Overheard: F Train, York Street

She had huge brown eyes and a swinging ponytail.  Her backpack bunched up her shoulders. She wore a black coat, black pants.  Her friend was the one dressed in rainbow. Long spidery eyelashes. Earrings that brushed her shoulders.

I think when I'm finished with school, when I'm a nurse, I'll be a nurse for twenty or thirty years and then I'll be done with it.  I'll be something else.

You'll go back to school? The friend asked. When you're fifty?

I don't want one career. I want two careers.  I'll be a nurse and then I'll be something else. And when I'm fifty, I'll appreciate school more. When you're young you don't appreciate school.

What will you be when you're fifty?

Maybe. A dentist.

She looked through the glass of the subway doors as we slowed to a stop.  Her eyes did that frantic zig-zag scan, the kind of flash panic that comes when you've passed where you thought you might be, but you're really ahead of it. 

I totally thought we missed our stop.  This is it.

I loved her way of thinking.  The certainty that she wouldn't be one thing but many. The idea that she may not appreciate now what she might then or that becoming doesn't end with youth.

I started to think if I could be one thing now and something else in twenty years, what would that be?  

What would it be for you?

On The City

This morning, the morning subway commute was less crowded than I am used to. I stepped on to find a little girl in a wildflower pink and purple dress.  She had huge blue eyes. Pink arm warmers wrinkled to her elbows. Dozens of light brown braids were fastened with rainbow crystal hair ties.

"We are on the city," she told her mother.

"In the city," she corrected.

"We are in the city, Gilly Gil!" She called out, fanned her arms, spun around the metal pole.  She paced the small space, back and forth, babbled incessantly, like a song. The rush of crescendo.  The whispering, skipping little notes.  She spoke to herself, to her mother, to the train, to this Gilly Gil, whoever Gilly Gil might be, until suddenly she marched up to me.

"We are in the city," she said. Her severe stare, such a sharp focus, so determined. "We are on the bus, the plane, the car."

"Or the train." I smiled.

"The B Train!" She shouted, sent her arms soaring to the ceiling.

"The F Train," her mother corrected.

"To the Central Park zoo!"

"To camp, actually," her mother said.

"Or the zoo."

"Not the zoo."

And again, that stare.  How did her mother handle this stare?  Day in, day out, this blazing blue, turned grey, turned cold, turned certain.  She was defiant.  "We are on the city."

I wondered, what she was trying to sort out in her Dr. Seuss riddled way.  Being in a city, on a train, going to a zoo, or not a zoo, speaking to me, a stranger, or to this invisible (or perhaps not so invisible) Gilly Gil.  How strange and, at the same time, wonderful, to be caught up in a trick of semantics, trying to place herself somewhere.

Overheard: They Have Bacon

I walked past Frankie Spuntino, an Italian restaurant in the neighborhood, made for the Brooklyn foodies. They take Grandma's favorites, give them fancy pants, jack up the prices, and we all devour accordingly.

A little boy who couldn't have been more than five or six years old stomped restlessly beside his mother and sister.  He pouted.  "But they don't have bacon at Frankie Spuntino.  They have it at Prime Meats."

"Yes they do," shouted the know-it-all sister, not much older than him. "They do have bacon.  Don't they Mommy?  Frankie Spuntino has bacon."

"Yes, they have bacon."

And aren't we glad it's all cleared up for the two Brooklyn foodies under the age of eight.

Talk To The Listeners

I sat in the dim lit Elephant Room. The once gold shine of beer and brass had turned Amsterdam-red. Elbows leaned. The tables wobbled. And the piano player, in his newsboy hat, his John Lennon wire framed glasses, rocked forward then back, so that he almost appeared headless. A too-slow shutter. A blur.

Soon the puffed cheeks behind the trumpet deflated. Hands clutched the instrument but the air abandoned the memory of its rasp. In its absence, only the din remained, the jangle, the tumble of voices, of laughter.

The man with the trumpet spoke. "It's loud in here."

He waited.

"I know it's a jazz joint. I get it. But we're playing up here. And it's loud. And people are trying to listen."

"So talk to us," a voice called out. "Talk to the listeners."

Overheard: That's What Life Is All About

She stood in line at the Met grocery store with a wild puff of uncombed brown hair. Ran her fingers across all the chocolates. Balanced on the edge of the shopping cart and did not flinch when she teetered. Huge blue eyes with razor sharp focus.

"What's your name?" she asked the woman in front of her.

"Amber. But I already know you. Emerson. Right?"

"Yup. I'm six years old and I lost three teeth." She stuck her neck out, grinned to reveal the gap.

"Wow."

"Six years old. Three teeth." She repeated. A serious measure.

Amber paid for her groceries, waved goodbye.

"You're Amber." She stated. And just like that she was off the cart, spinning on one toe.

"That's right. Amber. Goodbye Emerson."

"Goodbye Amber."

She did not look at Amber go. She did not look up to her father, who held her rainbow backpack. On his arm, it looked too small, too clumsy. Instead she was completely focused on her balance, arms out, toe pointed as she made her delicate turn.

"Daddy. That's what life is all about. Meeting new people."

Overheard: If You Were In My Position

He couldn't have been more than nine years old, swinging around and around the pole on the F Train. He wore an oversized hoodie. Freckles ran down his face. He stopped spinning. Considered things.

Dad, I need to know how you really feel about this XBox situation.

Dad's eyebrows rose up above the newspaper.

Put yourself in my shoes. If you were my age and in my position, would you like an XBox?

He spoke just like that. I could imagine his 'position'. A very serious one.

I need a bookmark

Last week I was at the book shop purchasing "real life & liars" by Kristina Riggle (more on this book soon) when I overheard a wonderful conversation.

A little girl in a marvelous pink sundress, funky braids sticking out every which way on her head, pointed stubbornly at a display of bookmarks and said, "Daddy, I NEED a bookmark."

If she, by some remote chance, was actually old enough to read, she most certainly did not read books that required a bookmark, but her mature little stance, hands on her hips, as she made her declaration was perfectly remarkable. I nearly scooped up this child and carried her home with me. Heck, I would have lured her with candy and bookmarks right out the door.

Her Dad was much more practical, of course, and he said, "Do you need it? Or do you want it? There's a difference."

And, I have to tell you, this girl did not proceed to jump right in and start defending herself as children often do. Instead, she really thought about this. I mean, seriously considered this. She truly took her time. Eventually, she sighed, and said with confidence, "I don't need it. I just want it."

I nearly offered to buy this precious child 100 bookmarks of her choosing. She was just too much.

But, she made me think a lot about the things we need. I'm not sure how often we step back and ask ourselves: Do you need it? Or want it?

Book Nerds

Overheard in my kitchen while cooking dinner.

"See," Tyler points to the television where Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is playing in the background with the Dark Lord threatening our dear Harry. "This is where Harry Potter is really ratcheted up a notch."

"What do you mean? His life has always been in danger. Even in the first book."

"Yeah but this is the first time he has somebody Avada Kedavra-ing in his face."

Overheard

On the corner of President and Smith Streets in Brooklyn.

They walked behind me and I heard her sweet voice. "Do you like it Daddy?"

He was firm in his answer. Assured. "Very much."

"But do you love it?" she probed.

There was a moment of silence before he spoke. "No. I don't. The word love is reserved for very special things."

"Like things you want to keep in a glass jar for always?"

I turned the corner and imagined what they looked like. Her little hand stretching up to reach his. Both of them holding on to something so perfect, so delicate, they must find another way to preserve it forever.