I look up from my book to see commuters with their coffees filling the train at Atlantic Ave. Just then I realized I was one of them. One of these everyday people on the train from Brooklyn to Manhattan.

It’s often the little moments that slap you in the face, and tell you just what life is.

My pride wouldn’t allow me to shed tears in public, but I sure made some. Tears, the most beautiful of human responses. I’m thankful for this moment.

The miracle morning finds me touched on this train. Emotions stirring as iron and plastic slide down the rails. A short time ago, I was piled high with bags emerging fresh from the bus station, watching the subway doors open to holiday drinkers in Santa suits. 

Through days and weeks, those  doors would open countless times to find me pulling that same Marc Ecko bag. That bag that first moved Big Josh from Los Angeles, that later carried me from California too, and has now moved me to New York. The story continues to be written.

So many tiny moments make our existence. Mountains made from those grains of sand, the millions of minutiae that make the days of our lives. 

We are the sum of it all, nothing more nothing less. Every so often your spirit might lounge on the beach, curling its toes in the sand. And as the waves wash over it all, a trickle of a tear might sneak down your cheek.