Angry New York

New York is angry. People in the ferry, in the Subway and on the street are moody, prone to get pissed off easily. I’ve tried to understand why, where does it come from. A friend of mine who was born, grew up and lives here said that it might be because everyone here thinks they should be rich, and that they will actually be rich eventually… but that it really doesn’t happen and they feel cheated and just overall irritable about it.

And they are theatrical about it. They will shout and gesticulate, swear and puff and sweat about it. They are so often over the top that they become comical. Or maybe it’s just that where I come from it would be unthinkable to display this kind of annoyance. It would be unacceptably rude to just try to make a point with angry flares, but also where I come from displays of anger are indeed very close to real violence.

Yesterday I was about to sit down at a café and this man said “excuse me, I was sitting there”. There was nothing on the table, but I just moved aside and sat in the table next to it. He sat in the corner, and when he stood up to get some napkins he got caught with the chair that I pulled before when I was about to sit there. He made such a fuss, not to me, but towards the universe, as if a sudden plague had been bestowed upon him. He pushed the chair away angrily and swore. When he came back he slammed the table, pushed his plate noisily. He was angry, very angry at the world that was, all of it, getting on his way. I realized the deepness of this anger, how it has become a habit and an acceptable, even desirable behavior in New York. Parisians are famous for being moody… but I couldn’t tell, I’ve never lived in Paris. So I stood up with certain disgust and took my coffee with me.

A little while later I sat at an ice cream parlor to gently lick my green tea frozen yoghurt with pomegranate (and they say our countries are exotic), and I thought that indeed New York was a tough place, an angry, expensive, lonely place. But while I was ruminating the misery of having seen that angry man, and projecting into it my being poor and lonely something happened. A Buddhist monk came into the store to buy an ice cream. He stood there, looking at the chart of flavors and prices for a long while, while meditating his preferences (quite literally). I saw him with his yellow and brown clothes, his shaven head, his glasses, his green Crocs and his hands gathered behind his back. There was nothing unusual until I paid attention to his hands. His fingers were wiggling with the childish joy of expectation, the happy foresight of sweet ice cream. A coveting Buddhist monk! And then, before he actually made his mind, no less than fifteen other monks stormed into the parlor, men and women, all of them quiet, very holy… and with wiggly fingers and toes about ice cream.

They all ordered, got their exotic flavored sweets and sat around me. And while we were all licking away I noticed something wonderful, something breathtaking: everyone was happy. They were not loud about it, just calmly, softly, kindly blissful.

I laid back and rethought all I thought I knew about New York. I rethought all I thought I knew about being angry. I rethought all I knew about my petty miseries. But above all I rethought deeply, seriously, all I thought I knew about ice cream.