Penn Station, NYC. There are places to sit. There are places to plug in. Electricity, wifi, running water, flush toilets. The bathrooms are clean. The floors, too. There are ample opportunities to purchase food, drink, souvenirs, paperbacks, hardcovers, newspapers, magazines, antacids, candy, bottled water, toys, pens, Advil, Tylenol, articles of clothing. Information is available from Amtrak and Metro North employees as well as the constantly updated signage. Loudspeaker announcements are resonant, frequent, and static-free. Delays are inevitable. Frustration or forbearance, optional. Security is clear and present with a slightly edgy air but generally polite and helpful. Maintenance crews work hard. Some of us, we who are traveling, look lost, some talk too loudly to each other or into their phones, some look tired, some resigned, some obviously up for the challenge. Eye contact, optional. Sense of humor, optional. Acknowledging the wonder and absurdity of all this motion, mood-dependent. Some carry almost nothing, some just a backpack, some tote most of their worldly possessions. Many use devices with wheels. It really is a user-friendly place, one that could easily meet most if not all of our needs. Still, this is a place of transition, like a bridge or tunnel. We arrive. We depart. No one wants to stay there. Imagine how quiet Penn Station would be if we all left at once. How peaceful. What a relief from this constant assault on the senses. What kindness, to let it have its privacy, its moment. In the end, deprived of purpose, would it miss us?

No end of ways to pierce one's heart. This photo depicts the tail end of a little abode. Whoever lives there wasn't home at the moment. Only their belongings, including a makeshift kitchen/bedroom-like area. I stopped long enough to shoot this. Long enough to feel the sob rising in my throat. Then I moved on.

Sometimes the universe would like us to just sit.
Take a load off. Have a seat.
Draw those slow, deep, diffident breaths.
Let those difficult thoughts
and the easy ones
come and go.
Don't chase them. They'll return soon enough.
Relax shoulders. Relax jaw. Relax belly.
All those muscles that clench or resist–
set them free– they need a rest.
Sit and see
how the view changes
closer to the ground.
Now lean back,
look at the sky.
It's still there.

I hear they're teaching cursive again. My seventh grade French teacher told us we have a memory mechanism in our hands. He required us to write every lesson down – full sentences on lined looseleaf paper. Beginning with our first and last names, followed by the date (month, day, year, written out in words, not numbers). The questions as well as the answers. I liked the idea of memory in my hands very much then, and still do. Why wouldn't we do everything possible to engage our fullest selves in the acquisition of knowledge and skills? I guess the takeaway here is the goal of being fully present, with joy and enthusiasm, with respect and kindness, to self and other. This way, wherever we find ourselves is home.

Another photo from that Union Square Whole Foods, the enormous store where confusion prevented me from purchasing anything. Looking at it now makes me think about the survival kits we throw together to soothe, protect, or reward ourselves. We toss in a little of this, a little of that. How do needs manifest? What helps us know how to understand them? Some people are better at it. Is it a question of going deep? Are some needs louder? What about those poor little needs that remain unspoken? This business of care-taking feels like something that wants attention. Let's attend.