A Starving Artist and Random Acts of Kindness.

Clearly, there are many things that New York is.

I've spoken about a zillion of them.  I could undoubtedly cite a zillion more.  I probably will--at some point.

But quite noticeably as of late, New York is Fearful.  It is a Fearful city.
Which is surprising when you consider the sizable balls it appears that the average New Yorker has.

But there is a kind of guard that is perpetually up, a sort of lying in wait-ness within every citizen of the city.   For a sundry of reasons:

"What if I can't really afford to be here?"
"What if I'm not deserving of being here?"
"What if my train gets stuck?"
"What if I get bed bugs?"
"What if I can't get a sushi roll with brown rice?"
"What if IKEA isn't delivering today?"
"What if an earthquake takes us out?"
"What if Irene takes us out?" 
...And worse fears still.

We are crawling with these thoughts, and the fear is contagious.  And overwhelming.  And you watch as everyone slowly brings themselves to this kind of resolve, this "OK.  Well, I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens."

And then, it's The Wait.  And there are inherently pins and needles, and that inherently makes everything far worse.

And in this particular time when the city seems to be crawling with this sensibility even more than usual... ... ...I mean, I don't know, there are always so many wonderfully nice surprises that this great big glorious place seems to have for you, things that you wouldn't have necessarily thought would matter so much. ...

It's these random acts of kindness.

These small little minute actions that friends and strangers alike are compelled to do even in the most stressful of times.

Everybody's doing em.  Everybody.  And it's kind of remarkable.

In the past week alone, I have witnessed a slew of examples:  someone surprising a distant acquaintance by buying them dinner, an entire (enTIRE) subway car donating money to the old impoverished man playing his trumpet, a teenage boy chivalrously walking an old woman across a crosswalk in Union Square, (multiple)friends helping (multiple)friends land an agent, (multiple)friends helping (multiple)friends land a job, surprise plates of soul food here, surprise compliments from strangers there, surprises surprises everywhere.

All of these things entirely unexpected, all SOOOOOOO NIIIIIIIIIICEand where's it all coming from?!

And then.  There was this:

I am riding home in a cab from the airport Friday morning, feeling sad and blue over having just reabandoned my boyfriend and my tuxedoed dog in the Central time zone but three hours prior.   The traffic is backed-up, but the ride is smooth, and the ride is quiet.

...

"You like-a dehallz-uh?"
... ... ...I'm sorry, what?
"You like-a de Hallllllz-uh?!?!" And the cabbie randomly whips out a sleeve of cough drops, and turns over his shoulder, wearing the biggest grin I've ever seen. 
Oh. Oh, I'm good, but thank you. So much. 
"Yesssss, yesssssss, eet eeez oh-kiay. You are the wellll-come. Eeez oh-kiay."
The end.


Did I laugh incredibly hard about this exchange?  Yes, yes I did.   But was it entirely sweet, and entirely unexpected and entirely kind?  


It totally was.


Clearly, this man felt that he was doing me a favor, and offering me the only thing he had in his possession that I could enjoy.


What a sweet and selfless gesture.


It's an astonishing and refreshing thing to realize that even in these moments of great fear, in these moments of chaos and bristle and doom and gloom, people like this exist.  Moments like this will happen.  Seemingly in abundance.


Forgive the cheese, but I too have to believe that at the root of it all, we're really all just 'good'.  Maybe it just takes a little crisis to bring out the best in us.  


...I'll take that.