Week 42 - Xmas in the Big City Week 41 will come tomorrow - computer problems. But I had an unusually
tender New York moment tonight, and I must share it with you.

Every year at Christmastime, Grand Central Station comes alive with
holiday spectacle. They set up a shopping arcade (I think that's the
right word for it), deck the halls with wreaths and ribbons and they
even project a light show onto the ceiling of the Main Concourse -
that's the cool room with the constellations hand-painted on the
soaring, vaulted ceiling.

Well I was doing some shopping after work, and the place was bustling as
usual, but there was a sense of warmth there - it was kind of strange
but pleasant - a gentleness and sense of patience that you don't always
see in New York.

I was overcome with the urge (as were most people around me) to stop
rushing from one place to the next, to stop and take a moment to enjoy
the light show on the ceiling above. Angels and candy canes were
dancing on the ceiling, and next to me, I noticed a man in a wheelchair
gazing longingly up at the ceiling, and he does this amazing
thing, and everybody sort of intuitively knows to move out of his way as
he glides across the open floor, sort of enchanted, dancing in his own
way, chasing the dancing lights across the concourse floor.

Then he crashes into a baby stroller, the mother screams and the
honeymoon's over, but for a second there, man, we were all free.  ¶ 7:11 PM