Post 74 - May 24, 2020
Day 74…
I got cruised out on the street yesterday.
At least I think I was.
He was wearing one of those sleek black fitted masks with a ridge down the center that follows the contours of the face but covers most of it.
All I could really see was the thin band of his face from the top of his mask to the bottom of his messy dark hair.
As we passed each other on opposite sides of the sidewalk, I noticed he was looking at me and, for a moment, our eyes locked.
I thought, for a moment, that he was a friend of mine that I’d recently had a texting conversation with, but the I realized that he was too tall for that.
I broke the lock and continued walking, feeling that brief pleasant rush of having been noticed.
As I walked past a closed store, I looked at my reflection in the empty window to see what he had seen.
What he had seen was a guy wearing a mask with a spider on it and a grey bicycle helmet.
Most of what is identifiable about me was completely covered up.
I really could have been almost anyone.
A week or two ago I was in a Duane Reade and a friend of mine said “Hi Richard!”.
We locked eyes for a short moment, and he pulled down his mask so I could see who it was since I clearly didn’t recognize him just from his eyes.
Once he did that, I, of course, knew who it was, and he pulled his mask back up.
We waggled elbows at each other and chatted for a while from 6 feet away.
Most of us New Yorkers have definitely developed an innate sense when somebody is getting too close to us.
In stores, we avoid aisles where people already are.
If you want something at the other end of an aisle and somebody is in the middle of it, you go down another aisle and get to what you need from the other end.
When you accidentally turn a corner and end up mask to mask with someone, there is always startle in the eyes of the other person.
The best way to diffuse the situation, I am finding, is to smile.
Smiling is one of the few signals that are possible to convey through the eyes.
We all seem to be getting the crinkle-eyed smile thing down - even exaggerating it to make sure it’s being received.
Yesterday, despite the cloudiness of the day, I picked up a Citi Bike and rode up to the George Washington Bridge.
I wanted to see the Little Red Lighthouse.
It’s about four miles away and has been on my bucket list of things to see in New York for, and I kid you not, nearly 40 years.
The lighthouse is built on a spit of land called Jeffrey’s Hook which juts out into the Hudson River. It was originally in another location but moved to its current position in 1921 to help warn river traffic away from the rocks on the outcropping.
Six years later, construction started on the George Washington Bridge and Jeffrey’s Hook was used as the land that supported the eastern base of the bridge.
They built the bridge right over the little lighthouse.
Once the bridge was completed and lit the need for the lighthouse passed and it was decommissioned.
A truly beautiful children’s picture book called The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge was written by Hildegarde Swift and Lynd Ward in 1942 that created a lot of affection for it.
When the city later proposed that the lighthouse be taken down, the public outcry was so great, that, instead, it was deeded to the New York Department of Parks and Recreation and allowed to remain.
Years ago, friends of mine lost a child fairly early on in their pregnancy and that is the spot where they chose to scatter the ashes.
While I was researching the history of the Little Red Lighthouse this morning, I came across a wonderful story of something that just happened there.
A guy arranged with several teams from the New York Department of Parks and Recreation as well as the Historic House Trust of New York to let him propose at the top of the lighthouse.
It was the first recorded proposal to ever occur at the top.
This happened at the end of February just before everything shut down.
Oh, and the other guy said yes.
In all my years of living in New York, many of them actually spent living just north of the bridge, I’ve never been to see it.
Yesterday I rode up to fix that.
As I made my way up the path along the river, there were plenty of people out and about despite the cloudiness of the day.
Something I’ve discovered is that it’s hard to wear a mask while exerting yourself.
You start to feel like you aren’t getting enough air.
What I noticed other people doing, though, was that they’d lower the mask while they were alone and then when someone else approached, raise it back up.
I started doing the same thing.
Almost every person running or biking who came towards me as I was heading up the path was doing that.
It’s like when you are out driving on a freeway at night and using your high beams.
When you see the lights of an approaching car, you turn them down and once that car has passed, put them back up.
All of this is brand new behavior.
It’s less than three months old.
We have watched Japanese visitors occasionally walk around New York City, masked, in the past, but never, for a second, considered that there would be an occasion where the rest of us would also be doing it ourselves.
Now, not only are we doing it, but we are getting used to doing it.
Last year, Michael and I spent several months living and working in Tokyo.
When the Japanese get sick, they put on a hospital mask when they go out so as not to pass what they have along to anyone else.
Tokyo is very densely populated - far more so than New York - so they figured out how to take care of each other.
It is a normal and expected sight there.
Interestingly, the Japanese have been wearing masks for years and they haven’t really done anything to make them distinctive.
I’m trying to remember if I ever saw somebody wear a mask there that wasn’t a disposable white hospital one, and I don’t think that I ever did.
A few weeks into mask wearing here in New York, and a whole new fashion industry has cropped up.
People started making colorful masks for themselves and their friends early on.
Now manufacturers have caught on and are mass producing them.
Different colors, different designs.
When did we start wearing masks? - end of March? Early April? It’s only May and now they are ubiquitous.
We are all trying to figure out what is chic in a mask and what isn’t.
People are even getting different masks to go with different outfits.
Almost overnight, the people of earth have changed the way they live.
People everywhere, started wearing masks.
Here in NY.
In Massachusetts.
In Chicago.
In Toronto.
In Mexico City.
In London.
In Johannesburg.
If we can all do that, what else could we all change?
What if we could all change our behavior in regard to how we use fossil fuels?
What if we could all change our behavior in regard to how we use guns?
What if we could all change our behavior in regard to how we treat each other?
It’s worth thinking about, because we COULD do any or all of those things.
Look what we’ve all done around mask wearing.
For now, though, I am going to try and find out where I can get a black mask like the guy who may or may not have cruised me.
Then I am going to assure Michael about the guy who may or may not have cruised me.
I mean… it was just a look.