Things I saw on my walk to the bagel shop and back

*with a pit stop at the corner grocery store

• A man walking down my block using a walker, who I haven’t met before, but he greeted me as if we’d known each other forever

• A mother pushing her toddler daughter in a stroller, who was wearing a very cute yellow outfit and singing to herself, who smiled at me

• A nurse taking an elderly patient in a wheelchair out for a walk, who smiled at me while she talked on the phone

• A bagel shop employee holding open the door for a patron in a wheelchair

• A man with glasses who, after seeing me hold the door open for someone to exit, said “please allow me” and held the door open for me, then told other men in the bagel shop to “make way for the lady, please”

  • This wouldn’t be so funny if I wasn’t dressed like a character from the Subway Surfers video game

• A tall man walking down the street and coughing open mouthed with no regard for anyone

• Lots of construction on a street corner that is also a bus stop, which smelled strongly like chemicals and burning metal

• A crossing guard in a pink raincoat handling the construction area traffic and another in a yellow raincoat who held up a Stop sign and ushered an older woman with an umbrella across the street. She was very charmed by this and said “ooooh thank you” and smiled and laughed

• A bag of Lemonade Utz chips that made me double back for a photo. I’ve seen crazy chip flavors before but never one that’s….sweet?

Would you eat these?

I see more people in a 5 minute excursion on foot in a 4-block radius than people in car-reliant areas see in a day. And I’m not afraid of them. We smile and wave and hold the door for each other and ask how each other is doing, even when we don’t know each other. They are my neighbors and peers and respected elders and admired service workers and they are just people, living their own lives. I grew up in Queens, in a town a bit smaller than the one I currently live in in Brooklyn, so this has always just been the norm for me. On that short walk this morning I was just thinking about how right-wing media tries to make the city seem like the most awful, crime and disease ridden, filthiest place in the world, but it’s actually a lot more like a page from Richard Scarry’s Busytown.