Crash
Dear Diary:
I rode down the service elevator of my building with Mike, the elevator operator.
Suddenly he stopped on one of the lower floors.
When the door opened, he held out his hand.
An elderly woman standing there reached in and held a jar that she apparently had not been able to open.
Mike picked up the jar, opened it, and gave it back with a smile.
“Thank you,” she said.
He closed the door and we continued downstairs.
— Anne Oshman
Yellow Neck Amazon
Dear Diary:
My sister, who moved to California over 30 years ago, came to visit. With a feeling of nostalgia, we decided to go to Coney Island, where we grew up.
As we strolled the boardwalk, we came across a small crowd gathered around a street performer. He played the guitar and was accompanied by about 10 parrots of different colors, shapes and sizes who sang along with him, much to everyone’s delight.
My sister couldn’t contain her enthusiasm.
“Oh my God!” she blurted out in her signature Brooklyn accent.
A yellow-necked Amazon who was the most talented singer in the group stopped singing.
“Oh my God!” exclaimed in perfect imitation of my sister, repeating it over and over, opening his beak wide to put more emphasis on “gawd.”
The guitarist tried, but he couldn’t persuade the bird to give up his new catchphrase.
— Arthur Mann
Glass harmonica
Dear Diary:
I was in an uptown No. 1 in November 2013 when an elderly woman got in on 34th Street. I offered her my seat and she kindly accepted it.
At 66th Street she got up to get out and started to walk past me.
“Let me guess,” I said. “You’re going to the opera at the Met.”
She laughed.
“I’m in the orchestra,” she replied.
I was on my way to the gig that night and we walked to Lincoln Center together.
“I play the glass harmonica, an instrument invented by Benjamin Franklin,” she said.
When we broke up, I said I would try to come to the orchestra pit and look at her instrument. Then I went to see my granddaughter Amanda.
We had plenty of time before the performance, so we walked forward, peered into the well and saw my subway attendant.
She looked up at us and smiled.
‘Oh,’ said Amanda, ‘a glass harmonica! That was invented by Benjamin Franklin.”
I turned to her and stared.
Last October, I read an obituary for Cecilia Brauer, 97 and a member of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, and remembered the time we met.
— Thomas J. Russo
Metro partner
Dear Diary:
Last fall, I traveled to New York City for a writing workshop with eight women from across the country. It was hosted by a well-known author at her home in Washington Heights.
I was considering a hotel on the Upper West Side. How hard can it be to navigate the subway to the 155th, I thought as I clicked “book” for a non-refundable room.
More difficult than I expected.
Expecting a friendly foreigner to stay nearby, I emailed the group, hoping to find a subway partner, only to get several versions of “I wish I could help.”
Then a woman who lived in Chelsea replied, offering Citi Bike the 50+ blocks to my hotel and hop on the subway with me from there.
I said I would hold off with coffee and asked what kind she wanted.
When morning came, the weather was perfect for late September. I held the coffee, one in each hand, as I waited outside the hotel. I casually took a sip from the cup that belonged to her, then greeted her nervously with my confession.
With a slight chuckle, she raised the cup to her lips and took a sip. We stormed through the busy 72nd Street station and down the stairs to the 1.
Soon we arrived at our destination, a cozy antebellum apartment filled with the scent of warm blueberry scones, the chatter of spirited women, and the sound of a Newfoundland barking every time a boat on the Hudson passed.
And of course there was a French press for topping up our half gobbled lattes.
—Elizabeth Weiner
folding roses
Dear Diary:
I was rushing out of the Canal Street station when I saw him: a teenage boy bent over a table and origami rose origami folded to sell.
The roses—blue, yellow, red, and every color in between—were fanned out about him in piles four or five flowers deep.
I was late, so I didn’t pause. But as I walked away, I wondered how he would fare that day. I hadn’t noticed anyone else giving him a cursory glance as they left the station. How often does he make a sale? Was he here every weekend?
Later in SoHo, I followed a man and a woman who moved slowly, their little fingers joined together. My eye fell on a blue origami rose sticking out of her backpack.
I smiled. It was a twofer: a sale and love in one.
— Connie Long
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Illustrations by Agnes Lee