Editor’s note: Dante Cimadamore is a Bristol born musician, recording artist and award-winning writer for the YouTube series “Epic Rap Battles of History.” You can find his music online under the moniker “Give Me Motion.” He currently lives in Los Angeles and writes from his great-great grandparent’s Forestvillian antique kitchen table when he’s not on the road as a touring musician.
By Dante Cimadamore |
New York – “Heaven’s Bagels”
I am brimming. I am electrified. I am effused with an energy that only one city emit. I swim in it. I welcome it. I am home again amongst the swarm.
On this tour I have been blessed repeatedly by luxurious hotel rooms I would never dare to reserve myself. Now after having experienced them I’m not sure I can go back (spoiler alert: I write this from a highway budget hotel). Feeling overwhelmed by all my new amenities, I rush out the door to find the first enticing deli on my map.
My compadres and I arrive at Heaven’s Bagels, and I ask for extra capers. While we wait for our order a woman walks in. She shines like a beacon of Brooklyn hopefulness. A quintessential city girl if I’ve ever seen one.
She wears a leopard print bag with an alternate hue of leopard print scarf in a short, brimmed communist — a cap. Her mannerisms are both shy and friendly and congruent to the inhabitants of this city. I am compelled to ask her for her picture, so I do. I want to send it to my mother-in-law who used to live here. I feel there would be a kinship amongst them and this is the kind of place where you can just ask a stranger for their portrait.
She is surprised but appears pleased by the request. I snap a quick one and immediately I can tell she is flattered and thankful. I go back to talking with my friends and she approaches me and asks if I wouldn’t mind taking a few more, because she is usually out by herself and would like to capture some moments of herself in the neighborhood she’s lived in for the past several years. I happily oblige.
I am thrilled at this connection we are making. This is it. This is the current in which life flows through all of us and I have finally gotten up on my board to ride. In this city, the waves are much more easy and obvious.
While we are outside, in the exterior portion of our impromptu photoshoot, I overhear a woman asking for a drink and a bagel the shop could possibly spare. There’s a familiar kindness in her tone that echoes through those in need. I hear it immediately. I am infused with the gregarious goodwill towards men and I offer to buy her a sandwich and a drink.
The heavens are now open upon me, and I can feel the love permeating the bricks of this bagel shop. The women behind the counter of the deli are showering me with praise of my goodness. I am brimming. I am electrified. My tour mates are smirking.
This is the most me I have ever been. I can feel the freeness of all possibilities ahead of me. I only have to choose, and I will go into the next moment protected and guided by all that is good, because life is good, because people are good, because I simply offered a compliment to someone.
I am intoxicated with hope. I am brimming. And with a smile on my face I walk out onto the world pleased with what it has to offer me and immediately step into a pile of excrement.
Now, in this newly awakened state, in this shift to an even more physically comical reality, I am overflowing. I am pouring out streams of laughter. This is perfection. This is exactly what this city has to offer. This is the magic in a 15-minute nutshell, and I have accessed the punchline of the cosmic joke.
I am thankful and I am still brimming.
