Beauty

Rolled out of bed at 4:00PM with a smile on my face and rushed to yoga but the teacher was nowhere to be found so the class got canceled. Made my way back to the subway and on the train I met beauty. Two young girls of about 11 and 7 were singing and dancing, just absofuckinglutely ECSTATIC! I made sure to grab a seat where I could watch their performance as they were amused by having an audience. The younger one was dictating the foot work and steps to the older, "front, up, forward, up, down, back, up…" as she bashfully looked my way for approval of her coordination. I hope she gets to take dance classes one day; she'd love it and would be fantastic! The older one was calm and reserved, with a well fed belly proud of her sibling with protective eyes. I hope she gets to enjoy numerous feasts to come in her life time filled with laughter and happiness.






They reminded me of my sister and I growing up, our carefree moments in the world where any and everything became our playground. They were maybe of Philippine or Malaysia decent? Couldn't tell but neither could many people when looking at my sister and I except as these little happy Asian(?) aliens to the stark contrast of our clearly blond blue eyed mother and questionably-Asian father even if we were all sitting together. Then again I'm not sure what people thought when they saw the 4 of us together as it was so long ago and I wasn't conscious of such minor details until everything changed. The girls' parents were white (of some European background... an elder couple… I assume they adopted?) sitting conversing with one another with one eye on the girls while covered in bags, knickknacks and belongings of clearly a long eventful family day in this magnificent city. In the background, at the end of the train car was a trumpet player while my head phones played center stage of reggae. I looked around outside myself and captured this 3 train stops long of beauty. I did get to do yoga today after all. What a blessing to let go and witness “now”... to just be and appreciate. 34th street was approaching; the girls reluctantly left their play time in the train and skipped onto their next destination between their doting and loving parents. Two stops later I stepped off the beauty train to live the rest of my day… dinner with el papa and his girlfriend, the Brazilian festival and Caribbean day parade tonight.

What a beautiful Sunday.

RY