Oh, the Humanity

This morning, I was sitting in Victrola coffee shop, enjoying my habitual Sunday morning with the New York Times and a couple cups of drip, and was looking out the window at the street scene passing by. A young father with his toddler son appeared; the kid darted towards something on the sidewalk in front of him and the dad, needing to corral the kid before he ran into the street, scooped him up. The boy started wailing and the father bounced and hugged him to make him stop. A typical scenario, repeated countless times daily by innumerable parents and children, but something about it—perhaps the way it evoked memories of my own experiences with Mimi nigh on a decade ago—made me all choked up and misty-eyed.

Across the street, a street person with pinkish-orange dye in his hair sat on a milk crate with a sign that said, “Any kindness is welcomed.” Two of his buddies, one pushing a department store bicycle piled high with plastic bags, joked with him. The laughter of all three made me sad for some reason; I guess, in part, I was wondering about the events that led a guy who was at one time like that little kid to turn into a toothless beggar like the guy across the street.

Later, I saw a trio of hipsters—two boys and a girl—crossing the street to head to Coastal Kitchen for brunch. Their goofy expressions, I thought, belied a sense of loneliness within—or maybe they were all just hungover.

Perhaps it was the overcast skies, portending the long, dark, wet winter ahead; maybe it was a failure of the caffeine to kick in fast enough, but all the while I sat there, the humanity of human beings seemed so apparent and so melancholy. It made me blue, a sort of a sweet blue all morning.

But then the Steelers whomped the Bills and all was again right with the world.