Margin Notes: Not So Different

On the first warm day of spring, the day when half of New York wears puff jackets and the other dons tank tops, I went for a run. I ran past my old apartment, turned onto a path by the river, and veered back into the city, finally stopping to investigate a kind of commotion — or celebration — near my neighborhood.

Rachael Allen

The street next to the park was blocked off. Two ponies paced with children on their backs, an adult hovering alongside. “Free pony rides for 65 pounds and under!” Tables for local nonprofits lined the sidewalk where volunteers distributed pamphlets and directed children toward activities like making flower crowns or friendship bracelets.

Then, a drum beat sounded. A few whoops rose from the crowd, and people started bopping their heads to a drum ensemble. In front of me, a small girl in a colorful dress and patterned leggings danced with her mom who moved her legs like a robot, seeming to have as much fun as her daughter. Beside me, another parent crouched over a stroller, inside of which a child watched the scene, puzzled. What is going on?

What was going on was a neighborhood Earth Day festival, complete with fundraising, games, and performances. Families strolled up and down the street and wandered into the park. Some seemed to have come across the festival by chance. A girl sat on the steps of a nearby church with Trader Joe’s bags at her feet. A jogger slowed to walk through the crowd, taking out her headphones.

I wandered up the street, looking more at the people I passed than the booths stationed around me. One woman walked by in a sleek teal blazer with dress pants; another wore all leather, with narrow black sunglasses perched on her nose. As I entered the park, I watched a young, artsy-looking couple talk on a bench, a woman with big sunglasses knit in the enclosed dog park, a shirtless man read a book while lying on the grass.

At the edge of the park, dozens of people in their 50s and 60s crowded around a stage. They were dressed in black and leather, with spiky hairdos and choker necklaces. Some danced to the music; other gathered in groups to talk, and I wondered if they came to this event together or were meeting each other, these other like-minded rockers, for the first time.

Moments like this remind me of a simple truth: There are so many different people in the world. It’s so easy to become wrapped up in my own life — events at work, worries about my loved ones, errands I want to get done this weekend. In my apartment, my world feels contained to one room, but when I step outside, I’m reminded of the other lives people lead. There’s a girl laughing on FaceTime, a man in pajama pants carrying a textbook, an elderly couple navigating a buckled sidewalk, a group of friends trailing behind a boy with a “Birthday Girl” sash around his chest.

Part of this eclecticism, I know, is characteristic of New York and, in particular, my neighborhood. In this huge city, it’s easy to feel anonymous and relief in that anonymity. I could be anyone here because look, there’s one person being themselves and another and another — whether “being yourself” means dressing in a tailored emerald green suit or stepping outside in sweatpants and fuzzy slippers to walk the dog.

Even if not always as colorful, every place holds this reminder of the many lives that exist outside of your own, along with its counterpart — the pressure to conform. At the school where I teach, there’s no uniform, but the students have created their own: sports gear for the boys, crop tops and yoga pants for the girls. My students acknowledge this social pressure aloud, but they’re still not ready to break away from it. I get it — I breeze past these high school dynamics as a teacher, but I know I’m not immune to others.

But there’s a way in which this wanting to fit in feels useful. A few months ago, I went to a museum exhibit dedicated to books from a thousand years ago. While it feels impossible to comprehend that period of time, the sheer volume of people who have lived — the ones I see in my neighborhood, the ones who made these books thousands of years ago — is comforting. I feel freed from the confines of my own world, my own mind, not so much because of how different the people around me are, but because of the fact that amid the various ways to be, we’re all just trying to live, encountering so many of the same feelings along the way. After all, the middle-aged rockers, the baby in the stroller, and I all spent our Saturday afternoon enjoying a festival in the park on the first warm day of spring.

Rachael Allen grew up in Canton and is now a writer and high school journalism teacher in New York.

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Posted by Rachael Allen on Apr 29 2022. Filed under Featured Content, Opinion. Both comments and pings are currently closed.