Scrambling to Get My Pants Down in the Cafe Water Closet

The streets are wet and crowded.  I walk down them this morning pressing a nonchalant hand against my crotch.  It is a very specific position, its execution complicated because I am in motion.  The delicate dance of halted urination.  Right where the thumb meets the wrist, I affectionately refer to it as the "urethra block."  The pose in its entirety is called "Please please please please please…." because that's what I am saying every time I have to use it. 

This morning I almost made it.  It's always those last three seconds - scrambling to get my pants down in the cafe water closet, still wearing my backpack, legs shaking, face sweating, I'm so close!  I let out a little squirt. 

It's not the first time.  This dance is not unfamiliar, especially in this city.  I don't often pee my pants (and really, I just left a little dribble on my panties, which I immediately removed), but it happens. 

One time, after a long drive and 1/2 hour of desperate toilet searching in sticky July at three in the morning in Downtown Brooklyn, wearing a leaf-printed polyester onesie which prevented me from squatting behind a car without being completely naked, I leaned against a building and fully let it go.  People passed by (thankfully inebriated) and I pretended not to be peeing in my pants, which means I smiled a lot while doing it. 

In New York, people are everywhere.  A quick private pee is rarely possible with female anatomy, my predilection for one-piece pant suits, and this dense population.  Everywhere people are honking their horns, blaming each other for inconveniences, pushing, assessing status, sucking in their cheeks, competing for professional positions, unknowingly policing one another for minor social faux pas like public urination. 

The city is loud.  It's hard to sleep sometimes with all the noise.  The smell of garbage and pee is common - which, admittedly (depending on my prior consumption of liquids and the outfit I happen to be wearing) sometimes makes me a little jealous.  Rent is high, jobs are demanding, woody perennials are scarce, stars are hard to see.  So why, when I could be closer to a forest, fresh air, the naked sound of wind and birds...why, when at least once a week I am practicing the "Please please please please please" position because there are not any proximal trees offering themselves for a tête-à-tête, do I live here? 

***

Cities are people places.  Manhattan is people-made.  What makes it beautiful - epic bridges, subway systems, grand performances, universities, high-rise architecture, the 800 languages, the kaleidoscope of various cuisine, legendary visual art, sundry music, the museums, even the parks - these are people things.  This may seem a minor revelation, but when (after a noisy, sleepless night, getting stuck in honky rain morning traffic, and peeing my panties) I realized this, something in me relaxed.  I stopped resenting the decision to come back. 

Why am I here?  Because I love people.  And, on some level, be it conscious or un-, other people are here because they love people too.  I love people so much, it's hard to stop myself from trying to hug strangers...and they are everywhere.  Everyone is full  of stories and dreams that spill onto the urban landscape and make New York what it is.

But it's not what people create that make this city glow...it's them, it's us.  We live here together, stacked on one another in giant buildings, shuffling around in underground mazes, making love, crying, dancing, pooping, heck, some people are even peeing their pants on the street.  Despite stoic faces and well-built personal bubbles, we are still here, all of us always breathing at the same time.