Little Wizards

Wander Report - 11.1.24

• Started snowing on my LES tour the other day. I love the sound of car tires on a wet road. You can't hear it as well when it rains.

• This tour was small: a couple from Union City and a family from Long Island City. The two young kids were gloriously feral. Real NYC kids. Curious and playful and bold, chasing each other up the block, weaving through groups of pedestrians, but never venturing near the street. Their adorable parents fretted and apologized, but these little wizards would not be contained. They touched things I would never touch, knew things I didn't know, and moved in ways we adults are not allowed. The boy razzed me for not feeding him enough. The girl got down on the sidewalk on the snootiest block of Nolita to search for a mouse. I want to live here the way they live here.

• I like people who expect me to be entertaining, but not to entertain them. I dig it when people bring their own flask, if you will, sprinkling their own humor and curiosity into the soup. One of the best aspects of living in NYC is how wonderfully honed so many people's public personas are, and how many people here are genuinely entertaining to spend time with.

• New York can be divided into two groups. The first group is people looking for a reason to stand around on the sidewalk. The other group is people looking to get off the sidewalk as fast as possible. Most of us move back and forth between these two groups frequently.

• We're all ghosts to each other here. We deny the little impacts we have on each other as we brush past.

DF