Category: Life

  • Parking Car Meditation

    Once a week, I sit in our car for about an hour and a half, waiting. Waiting for the street sweeper to go by, and also waiting for the traffic cop to stroll along as well. Most of the time, the sweeper comes through early, and all of us in our cars do a do-si-do, getting out of the way of the sweeper, and thus returning to our spots. Then we sit in our cars for the cop to stroll by and ticket the cars that didn’t move for the sweeper. You would think these two actions would happen in tandem to each other, but actually, they can be an hour between them. Hence, the sitting in the car.

    In this time of waiting, I have adopted the habit of reading the news off my phone, then an article or two from the latest New Yorker. I will end with writing in my journal, all the while listening to music, which to be honest, is now the only time that I have to listen to music.

    I have been doing this for close to a year now. Sometimes the wife takes a turn moving the car, but I would say that I take care of it 75% of the time. And in this time of taking care of the car, I have yet to see the same people each week. You would think since we all live in the same neighborhood, that I would at least see some repeat people.

    In all of this car sitting, I keep coming back to the same question; what do these people do for a living? I mean, we all have to have the ability to take an hour out of our mornings from 8:30am to 10am. For me, I’m unemployed/Stay at home parent, so that’s an easy answer. I am sure some of people are in the same boat as me. But even in normal times, people had jobs. What do they do with their lives?

  • Walking NYC Again

    My daughter’s birthday is coming up, and the wife and I have been taking turns shopping for the event. The wife was able to get all of her purchases taken care of in, and around the neighborhood. My big errand for the birthday shopping was to go get some books. Luckily, there is a great children’s bookstore in Manhattan, Books of Wonder, and I headed out for the Upper West Side location.

    Now, I could have taken some sort of mass transit there, but I am still a little hesitant, and also, I could use the exercise of a good walk. So on Saturday, I head out on foot. It was a nice winter day for a walk; not too cold, but cold enough to be bundled up.

    For the past ten months, I have rarely gone any further north than 145th Street, a never below 93rd Street, so to head down into the 80’s was like going to a new foreign land. The thing I noticed first was the amount of people, who were younger than me, all crammed around tables on the sidewalks for brunch. I know that the restaurants need the business, but the lack of masks, and close proximity didn’t seem very safe or wise. I don’t know what the answer is here, but there just needs to be a better balance out there.

    But, as I walked on, down Columbus, and then over to Amsterdam, I began to enjoy being out in the City. Hearing people’s conversations on the street, and the movement and action of coming and going. I know it was only like 50% of NYC, but it was a friendly reminder that this was once a city that I wanted to be in and explore. It was nice to see people, even from a safe six-foot distance.