I visited New York for the first time in December 2001. I’d flown before, a couple of trips to see family and a flight to Europe, but I was 29 years old when I bought my first plane ticket with my own money. I’d lived in Atlanta for almost six years, paying my own rent and being an adult, but my parent’s idea of vacation planning was hard to shake. Vacations must be planned months in advance or else Something Will Go Wrong. And why fly when you can drive?

I found myself on the receiving end of all manner of New York Advice. Warnings. I was going into enemy territory. I was on a mission. Get in, see what you can, get out quickly and come back home. Don’t look at other people on the subway, not ever. Don’t engage people in conversation. New Yorkers are they not interested in making friends. Keep your mobile phone hidden. The politeness you learned in the South, it won’t work in New York. Your Southern accent will mark you as a sucker. And one last thing … keep your wallet in your front pocket.

Those warnings painted my perception of New York, made me timid and uncertain. I don’t remember much of the first day. The taxi from JFK to Manhattan was a blur. Subways were something to endure, like holding my breath. I stared at the sidewalks, stole glances at the tall buildings and did my best to fit in, to look like someone who belonged. The best and only compliment I received that day was from a Starbucks barista near Times Square. “You’re a tourist? Damn, you don’t act like a tourist.”

The next morning, a solution presented itself. I was in New York with other theatre people, a director and an actor. Hans and Bill. The weekend became an exercise in just how much theatre three determined people could see in a limited amount of time. We took in four shows. Or four and a half. We saw Ian McKellen & Helen Mirren in Dance of Death, Bebe Neuwirth in Everett Beekin, Raul Esparza’s understudy in Cabaret, and a small production of Much Ado About Nothing that reshaped entirely my perception of what Shakespeare could bear conceptually. Then just to see if we could, the three of us rolled up our Playbills and slipped into the intermission for Chicago.

I shed my fears and walked. I walked with Hans far and late into the night from Battery Park up to Hell’s Kitchen, defying everything I’d learned from years of televised Manhattan murder on Law & Order. I wasn’t alone, I’d a couple of friends with me, but I could’ve just as easily said no. The walk felt like climbing, like ascending a staircase lined with streetlights.

In spite of the warnings, in spite of my fear, New York slipped in and won me over. On the last night of our visit, I gave in to cliche and sat at the base of the Francis Duffy statue in Times Square to watch the crowds for what seemed like an hour. “This really is the center of the world,” I said to myself.

***

Before I moved to New York, when I was visiting more often, Helena would insist kindly I walk a little faster. She’s a long-legged girl, this only makes sense, I needed to keep up. But more than that, she was giving me an important lesson. I didn’t know how to walk in New York. Growing up in the South had given me an unintentional stroll. I never noticed this in Atlanta. Had anyone asked me, I’d have said, no, actually, I don’t think I’m one for moseying, thank you. But walking in New York, my walking habits were plain and clear. I took my time and was in no particular hurry, even when I was on the verge of being late.

The sidewalks of Atlanta never feel like the sidewalks of New York or London, not even on the busiest day. There’s no human current to catch you up and carry you. You’re more likely to enter a swarm of people in a Buckhead shopping mall than ever encounter a crowd on Peachtree Street. Downtown Atlanta has yet to recover from John Portman’s street-emptying architecture of the ‘70s and early ‘80s, an era that saw elevated passageways stretch building to building like hamster tubes. As late as 2003, you could walk from Rich’s Department Store on Peachtree Street to the AmericasMart some three blocks away without going outside.

***

Earlier this week, I stepped off the C Train at Spring Street, turned left and immediately body-checked a total stranger. Everyone in New York is a total stranger. He could’ve been anyone. He could’ve been you. There was a flash of pale blue button-down shirt and maybe a backpack strap and slam, that was it. My shoulder connected with his shoulder. I ran right into this guy, then just kept right on moving. Nothing was said and nothing needed to be said. I didn’t stop to look at him. I kept walking toward the exit. I had to get to work. He had to get to work or to class, to a doctor’s appointment, a job interview, a coffee date, anything.

In an instant, I’d accepted this stranger. I could’ve turned, cursed, asked him to look where the hell he was going. I didn’t.

The biggest lesson New York has to offer is simple: Everyone is living their own life, everyone has their own story. Everyone to see has something to do and someplace to go and we witness them so closely in the in-between moments. It’s that witnessing that makes New York a interesting challenge, physically and emotionally, particularly to a transplant like me. There’s a distance to living in Atlanta that closes in New York. People you pass in a car aren’t as real as those passed on the sidewalk. You have to let them register as you walk by. I drove the same route to-and-from work for months and years in Atlanta. I passed the same cars every morning and evening. I remember none of them. I’ve lived here since December, and I’ve seen the same people along the same train lines. I don’t know them but I notice them. I wonder where the regular faces are when I’ve not seen them for a few days.

I didn’t expect to run into a total stranger, but I wasn’t surprised when I did.

Warnings are born of fear and apprehension. Lessons are born of love and care. On a particularly windy and cold night winter before last, Helena and I made our way along Broadway, smiling into the wind and dashing from corner to corner. We stopped at red lights and held each other tight under streetlamps, pretending the circles of light were warmer than the rest of the sidewalk. All around us, people kept moving, tourists and natives alike. Cursing the cold deliriously, we kept walking until we found a warm restaurant still open and offering coffee. Holding my arm and leaning into my shoulder, she reminded me to look around us, to be aware of what was happening and where we were. Another lesson I needed, given through smiles and laughter.

(I still keep my wallet in my front pocket.)