New York hides itself from you. No: most cities do this. But I live in this one so I can tell you firsthand about all the times something was going on just one, just two, just three blocks over and I didn’t know. Buildings shielding buildings, wind that doesn’t catch you until the cross-street. Sometimes something ripples. Sends canaries out, echolocation. You’re minding your own at 7th Avenue and 31st street, say, and suddenly you pick out of the crowd all of the Rangers jerseys beating a path to Madison Square Garden, a river broken up by you, the stone. And this can be beautiful, this can be, turn the corner and see something you’ve never seen before. But this can also be dangerous, this can be, never turn the corner and never even know.

On November 17th I sat all day leaning into my computer, fixed to the UStream that told me somewhere in the city there were arrests, there was resistance, there was action, there was blood. I work now in a cube surrounded by other cubes surrounded by hallways surrounded by offices surrounded by walls, surrounded by midtown, Manhattan, and out. Insulated past insulation. I worked hard that day because if I did not work hard that day I would give in to the fourth-tab-open adrenaline and walk straight out, wild-eyed. Bad things were happening/good things were happening. This is dangerous/this is beautiful. This is stupid/this is necessary. Friends who worked closer said they could hear things on the streets, said they could stick their heads out and wave. I typed faster.

When the sun was down I pulled myself up and got on the train heading south. A woman got on the train with me and she had a sign. I started to say something to her but she had other concerns, a man down the train who she believed had stolen her seat. I sat back; you can’t pick your protestors. You never have been able to, and that’s always made me sour, from college seminars to that moment on the train. Who are you, how can you and I believe in something both of us and you’re haranguing someone for no good reason, oh well. I shut her out like a city block. I got off at Canal and was swept up immediately by the slow march to Foley Square, surrounded by everyone. It was inescapable but it was moving. I chanted some. I passed Jeff Mangum, standing on a streetcorner. I found a friend, I found another friend. We stood on our tiptoes and looked around and I stayed until I couldn’t, anymore. For the girl on the go, try slipping a few hours of protest in between your office job and the dance performance you promised your friend you’d attend.

Walking back up Broadway there was almost no sign that I’d been there with all those others, just two hours before. Maybe some trash in the street and maybe an NYPD van with sleepy-looking officers leaning their heads against the glass. Maybe a chant in my head. When a march is over the march is over and the city swallows it up like it swallows up the Rangers fans, like it swallows up you if you’re not looking out. Occupy Wall Street for me has felt always like a hum, like a tone we’re all invited to meet, to join, to sing out in our own voices. Which is cheeseball but allow me my cheeseball. It’s the holiday already. That is when you eat cheeseballs, I think. So. The march is over and the camp is cleared but what have you thought about, in the last two months? And what have you talked about, and over, and will you still. This is not a bad time to be inspired. Occupy your own damn self.