stuck in a moment

the world’s big cities are lonely places to be in. they look down upon you, all glass eyes and steel arms, complacent in their bright, shiny, silence. they say nothing, when you walk down their bustling streets, your heart quiet in its shell in the midst of the chaos outside.

"i wish i could be as calm as indians are," a middle-aged american man said to me, last night, at a pub called gaetana's in greenwich village -- an old italian place that, supposedly, was a hangout for gangsters years ago. also supposedly, it was a site for hits carried out by the mafia. last night, however, the place was unassuming; the mafia, nowhere in evidence.

"calm indians? are you sure?" i asked. could he mean the american indians? "no, people from india," he clarified. "you people are so quiet, so 'together', i wish i could be more like you."

that's when i began to think about big cities and what they do to you. the minute you leave home, and get to a place far, far from it, the cities take over. that's when you are confronted, for a period of time, with nothing and no one but yourself. when you lose the anchoring of friends and family, and have only your soul for company.

that's when you walk the streets at night, stop by brightly-lit stores, take in a few movies, eat alone at tables by restaurant windows, wake up and sigh, go home to an empty apartment, and switch on your television set, always hopeful that audio and video can compensate for a lack of human presence.

i don't know about other indians but, for now, that explains my being so quiet. shhhhhhhhhh.