I don’t know why I am so happy about yesterday’s day trip to Manhattan. I spent a good chunk of it on the train there and back, and in a very crowded museum looking at things that don’t interest me much. After that, I took various subways to Brooklyn and back. I retraced my subway travels and sat in a park jammed with rickety tables and chairs, moving from place to place when I got too cold in the breeze or too hot in the sun. The day could have been dreadful. It wasn’t.

Partly, I enjoyed myself because it was funny. For instance, I had bid on an upgrade for my train trip from Philadelphia, and won, but my seat was in one of those booths designed for a four-person family or a group of card players, with a useless table jammed between the seats. I had the great joy of watching other people get profoundly huffy about having to shove together, with the added pleasure of watching the conductor make a man move his seat. He expressed himself loudly and with injured dignity. The guy across from him was on the wrong train and had to get off at the next stop. In my little group, there was a young man who had been sitting in the wrong seat as well and had to move, and an older couple who put on masks when they heard me cough behind my mask (I am not infectious, I’m just immune compromised). I got out my portable Bluetooth keyboard and my phone and wrote my morning blog post on the useless table, and then took a nap.

I don’t know what it is about watching other people get offended. I guess it’s partly that it isn’t me being offended.

Partly, I was delighted because there were so many people, everywhere. The museum, for instance, was a bit of a madhouse. I was picked to have my bag searched, and since I carry enough with me (the Bluetooth keyboard, a book, a journal, a second pair of shoes, you get the picture) to make the bag a vast wilderness, the security guard aimed his flashlight at it in a very baffled manner. He finally asked me to open my lunch bag and told me I had to drink the soda or throw it out. I gave it to him instead. It was still there when I left. That was pretty funny, too. My backup battery was considerably more dangerous to the art work than my soda can. The end of the school year meant I kept turning the corner and running into a field trip group, rampaging elementary school children or teenagers chatting loudly and thrilled with their interactions. I drifted through the Raphael exhibit (I find Raphael boring), full of people taking photographs of art in dim rooms and often coming to a complete stop in the only possible pathway between people. I found the costume exhibit in the space where the bookstore used to be, and zipped through that, too (I do not care for couture).

The museum was extra fun, because I have a membership and so I didn’t waste my money, and because I could leave when I was done.

After that, I took several subways I have never taken before and went to Brooklyn to visit a shop I had heard was good for fountain pens, inks, and stationery. Subways in New York City are always enjoyable, especially when they’re full. I scan the seats and then wedge myself in between two people who react with indifference, because we are all wedged together like that. The shop I was visiting was closed when I got there, because I hadn’t bothered to check its schedule, and I drifted back through Brooklyn streets, confirming that I prefer Manhattan (Brooklyn reminds me of Philadelphia. I already live in Philadelphia), got myself back to the subway station, and wedged myself into some more subway seats.

I adore New York subways. Always have. I especially like charging through the tunnels underneath New York that connect the various lines. People are moving fast. Sometimes a woman with a languid toddler in a pram stops against a wall, and everyone flows around her. Newsstands, glowing with promise, are built into tiled walls like hidden passages to another underground world. Far off, you hear trains roaring, and they are never actually your train, but another one crossing the station at an angle and above.

I finished my day in Bryant Park, as I usually do when I visit New York. I found myself a rickety metal table and wrote in my journal, then grabbed a croissant and a hot chocolate, went to a different stationery store, bought a pen, and returned to Bryant Park. I sat cheek-by-jowl with a whole lot of other people doing the same thing I was doing, which was sitting in the park on a sunny day. At one point, park staff started to remove the perimeter rope around the lawn; I had my feet on the rope to keep it from flapping up and down, and some people screamed, “Lady! Lady!” and glared at me from several tables away. I looked pointedly bewildered and they looked away, and soon left. I watched a woman in a motivational T-shirt scavenging the trash for aluminum cans to sell for scrap. I gave my spare change to a person without teeth. I did not stare at the young man on his phone who was sitting immediately in front of me, and he did not stare at me, because neither of us was raised in a barn.

After the perimeter rope was removed, the lawn rapidly filled up with people waiting for one of the many events that happen at Bryant Park. I considered lying down on the grass and staring up at the sky, and decided not to. I have done that before. It was one of the happiest moments of my life, and I remember it well. I don’t have to do it again.

The trip home was a bit of an anticlimax; I got upgraded again, but didn’t have anyone sitting next to me, so it wasn’t nearly as hectic as the ride out. That was okay. I was tired. My feet hurt. My hip hurt. I was worn out. It had been a very successful day.

I know most people don’t like the same things I do. For instance, people don’t like living by themselves and talking to no one all day. I do. And many people don’t like cities, or being jammed into strange buses, trains, and subways with their hips shoved up against other people. I really do like it. There’s something wild and free about hauling my little old self to a strange city and barging around being invisible and inconvenient, and wedging myself haphazardly between other human beings.