The Beauty of Anonymity

I had no intention of posting tonight  but this unprecedented consecutive post simply could not wait.  I will be brief because, as you may recall, Tom thinks my posts may be too long and frequent.  I had another wonderful day on my journey and it began with an impromptu visit by my adorable cousin Irene.  Irene is a young woman who has been a New Yorker for about five or six years and is talented, creative and a total pleasure to be around.  She met Jack for the first time and I think it was love at first sight. They both seem to have that effect on people.

After my day with Jack was complete I returned to my neighborhood and enjoyed a relaxing and extremely quiet pedicure.  I must add that yesterday I had enjoyed an extremely relaxing manicure in Jack's neighborhood after "work".  Here is the importance of these two grooming experiences.  Anyone who knows me knows that nail care has always been somewhat important to me.  I take pride in the condition and appearance of my nails as many people do.  I am not obsessed  but I do require an acrylic manicure and have surprisingly found that many of the salons in my new area do not perform this procedure.  On a walk the other day with Jack I found such a place and was delighted.  Another welcome surprise to me was that the cost of both manicures and pedicures in NYC is actually lower than at home.  The quality of both experiences was outstanding.  As the manicurist began to work on me ever so gently,(she was even wearing a surgical  mask!) I couldn't help but compare this quiet calm place to my hometown salon where there was always conversation and a high level of activity.  This place was  so serene I nearly nodded off.  Then to my surprise and delight another employee quietly came up behind me and started to massage my neck. Who knew? This is New York. My immediate reaction was to tense up but I quickly accepted the unexpected pleasure.

I had a very similar experience with the pedicure tonight.  It was quiet, relaxing and almost zen like.  Then it occurred to me that the reason I felt so free was that I am living a virtually anonymous existence here.  I hope this does not make me sound unfriendly, you know that I am a pretty friendly person, but here I can walk down the street or go shopping or anything else and no one knows who I am.  Once you get over the initial unfamiliarity it is rather freeing to be in this situation for a while. 

As Jack would say, "peace"