“All the lives we could live, all the people we will never know, never will be, they are everywhere. That is what the world is.”
This is a book about people and their Individual stories. Who are we? What are our fears and dreams? How are we connected? It is about how we need the connectedness especially in a city when no one ever looks up.
Newly arrived to the city as I turn the pages I am introduced to New York and I understand. I drink in the translation. The blur and business are dissected. Keep your head down, there is no time for humanity, not enough energy to engage. There are too many people, most of them alone. The book provides a window into the broken people in the city most of whom remain silent and forgotten in every day life.
Living in the city the roar of every day life becomes a hum that is soon ignored. The book takes a step back and pick the noises out again. It calls me to my senses.
Let the great world spin. Circling back through the pages I appreciate the stories, their connect and disconnect. There are lasting impressions and the forget-able. Jazzlyn, Corrie, Tillie, Gloria, I remember. Then there are the others, the girl broken by drugs and party life, the boy finding hope in the creativity of graffiti, the kids hacking computers, Claire, Solomon... there but not so alive. Perhaps the most forgettable of all for me is Philip, the tightrope walker.
I appreciate the timeline of the book. It seems to following the pattern of the tightrope walker and his journey between the two towers. Starting in the past and ending in the present the stories weave many passes back and forth across the middle of time. The flow of stories makes me think of how God views the world a mixture of stories all woven together somehow making sense.
Living in the city the roar of every day life becomes a hum that is soon ignored. The book takes a step back and has helped me pick the noises out again. It has called me to my senses.
Beauty in the details of life. To see the ordinary new and captivating. Poetry. The connectedness of life. Hope in broken humanity
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