A Softer Offering

Dusk takes Manhattan over in turn, street by street, and if you leave at the right time, and travel the right avenue, you can sometimes walk just ahead of the shadows that quickly lengthen. Last evening I headed towards Times Square as I weaved in and out of shadow. The remains of the day spilled down the streets from the Hudson turning everything gold. It’s my favorite time of day. Times Square is oddly named, because the advertisement lights take over the lesser sun, and cast their own shadows where birds come and perch at midnight, unnerved at the length of the never-ending days. Times Square observes no passage of time— save that of New Years Eve— which is celebrated with enough enthusiasm to forgive the Square for assaulting the great circadian rhythms of the earth with neon the rest of the year.

Weary artists pack up their displays as evening lowers over the city and move from Central Park to Times Square where people pass by all hours of the night. They paint charactures of tourists for five dollars and somehow make a living, even though the sketches I see people carrying around of themselves are never very good. I passed a characture artist who had in his seat a beautiful girl, no older than three, sitting for her portrait. She had a fountain of curls that flopped into her eyes when she reached forward to touch the artist’s round spectacles. The mother, whom I had not noticed before this, harshly pulled the girl back and told her to sit still. The little girl did. After examining her nails and swinging her feet for a moment, she began to sing. It was the most precious sight to see her unabashedly sing; people would pause to smile at her and she would wave, singing. People waved back. A little crowd gathered—enchanted. Still frustrated, the mother reprimanded her child again. No singing, no waving. What, I wondered, did she expect the little girl to do? Her child was being still enough for a portrait, and certainly couldn’t be expected to be entirely still for so long.

As I turned to continue on my way, it seemed to me that in that moment, every passerby on the street was enjoying that beautiful little girl more than her own mother. I know there could have been many factors I was unaware of that went into the situation, but still, I began to think under the neon glow of Times Square about how I don’t want to be so easily out-done in my enjoyment of the people I am supposed to love; especially my family. I don’t want my husband to always feel more respected at work than he does at home, or for my kids to constantly be convinced that their friends think that they are more funny, talented, or brilliant than their parents do. So many wives are less kind to their husbands than they ever would be to a waitress. Today, the husband whose wife values and respects him, and helps him believe in what he can do also, is the envy of the majority of men whose wives belittle and nag them. I was inspired to be irreplaceable to my husband in the respect and kindness that I gave him.

Just like the neon of Times Square takes over the softer offerings of sunset, it is easy in Manhattan to forget the simple but important things in life and relationships amidst the culture, fashion, materialism, and noise. As I headed away from the Square with its’ advertisements and glamour, I thought of how it’s the quiet strengths of beauty that prove timeless. As the poet said: in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of simple pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.