Smiles

Two people smiled at me this morning as I walked down my street. The first was a balding elderly man who was leaning out of his ground floor window to water his flower boxes. I wanted to stop to tell him how much I appreciate his plants, but I didn't. He glanced up as I passed and gave me a half-smile, which I returned.

As I moved quickly past, I was surprised to realize how much that brief bit of friendly human contact meant to me. People don't smile at strangers here. People don't smile much at strangers in NH either, and it would normally never occur to me to want them to, but I'd been struck by the gleaming friendliness of a server at a bakery earlier (I'd gone on a quest to get a cronut--New York's latest food obsession. Of course, I was too late.). Faced with his sunniness, I'd realized that I don't smile much anymore--and not for good reasons.

I was never a Cheshire cat, but the guardedness and rush and faux-sophistication of the city has been rubbing off on me. The heckling from homeless men at the subway entrance--"C'mon, baby, what's the matter? Smile!"--doesn't really help.

Ten paces past the flower boxes, a few men, apparently movers, were standing in the sidewalk by their truck. My look-at-the-ground-and-get-past-the-men-without-getting-their-attention mode kicked in, but first I briefly made eye contact with one. He smiled at me--a warm, kind, undemanding smile. I smiled back even as I returned my eyes to the sidewalk and quickened my pace. Enough pleasant interaction with strangers for one day.

Hudson Street

Welcome to my daily beat.

I walk a few blocks down Hudson Street to work.
When it's warm, I walk a few blocks up to eat lunch outside in St. Luke's garden.

When the weather permits, I walk all the way down past the end of Hudson to meet with believers to worship, study, and pray at a loft in the Financial District.
Other days, I walk all the way up to visit friends in Chelsea.

Along the way, I sometimes buy a bagel at Hudson Bagels or a coffee at Dunkin Donuts (I sheepishly hide this from my co-workers, since my shrinking soul can't stand up to their scorn for the place.)

Sometimes I see children in Tribeca, always a welcome sight in this oddly child-barren city. These children are usually better dressed than I am, and I can tell their haircuts probably cost three times as much as mine, but they are kids and I refuse to be intimidated.

My new habit as I walk to the loft is to read or listen to a psalm of ascent. As much as I love this city, the constant judgments passed by others (and by myself) wear me out, and I need my heart realigned before I can sing a hymn sincerely.

Ps 123

 To you I lift up my eyes,
    O you who are enthroned in the heavens!
² Behold, as the eyes of servants
    look to the hand of their master,
as the eyes of a maidservant
    to the hand of her mistress,
so our eyes look to the Lord our God,
    till he has mercy upon us.

Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us,
    for we have had more than enough of contempt.
⁴ Our soul has had more than enough
    of the scorn of those who are at ease,
    of the contempt of the proud.