Anita?” We couldn’t believe it, each figuring the other lived in Astoria, where the N-W Trains originate. She said she couldn’t stop thinking about things I’d said, especially about how you never know when you’ll see people, and there we were. Turns out, we live a block from each other. Go know.
So here’s what I’m saying: I think the only way we beat these fucking corporate Republicans and Democrats at their stupid power and insider training games and actually get shit done for us, the People, is to 1) come out and vote in droves; and 2) connect, connect, connect, connect. Okay?
Sending love,
Miss O’
Yes, yes, yes.
Amen.