In A Sea of Familiar Strangers

Swimming through the mass of humanity that is NYC while walking near the Queens Center Mall was last Monday's activity. I, as a white man (well, 1/2 white), was the minority. But I am so ok with that. I couldn't understand half of what was being said around me, but I didn't care. There was a music in the cacophony of languages, of accents. And it was a music far more pleasing than the rage of vehicular noise that came from the street.

Smile's know no language. Teenage antics and banter know no culture. Dye those oriental girls hair blonde and they would have been "Valley Girls." (Side note: Do Valley Girls still exist or did they die out in the early 90's? ) In a sea of faces of colors, and shapes, nowhere near my own I feel at home. For years I fought NYC like most Long Islanders do. But as I walked to the mall on Monday, I realized there are few places that have the diversity that NYC does. I wish more places did.

Perhaps the country wouldn't be so polarized on the race, particularly with the response to Katrina, how we treat and help the poor . . .hell, how we just relate to each other in the City if communities were more diverse. But people separate into "tribes" of those like themselves. As "cultured" New Yorkers are, we are still often separated into our "tribes."

My friend Marysunshine wrote about the "NYC attititude" recent post (Click Here.). Read the second paragraph and you'll understand what I am talking about. While she talks about the NY indifference/negative energy, which I agree with her totally, I'll add that I do think that race does add into the combination.

So as I walked through the sea of semi-familiar faces I looked for one that I've been looking for for years. Yeah, I know I am being a hopeless romantic on that part. But hey, you never know where you might meet the one. I always imagined that it would be like looking in the mirror, on a soul level, but with very different features on the physical level. And whose to say that face wouldn't have dark brown skin, or oriental features, or sing in a language I've never heard before? I don't know the answer to that question, but it's nice to ponder.

On a more down-to-earth note, whose to say that my next new friend won't be someone so different from me? He or she could speak a different language, but our smiles, our laughs would be something in common we share. His or her skin could be a vastly different color than mine, but those colors would meld as we held hands helping each other out in a tough time.

But perhaps I'm too much the sentimentalist, the dreamer. The "American Dream" and the idea of the melting pot metaphor, hell even the tossed salad metaphor, are quickly disappearing if not totally dead already. Or maybe my mall walk was just in an isolated sphere in this maddening world. I don't know. I'll enjoy it for as long as it lasts. And I will share my smile with my neighbors, the familiar strangers who look so different from me.