The seats aren't particularly comfortable, but I don't think folks who live here are inclined to sit too long. I am just visiting, though, so I sit, oblivious to the hard and overly narrow metal chair, and I watch the city wake up. Though it is ridiculously early on a Saturday, I can tell it will be a beautiful day. The sun, invisible to me so far, is bright enough to turn the patch of sky between the buildings lining each side of Columbus a pale blue. A young man wearing a "Camp Canine" tee shirt walks by every few minutes with two different dogs in tow. A small cluster of yellow taxis builds up at each red light, the Korean grocer waters down the sidewalk outside his tiny shop across the street. I stare at the rows of dark green buckets filled with flowers of every color. Last night, I watched a young man stop there to pick up a bunch. They were yellow. A young woman emerges now, her arms laden with long stemmed white bouquets.
The passersby are as multi-colored as the flowers. It is impossible to pinpoint the character of the neighborhood -- only that it is filled with characters. A man walks by, a book open, his lips moving as he mutters. From where I sit, the words appear to be Hebrew, but it is Saturday morning and the man's head is uncovered, so I make no assumptions. The dog walker smiles at me on his umpteenth pass. He is all business, but he must have been struck, finally, by the unfamiliar and unmoving shape in the Starbucks window in a city that is always changing, and always on the move.
As I write, my mom texts me to ask if it's weird, being in Starbucks in the morning without my morning Starbucks buddies. Weird that she would ask me that as I sit here wondering what they are doing now, a thousand miles away, these people I have known only a short time but who have become as much a part of my daily routine as my grande blonde with room for cream. Sometimes we chat, sometimes we all sit quietly buried in our own electronic devices, but we notice when someone is missing. And we notice when there is a newcomer, although we pretend not to.
In the little Starbucks on the corner of Columbus and West 73rd, there is no evidence of a "usual" crowd. I cannot imagine coming in here one morning to find my grande blonde with room for cream waiting for me, to be greeted by name by everyone behind the counter. It's not that anybody is particularly unfriendly; it's just that the landscape is too busy, and it moves way too quickly.
The dog walker appears, this time without dogs, and comes in for a coffee. We nod at each other, and we both move on. The patch of sky has become a deeper blue. The Korean grocer has gone inside. More dogs, more taxis, more people of every color.
I am here for only a short time; there is no time to linger. I will go buy some flowers, and I will try to keep pace with the parade of characters
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