The View From Up Here

 Thankfully, the bus driver chose to see me hobbling across the street in front of him, and he holds the door open until I can clamber on board. “Thanks,” I tell him with a big smile.

The view down 7th Avenue is different from up here, from the high vantage of the front of the bus surging like a whale through the jet stream of rush hour. The congestion, the traffic - both in the road and on the sidewalks, the seething cars jamming the intersections, pedestrians jostling by dog walkers and baby carriages, delivery drivers swarming the bike lanes with electric scooters and cigarette smoke - all of it seems to soften and meld together into a whole that nearly becomes a rhythm, a pattern I can almost decode before the stoplight goes red and I lose it again.