Boring Never Looked So Good

I just returned to Maine after three days in New York City, city of my birth, and I'm so happy to be back. Granted, I was there for an unhappy reason: a dear friend is suffering from a terminal illness and is currently hospitalized, possibly for the last time -- it's hard to know. Thus much of my time was spent at his bedside, or in the hospital lounge when he needed a break from visiting. Not fun.

Still, there were long hours spent not at the hospital but on the streets of Manhattan, which supplied plenty of their own misery. Skyscrapers so tall you couldn't see their tops, apartment buildings that looked like beehives, graffiti everywhere. But most noticeable was the non-stop blaring of sirens: ambulances, fire trucks, cop cars -- you name it, it blared -- all day with perhaps 10 minutes between blasts. 

Not that there was ever silence. The constant mayhem of street traffic was everywhere: buses, automobiles and trucks rumbling, honking and belching fumes were just one part. Another horror was the addition of New York's relatively new bike lanes tucked between the sidewalk and the parked cars, a speedway of bikers threatening to run you down if you didn't stay back, look both ways and let them pass.

Back home in Maine, boring seems heavenly.