METROPOLITAN DIARY
Sorry forgot this yesterday!
‘A Lot Happened to Rock My Normally Steady Life’
The Metropolitan Diary’s illustrator reflects on a year of art and superstition.
There is a Chinese superstition that the year of your zodiac animal is unlucky. I’m Korean, but the belief was something I grew up with.
My zodiac animal is the rabbit, and my mother reassured me that 2023 would be good for me despite it being the Year of the Rabbit. She wasn’t wrong, but the superstition wasn’t either.
It was a harder year for me than usual in general: financially, mentally, emotionally, physically. A lot happened to rock my normally steady life.
To ground myself, I leaned on routine — morning walks, visualization, workouts. I found surprising comfort in one of my oldest routines: my weekly Metropolitan Diary assignments.
More than ever, I looked forward to reading and illustrating these stories of New York, especially the ones that made me laugh or reminded me of how resilient and kind people can be.
As my mother predicted, not everything in 2023 was bad. I moved to a new city and made new friends. Thanks to a New York Times marketing campaign, I got to see my Diary illustrations covering the inside and outside of a subway train car. And I finished my first graphic novel, “49 Days,” which will be published in March.
I’m excited for 2024 and the Year of the Dragon. Whatever comes with it, good luck or bad, I’ll be grateful to continue my Metropolitan Diary routine, turning the small, memorable moments of readers’ lives into art.
By Agnes Lee
‘I Hadn’t Gone Far When I Had to Flop Down in the Grass’
Inspired by the third annual Best of Metropolitan Diary contest, the column’s editor offers a memorable New York City anecdote of his own.
Fort Tryon Park
Dear Diary:
It was a spring weekend morning about 20 years ago, and I was jogging in Fort Tryon Park.
Glancing to my right as I ran toward the Cloisters museum along the path that overlooks the Hudson River, I noticed a commotion near a parked van. I decided to get a closer look.
I jogged over and saw a man waving his arms as if signaling for help and a woman exiting the van who appeared to be in distress.
Somehow, I knew she was choking.
The man was yelling frantically in Spanish. Not speaking the language, I yelled back “Heimlich” and pantomimed the maneuver.
He didn’t seem to understand, so, telling him to call 911, I stepped behind the woman, reached around with both arms and pulled toward me. (I had never done the Heimlich maneuver before.)
After a couple of tries, I heard a popping sound. Something had been dislodged. The emergency was over.
As I caught my breath, the man and the woman caught theirs in between thanking me with big smiles on their faces.
I wished them well and jogged off. I hadn’t gone far when I had to flop down in the grass. My legs were like jelly.
When I got home, I told my wife and kids what had happened. Later, I told a few friends and co-workers. Quite a story, everyone said.
About a year later, I was out jogging again. It was Mother’s Day, the weather was nice and the park was crowded with families.
Looking to my left as I came around the back side of the Cloisters, I noticed a man and a woman with a stroller walking toward me.
They began to wave and quicken their pace in my direction. Confused, I stopped, and they came closer. The child in the stroller was an infant.
We were here last year, the man said in broken English. My wife was in trouble. You helped her.
I was stunned.
She was pregnant, he continued. This is our baby.
I was speechless.
As the editor of Metropolitan Diary, I spend a good deal of time fact-checking submissions as carefully as possible to ensure the accuracy and authenticity of what we publish.
Some stories, like the one I’ve told here and some included in this year’s “best of” contest, are nearly impossible to check. For those, we must put our faith in the authors to vouch for them by answering three standard questions: Has your item been published before? Is it original? Is it all true?
Now it’s my turn, so let me just say: No. Yes. And absolutely. Sometimes, I’ve learned, the serendipity of life in New York City isn’t too good to be true.
Ed Shanahan is a rewrite reporter and editor covering breaking news and general assignments on the Metro desk.
Valuable Tips
Dear Diary:
I was taking a walk in the Wall Street area a few years ago when I decided to pop into a deli.
I ordered a sandwich and began chatting with the proprietor as he made it. Our conversation eventually turned to the shop’s location.
I asked whether being in the financial district ever caused him to play the stock market or led to his getting valuable tips from informed customers.
He paused his sandwich-making, put down his knife and looked at me with a perplexed expression.
“Every day, those brokers come in here,” he said. “They get their bagels, sandwiches, doughnuts, coffee, cigarettes … ”
He paused again and pointed toward the door of his shop.
“ … and every day, they’re out there on the sidewalk, pushing and shoving on a door that is clearly marked ‘pull.’”
— Steven Scharff
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/24/nyregion/best-of-metropolitan-diary-agnes-lee.html
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