August 1, 2011

If you see something, say something.

It’s one of the easiest, most basic words in the English language and yet, more often than not we’re paralyzed with fear at the very idea of actually saying it to someone. Perhaps it’s because as New Yorkers we’re so good at keeping our heads down - eyes on blackberry’s and iPhones, in books, newspapers and on Kindle screens that we’ve forgotten how to look up, how to look around. We’ve forgotten how to see.

He walked on the uptown 2 train at 14th street and was tall and blonde wearing an impressive looking blue European cut suit, a striped half-Windsor and burgundy wingtips. He was carrying nothing save for a hardcover book in his left hand, and as he reached out his right to grip the bar I was holding, the cuff of his jacket inched up ever so slightly enough to illuminate a silver watch, the face of which was so big one could have an absolutely cracking game of hockey on it. We made eye contact but briefly, as he looked away suddenly finding the ad for The School of Visual Arts on the wall above the seats incredibly interesting, apparently.

I shrugged inwardly. Perhaps he’s thinking of applying now that he’s made his millions on Wall Street.

I looked at the book in his hand and caught a glimpse of the cover: Rainmaking Conversations: Influence, Persuade, and Sell in Any Situation by Mike Schultz. So he hadn’t yet made his millions. He was still reading books to learn how to…IN ANY SITUATION. This suit, for all I knew, was the only one he owned. The more I pondered him the more it intrigued me that he wasn’t carrying a briefcase or a messenger bag or, for that matter, anything at all. Where did he keep his things? Didn’t he have things? I have a bag that always has a book, an iPod, a planner, a wallet, two blackberry’s, a pen, a small notebook for writing down observations, my grandmothers old compact mirror, a tin of Rosebud lip balm, and a tube of red lipstick. Where were this man’s things? Where were his keys? (hopefully not in his pocket ruining the lining of an absolutely splendid pair of trousers).

Perhaps today he was running late and simply left all of his things behind. Or maybe he just had an interview that didn’t go well and he threw away his mostly-empty briefcase in the trash just outside the office in a fit of frustration. Either way he must have sensed me staring, for he looked back at me and I managed a smile and thought seriously about saying that word, that easy I-say-it-all-the-time-to-everyone-I-know word that was now, for some reason, stuck in my throat.

I thought he was handsome and put together and I wanted to know his name and what his voice sounded like saying it. I also had a lot of questions for him, namely about the general whereabouts of his keys, but I wanted to sit down with him over a cup of coffee and hear his story and how his day had brought him to be here, standing in front of me on the express train speeding uptown.

I felt my heart skip a beat as his hand slipped on the bar and landed just above my own. I thought about what could happen if just said that one word, those two simple, almost insignificant little letters. I thought about all the ways my whole life could change in the amount of time it would take me to say, hi.

Maybe he had a girlfriend he wasn’t happy with anymore.
Maybe he was single.
Maybe I was just the kind of person he’d been looking for.
Maybe we had everything in common.
Maybe he was a Democrat and a Red Sox fan but that wouldn’t matter.
Maybe once he started talking to me he’d never want to stop.
Maybe I’d feel the same way.
Maybe we’d move in together and stay in bed all day on Saturdays and drink coffee while reading the Times all day on Sundays.
Maybe we’d travel the world together and go to movies together and argue over politics and baseball together.
Maybe we’d get married and have kids and bring them to piano lessons and swimming lessons and go to their school plays together and pay for their college and take a mortgage out on a house together.
Maybe we would grow old together, go on Social Security together, and eventually die, him before me or me before him, but there we’d be, in the end, together.

If only I just said it.

Because a word can change everything. It can be the only thing between you and what could have been. What could have been is what you think about when you find yourself looking back on that window of opportunity you had to reach out and take hold of something before you let it pass you by. What could have been can torture you for years.

Because you never know. Because there are infinite possibilities in a declaration, a comment, a gesture or a look. Because most of the time we’re there all thinking the same thing but none of us are brave enough to say something. Because everything is always the same all the time every week, day, hour, moment of our lives until, suddenly, it isn’t.

The question is: what are you going to do about it?

As I watched him leave the train at 72nd street I thought about going after him but I stopped myself because that’s just not what you do.

But maybe it should be.

Maybe we should all stop being so afraid.

And then the doors closed on him and what could have been, and I wondered for a long time after he left how much we change our lives all the time simply by the things we leave unsaid.

Idiot.