Clarity

The main thing is this: don’t look up. I mean, sure, look up at the skyscrapers and the flashing snowflake lights and the old confetti left over from last year’s New Year. It is Times Square, after all, but don’t look up past the skyscrapers to the cold, orange-tinted sky. You’ll feel the dark pressing on your eyes, the plastic bag handles chaffing your hands, and the empty weight of your touristy purchases. Because then, you’ll realize how pointless it all is. In this city of teeming masses of diversity, not one of them can stand up to clarity.

Walk down 5^th Avenue. Feel people brush against the shoulders of your coat, let the dirt and garbage slide out from underneath your “comfortable walking shoes”. Lean over a kiosk- I dare you- and smell the rancid fat and unidentifiable spices hovering in the fume-congested air. There’s not another smell like it anywhere- city air- and any species more intuitive would’ve recognized it as laden with the odor of decay.

Take a subway down to the Village, but don’t look at the graffiti, and when a young woman grabs your bag to keep from falling as the train lurches, check to make sure your wallet’s still there. When you get out of the subway, walk down a couple side streets. Don’t pose like Marilyn Monroe when you walk over one of those subway vents, but it’s all right to start singing “Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend” under your breath.

Wander through those side streets, past the seedy sex shops, and find yourself in Washington Square Park. As you walk around, pay your tribute to Paris and the Arch de Triumph by identifying the perfume of each woman you pass. True, this is New York City, but c’est la vie. Settle on to one of the stone benches and take out the pen and slim black journal you bought just for this occasion. Write as much as you want, until the lamps dim and the sun peeks over the trees, warming the cold morning air, but for heaven’s sake, avoid clarity at all costs.