15 Sep My Morning Routine

Outlining my morning routine.

This morning, as I was walking towards the subway entrance I saw a young mother with her two daughters running to catch the No. 8 bus. It pulled away without them but as it came closer to me I motioned there were people running to catch that bus. I kept pointing over and over with an exaggerated movement between the family and the bus, hoping to catch the driver’s attention. I’ve done this before but the driver didn’t see me. Or, he just didn’t care. This driver stopped. With a twist of my hand I signaled thanks and kept walking. As the family passed me, the mother breathlessly thanked me. A man came up from behind me, his strides longer than my own, turned his head and said something. I removed my earbuds. “Good man,” he said. “Good man.” I smiled.

As I sometimes do, I began to examine the details of interaction. When I got down to the train, it suddenly occurred to me. We had just performed an intricate dance: a series of steps made in concert with others. Each movement led to another and to another. And, like those how-to dance schematics, the entire encounter could be charted. Multiply this by zillions as the whole world goes to work each morning and you have a dance marathon. One small act of kindness led to others, each of us giving and receiving.

What if we thought and then wrote about every encounter we had with everyone we passed on the street every day? In each there is a story: sometimes very short stories. Like this one.

The best part of my day is always the chance to dance.