What do you see?

You know what they say about living in a place, how it is so rare to truly tour and explore, in ones own city. There is no element of hurry to go and see the Empire state building or The Statue of Liberty, because they will be here tommorrow to see, if one feels the inclination to put forth that kind of effort, and so the days pass away.

Sightseeing is by default, left to those observant individuals who still love to see. Some are the children, unlucky enough to be without a DVD players in their cars cranking out the latest animated fare. Noses pressed to smudged car windows, their wiser eyes mark the passage of familiar routes, people and places, and they daydream richly in their own way.

It took me seventeen years and an 'out-of-towner' guest to finally go and visit Lady Liberty. We went to Battery Park and caught a ferry out to her. Standing at the base of her, we both looked up awestruck, stripped clean of all jaded illusions of being passe tourists, this moment was stark and significant. We showed our respective children, who had also never been, the immense weathered, green woman of New York Harbor, and her promise of freedom for all, and had tears of sheer wonder in our eyes.

It is difficult to not just get used to the Urban sprawl of streets, the landmarks flashing past the car window without ceremony.
The incongruous, ridiculous or stereotypical store signs that have simply always been there, and cease to be scenery are just words after all.
Generic, streets which could be in any city in the world, blend in with the startlingly beautiful handcarved architecture of times past.
Even the beat-up shuttered, tattoed husks of buildings squatting alongside laundromats become just color and form.
Symmetrical project blocks, scrabbly chic trees, with roots slyly coming through cracked sidewalk and copious fast food establishments all seem to form a continuous doodled scribble. It has all been seen one too many times, in one too many places, until it is mere blended background.

I consider myself relatively observant. I tend to notice things , sometimes because they are beautiful or wonderful or unusual, other times, because they are interesting in context. I like the stories of things, the oldness, oddness or gorgeousness of the mundane, projecting an atmospheric visual echo.

Driving through New York's upper west side at dusk last night, I watched the cars inching along the ascending grey-ribbon road. Rain washed the dust off the handsome skyscrapers and brownstones. It blurred the blinking of the traffic light sentinels, which winked ruby and jade like synchronised Christmas lights.
Two parallel rows of trees, stood strong, tightly flanking solid rows of brick and stone buildings. They leaned over the street protectively, tossing in the wind like archaic slaves waving feathery palm fronds over unruly children at play.

This New York street was for a moment, a masterpiece, but then again, what scene isn't? What do you see?