Connection
Manhattan to Brooklyn to Queens to the Bronx, downtown to midtown to uptown to the park, the past to the present to our future dreams, head to shoulders to knees to toes.. the connections in her life run deep. Born in a tenement apartment in New York City, she had no family close except for her Mama and Papa- well her Mama and her Papa and eight million others. From our dear friends who watch her grow and guide her along the way, to our neighbors whom we greet in the hall and bake cookies for at the holidays, to the train conductor who drives her around on the subway, to the deli guy who makes her bagel with cream cheese, this is her village.
She rides along, wrapped up like a gift on my hip, as we walk over the Brooklyn Bridge. She eagerly waves and says "Hieeeeey!" to passing pedestrians and bicyclists. In the middle of the bridge, a man with a scarf around his head sells water and soda from a cooler, blasting smooth jazz from a boombox. Biet begins to dance enthusiastically and sing along. She reaches our her small hand to touch every single brick and bar along the way, pausing for a moment each time to take in the texture. I want to tell her about how the brave workers used their own hands to lay these pieces of rock and metal when they built this bridge over a century ago. I want to tell her about the millions and millions of New Yorkers before her who have walked this same path over the East River. I want to tell her about how something as magnificent as The Brooklyn Bridge was at one time just somebody's crazy dream to connect Brooklyn and Manhattan, until it became real. I want to tell her that she too can make all of her dreams, no matter how wild they might be, come true just the same.
But instead we walk, and marvel, and breathe the fresh air. We stop to nurse on a bench and a woman pushing a baby carriage nearly walks past us. Then she pauses and hesitantly walks back to the bench. She sits next to us and lifts her four month old son out of the carriage, putting him to her chest to nurse as well. She tells us that she wasn't sure if she should feed him out in the open on the bridge, but then she saw Biet sucking away and felt at ease. And I think of how we inspired that woman and her little babe.
Moments and connections, just like this one, weave together to become the raw fabric of our city life. I know that Biet will melt a million hearts and inspire a million smiles and build countless lifelong connections throughout her childhood here. We stop in the center of the bridge and turn back to admire the skyline. She drapes her arm over my shoulder and I am consumed with the love of the most primal connection of all, that of a mother and a child. She is my everything.
I point my finger towards the buildings rising against the blue sky and I tell her, "Baby girl, do you see that over there? That is yours. All yours." And it is. It is all of ours.
This post is the second installment of the Sakura Bloom Sling Diaries. You can see all previous entries here. I am wearing the Essential Silk Sling in Midnight Pebble.
