The last two mornings, I’ve crossed paths with the same elderly gentleman peering into a trash can in Union Square station as I walk from the Q to the 6. Both mornings, he came from my right as I approached the can, looked in, and walked off to my left as I continued ahead. It’s like we’re in a choreographed dance.
In a city of 8 million people, it’s startling to have chance encounters with the same person more than once. Yet it happens with amazing frequency. And I’ve decided it’s because we all stick to our own schedules, and sometimes those schedules interweave for a time.
Last winter I waited on two consecutive days for the L train at 8th Avenue and both times ended up standing right next to the same middle-aged guy in a leather jacket covered in Chicago Bears logos. These encounters occurred at different hours of the evening and at different spots on the platform.
The two years I worked in the West Village, on my morning walk down Carmine from West 4th I would at least once a week pass the same chic woman with dark bobbed hair clipping along in the opposite direction. Something about her was striking and I liked noticing her, while I wondered if she noticed me in return.
This topic is a common theme in writings about New York, and I’m not the first to remark upon it. But I will say that these recurring chance encounters fascinate me; I love that exciting burst of recognition and warmth of familiarity in a city full of “strangers.”
In a city of 8 million people, it’s startling to have chance encounters with the same person more than once. Yet it happens with amazing frequency. And I’ve decided it’s because we all stick to our own schedules, and sometimes those schedules interweave for a time.
Last winter I waited on two consecutive days for the L train at 8th Avenue and both times ended up standing right next to the same middle-aged guy in a leather jacket covered in Chicago Bears logos. These encounters occurred at different hours of the evening and at different spots on the platform.
The two years I worked in the West Village, on my morning walk down Carmine from West 4th I would at least once a week pass the same chic woman with dark bobbed hair clipping along in the opposite direction. Something about her was striking and I liked noticing her, while I wondered if she noticed me in return.
This topic is a common theme in writings about New York, and I’m not the first to remark upon it. But I will say that these recurring chance encounters fascinate me; I love that exciting burst of recognition and warmth of familiarity in a city full of “strangers.”
photo by Nivad on Flickr.
1 comments:
Maybe it is because we are really in a simulation like the Matrix and there are only so many human avatars, which get re-used as in video games.
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