Invisible Alternate City

My budget is tiny and the ridiculously high subway fares are killing me ($4.50 for every round trip), so I have been walking farther than I normally would. I enjoy walking. I only perceive it as something like a punishment when the weather is poor or time is short.

In an age of perpetual distraction, it is a bit of a relief to simply walk. I rarely talk on my cell phone or listen to my ipod while walking, so I focus on the surroundings. Yesterday, it occurred to me that the commentary in my head as I walk is mostly an inventory of things that happened to me in the places that I walk past.

For example, as I pass Canal at Broadway I think fondly of the now defunct Bulgarian social club that used to occupy the second floor. I remember dancing in a sweaty frenzy to foreign versions of 80s pop songs, watching Sufis perform, and joining a belly dancer (she beckoned) in her floor show. As I pass Lafayette and White, I once again admire the beautiful home of the Downtown Community Television Center and recall seeing the screening of a friend's film there. Now I can't enter the courthouse at Centre Street without thinking about two more recent events: serving a remarkably pleasant jury duty and arguing an unpleasant Small Claims case.

As I walked, I wondered whether all of this reminiscing is a natural extension of so much walking or a warning that I am living in the past. If I were employed, I wouldn't have such ample opportunity to take these memory tours of Manhattan.

On the other hand, I could be strategizing about the future as I walk. The sad fact is, I don't feel hopeful about the future and I don't know what to do about it. Perhaps that is why I am not oriented towards it. Foolish, but true.

A friend in Washington, DC recently shared a blog devoted to documenting changes in New York. It appears I am not the only one focusing on the past. It doesn't make my fixation excusable, only less unusual.