CONFESSION: I have no sense of direction. Not a whit. I’ve gotten badly lost two blocks from home. I tend to think West = left, and East = right— worse still, I can’t tell left from right on the first guess. ~cough~ For me, getting from Point A to Point B takes intense thought, a clear map, and an hour of backtracking. Between this absent internal compass and my rotten eyesight, getting around is scary.
You can imagine how anxious Mr. Jaunty felt when I boarded a bus to Manhattan yesterday morning. “Like a parent sending a child to her first day of school,” he later admitted. Ol’ softie.
Rather than brave NYC by my dizzy lonesome, I was escorted by Mr. Jaunty’s best friend: “Frère J.” Before we parted ways in Brooklyn, Frère wrote a series of detailed directions explaining how to leapfrog from bus to subway to borough. When my plans changed, he texted me an equally detailed set of new directions.
No one’s surprised that Mr. Jaunty’s honorary brother would be gracious. I WAS surprised by how many nice, thoroughly helpful New Yorkers I met yesterday:
- When I couldn’t find the client I’d come to meet, a little boy pointed the way.
- After meeting with my client, she talked me through all of F. J.’s directions. She waited in the cold with me to make sure I caught the right bus.
- At the bus stop, a woman gave me her bus transfer. For free! Out of kindness!
- On that bus, a bearded man in a fedora made sure I didn’t miss my stop. No hardship for him, just a few words to a tourist. I was so touched, I nearly cried.
- In Jamaica Bay, my phone died. When I couldn’t find a payphone (and who uses payphones these days?), a hip young guy lent me his cell phone to call Frère J— and that phone was faaaaaaancy.
- When I visited Mr. Jaunty’s friends “Eagle” and “Nightingale,” they greeted me with bear hugs and dinner. They’d only seen me once before… but they love Mr. Jaunty, so I was loved by extension.
- As a VERY well-dressed stranger and I raced to catch the subway back to Manhattan, I admitted to being a tourist. She showed me a light-up chart on the subway wall that counted down upcoming stops. BIG help. Not sure how I failed to notice it before, but hey, I miss a lot.
- A heavily uniformed hotel greeter pointed me down 42nd street. He did not treat “Am I going in the right direction?” as a stupid question.
- Not one but THREE kind employees helped me through the Port Authority Bus Terminal. (It’s not that big, people. Only I would have to ask for directions three times in a space that size.)
Miles from home and completely vulnerable, I felt thoroughly loved.
That night, I nearly took the wrong bus back to Pennsylvania— I honestly thought I was riding back to Airport Road in Allentown, not Industrial Drive in Bethlehem. It took two kind bus-drivers to prevent m from ending up in THE WRONG TOWN ENTIRELY. When I admitted this to Mr. Jaunty, he tensed visibly and said “I’m so glad you’re not dead.”
Yes, I am perpetually disoriented. But between warm friends o’ friends and the kindness of strangers… … I get by.
Oh Rebekah – I’m soooo so glad to hear you made it home safe and had such good happenings in NYC. Fortunately, PA towns are all on top of each other so the wrong town wouldn’t have been overly far away.
Is the client for your new job? What do you do now? Maybe I missed it in a blog post….
:)
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That story warms my heart. I’m happy those people were put in your path today.
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What an adventure! I love kind strangers. They make me re-think my general attitude about mankind, which often is sour. A friend who moved from Texas to Cali told me that (Southern) Californians are pretty dang cold and isolated. It’s true, and a defensive mechanism. But there are people peppered here and there who don’t realize that’s the modus operandi and they make me smile. I’m glad you had a lot of help in your quest!
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Awww…….now without ever being there I by extension <3 NYC ! ! !
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I’m glad so many people helped you! Strangers being nice always brightens up my entire day, so it sounds like you got enough to have a pretty awesome week or two!
I am perpetually disoriented too. I am currently borrowing a GPS for a couple months and it is awesome and awful. It is awesome because it can tell me how to get places. Awful because I tend to follow it blindly – I will go the way it tells me to even when I KNOW that’s not right.
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It’s easy to be kind to a lovely person like yourself, but even so, hurray for kind strangers. What a nice adventure :)
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Why were you in Manhattan? That place is such a wonderful adventure, but half of the adventure is finding your way around!
AND I have to say that no matter where I travel there are always friendly people — I think it’s the personality of the traveler and not the location that makes the difference.
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