One Day, many Worlds

One thing I love to do is to break my own routine. Like most people, I love the comfort of routine, the little habits, places, or journeys that repeat and offer peace. But it can be enlightening to consciously try something different, for that is how we can learn to see the world through the eyes of others.

This Monday was a good example. We drive an old Volvo, but not so old that it doesn’t have an onboard computer carrying out background diagnostics. This is smart by Volvo, as it enhances the safety of the vehicle, but it also rather forces the client to act on messages and to use Volvo service areas, for only there can they interpret the computer.

That way I learned (again) that something was wrong with the car and booked it (again) for a visit to the Volvo dealer out in Long Island, about forty minutes away down the Long Island Expressway. And (again) I had the challenge of what to do with my day between dropping off the car and picking it up, with the uncertainty of what was wrong and how long it would take to fix.

The thing I love most about New York City is how all the different worlds coalesce. What Bill de Blasio says about two cities is true, and it is great to see inequality finally becoming a valid political agenda. But at least in the city we must observe both cities, since we are all squashed tightly together. So at the start of my drive I called in Dunkin Donuts for my daily Latte, and saw smart business people, rather sad seniors, close-knit immigrant groups (Russian Jews are most obvious near our home) and people on the edge of society, all of them clinging to their own community but also mingling, more or less happily and at least usually aware of other ways of living.

One recent exception was on another coffee errand, where in the queue were the normal mix of the comfortable and desperate, but where one woman was barking at full New Yorker volume on her mobile phone. She was against the De Blasio tax on incomes above $500,000 per year, on the grounds that it was impossible to live in the city on less than that, given school fees, nannies and everything else. She did not stop to think that probably everyone else in the queue, and certainly everyone on the other side of the counter, might need to find a way to live in the city with a lifetime income of less than her perceived annual minimum. No one grabbed her phone and broke it, but I am sure I was not the only one tempted.

After Dunkin Donuts, the next stop was Hassel Volvo of Glen Cove, in leafy Long Island. On the way, despite it being after nine, the traffic on the opposite carriageway was little more than a parking lot, reminding me again of the blighted life of the commuter. Another world.

The dealership would probably have loaned me a car, but I had reasons not to ask. I have a dislike and distrust of car dealerships, especially their pricing, so I try to minimize my use of their services. Also, I am blessed with plenty of time. It was a rare winter day of warmth and sunshine. And, most of all, the day offered a chance to explore other worlds.

There is a train back from Sea Cliff to Forest Hills, and on previous visits I had taken that. Off peak, it is a lovely journey, but there is only one train every two hours. This time, I had an alternative, since I wanted to take my Apple computer to the store to look at a fault, and the store was only a few miles from Glen Cove.

So I tried the bus. I had researched vaguely where I was and needed to get to and there was a bus stop outside the dealer. Of course, no one in the dealership was aware of this, or where the bus might lead. But there was a young Indian girl at the stop, and between us we knew enough to set me on my way.

I needed to change bus. The first wait was short but the second was forty minutes. There was no other white person on the bus. To pay I needed either a card (which of course I did not have) or to pay cash, using coins only, requiring many quarters, which of course I did not have either, but my new friends willingly helped, and also reminded me to get a transfer pass, that the driver would never have dreamt of asking me about unprompted. Just like the trains, outside of peak hours the busses are irregular and infrequent. They required waiting at unpleasant places of heavy traffic and no covering, and walking on dangerous main roads with no sidewalks. But at least the busses came and delivered me to the mall with the Apple store.

The Apple store was another world. It was full of efficiency and clean lines. Everyone there looked young and cool, staff and customers alike. Despite being neither, I did not feel intimidated, and I received all the help I needed.

Then I sat and took lunch at the only restaurant in the mall. That mall itself is strange. You could not go there and buy a gallon of milk, a bagel, a medicine, school shoes, a magazine or a bath mat – in other words anything I would usually buy. Every store had designer label clothes, and as far as I could see none had any customers, though the huge car park had its share of SUV’s.

The restaurant was packed, despite being overpriced. There seemed to be three demographics, all white (with a few Asians), though all the servers seemed to be Hispanic. There were affluent seniors, and there were some smart office workers, but the biggest group comprised wealthy middle-aged women, no doubt having arrived in their SUV’s. They seemed to be competing on quantity and cost of make-up and maybe even cosmetic surgery, they talked loudly (often of taxes), took their time and enjoyed plenty of champagne.

Over lunch the car dealer rang with two wholly unsurprising bits of bad news. I would have to hang around until five o’clock, and the price, even after negotiation, would roughly equal the entire monthly wage of my waiter, and by the way I needed to invest the same again pretty soon on something else.

So I walked half way back, noticing again the absence of sidewalks or pedestrian lights, as well as the dreadful potholes on the roads. On the way I had noticed a small cinema and an art gallery. Sadly, upon arrival the matinee would only start at four, and the art gallery was closed on Mondays. So I waited for another bus, returned to the dealer, found that the work was well advanced, and eventually drove home.

The day was frustrating but somehow enlightening at the same time, and it certainly offered lots of opportunity to reflect. My first message is to recommend the road less travelled from time to time. You will observe different things, learn a lot, pick up some tips, and enjoy companionship of people you do not normally interact with. If you live in a large city like me, you are lucky that some of this happens even on regular days, because we all live closer together.

Next, I reflected how life seems to become in a democracy dominated by money, media and the majority. Given space, people do not integrate much, and do not even observe the other worlds around them. The bus and rail company, as well as the museum and cinema, provide a full service when it is profitable for them, but almost nothing outside, making life tough for those outside the mainstream or the money. Car dealerships can satisfy the unreasonable demands of their bankers, but only by insulting their customers, most of whom don’t care because they are either rich or not paying themselves. But the result is a whole shadow market of ill-equipped but cheap repair shops, and many cars on the road which are both unsafe and uninsured. For it is hard to live and work without a car, yet impossible to maintain the car properly on a regular wage.

Then I listen to my lady in Starbucks and the well-heeled women in the restaurant and the so-called TV news and the world of Washington, where long-term unemployment benefits seem to be fair game politically. When did any of these people last try to travel by bus?

At the macro level I have few solutions. To paraphrase Churchill, democracy sucks but everything else may be even worse. Sometimes when I observe life in the USA I am not even sure of that any more. Money, media and majority can do a lot of damage if left to their own devices.

Solutions start at the micro level, for the majority is us and we can act responsibly and force change if we wish. It is easier in a city, but even there we can be lazy and one-eyed. So fight that urge, and start by sometimes choosing that less travelled road. You will be surprised what you learn.