NYC

I was in NYC visiting Columbia catching up with friends. The morning that I left I took the subway down from Harlem to the edge of China town. There I got off and walked east to the Fung Wah bus depot. Well that is a bit of an overstatement, the "depot" is a window to the street, with a small room behind it, about the size of a closet. After you purchase your ticket, you wait on the corner for the bus to pull up. But, as I said I had to walk east and as I was walking east I was taking in NYC waking up, it must have been 8AM or so. Something happened, it was rather unremarkable, but it happened. I had a piece of paper wrap around my leg having been blown by the wind. I got the sense that it wanted to hold me. That is grabbing out from the sidewalk or gutter into which it had been cast, reaching clutching for any warmth or life that would acknowledge it. And then I looked around at the rest of the trash and thought how lonely it must be, to be floating around the street, on the side of the highway, despised by all that see it and waiting to be shoved into a container then jammed into a place where it can be forgotten.

I felt bad for the garbage and I still do. New York was beautiful and the trip was wonderful.

Juxtaposition in art (and life), frees the mind to consider what is really there. It is how trash can be scene with love and compassion and with an appreciation of the intricate wonder that it is in form and spirit.