Dear Diary:
I first moved to the city in the summer of 1983. I had never lived in a city before; I had never worked in an office; I knew virtually no one, and I was overwhelmed by it all.
I recently moved away from New York, but during my last weeks, I found myself at La Guardia Place and West Third Street in Greenwich Village, and remembered an important experience from my first week in New York.
After my first day of work, I stopped at the grocery store located on that corner, a few blocks from my apartment on Mercer Street. I was carrying a briefcase, and I made that rookie mistake of buying more than I could reasonably carry home. The checkout resulted in two overstuffed bags in one hand, my briefcase and another overstuffed bag in the other.
A hundred feet out the door, and one bag broke, spilling groceries at my feet. People walked by, mostly ignoring me, and I was mortified. I couldn’t even get grocery shopping right! As I said, overwhelmed.
And then a young woman, carrying two half-filled grocery bags, paused in front of me. Without a word, she put her own grocery bags down, quickly consolidated her groceries into one bag and handed me one now-empty bag, I said thanks; she nodded and went on her way.
That simple act of kindness has always stayed with me. I felt very alone and invisible that first week. But at that moment, I began to understand that although New York generally expects you to stand on your own, it isn’t a blind expectation. New York and New Yorkers will often provide what you need, when you need it, usually with a minimum of fuss.
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