Inspiration Everywhere continued

I went to the City (waddayamean what City? is there another?) to observe an Opera yesterday.  Now I keep saying on this blog that the City is my inspiration and I thought I would give you a hint of that by listing out all of the snippets that could someday become a part of a book.  Inspiration can come from anywhere and while each of these incidents in itself might not inspire a whole book or short story they are sure to be fit into some piece of my writing sometime.


This also shows that I never need to buy one of those books that gives me 200 pages of inspiration...I find it everywhere.

1. Bus driver barely able to hold the bus on the road due to 65 MPH gusts yet still taking time to ANSWER HIS DAMN HANDHELD CELL!     (Sorry about that.  I’m calmer now.)
2. Sheets of rain on the bus windows obscuring the passing scenery.
3. Fear of being out of control.
4. Navigating the City underground from the bowels of the Port Authority Terminal, through the passage of several blocks underground to the Number 1 subway and then uptown to surface in front of Avery Fisher Hall.   On the way: Lost French tourists. A woman trying to manage two baby carriers and a backpack.  A street musician in the underground passage playing Hotel California on the guitar. A community sing in a Subway car when a trio started playing Quanta La Mera and three Dominican girls and myself, the ultimate Gringa, linked arms singing.
5. Walking in sheets of rain so formidable that an umbrella was totally useless.
6. Looking at the lovely bread sculptures on the table in front of me that were holding the menus and then (by poking them) realizing that they were not sculptures at all but rather stale half loaves of bread which might, in an alternate universe have been thrown away but here at Le Pain Quotidian were being useful.
7. The glittering majesty of the Metropolitan Opera in the rain.
8. The fountain looking like crystal.
9. The sheer height of the stage and the way it dwarfs the performers and the way Kentridge’s projections were just the right proportion for the stage.
10. The giggly joy I get every time the floating chandeliers in the house start to rise into the air just before the performance.
11. How a performance is always enhanced by amiable seatmates.
12. Sticking my sopping coat under my chair and taking off my shoes hoping against hope that my socks would dry out.
13.Watching a performer I admire (nay idolize?) act his brains out whilst singing in Russian (not his native language) music that sometimes defies singing.
14. Exiting the dress circle to the grand visage of Lincoln Center Plaza and to be greeted by what appeared to be a monsoon only colder.
15. Slogging back to the subway as people crashed into each other to avoid abandoned and flying inside out umbrellas.
16. Riding home in a warm bus driven by a driver who was wholly focused on the road and being able to abandon my control problem.