Excursion #2: Public Bodies, Private Meetings

In my second walk through the neighborhood, I was reminded that the personal and political don’t just collide in headlines. Sometimes they brush up against each other in a spa room, a Starbucks, or the shoulder of a stranger on the subway. This time, my excursion took me through three very different stories, all orbiting a common question: How does our sense of self—our identity, our politics, our grief—show up in the quiet everyday moments?

In The Politics of Hair Removal by Alicia Erian, we enter a world most wouldn’t call political: a waxing appointment. But under the surface of small talk lies something much bigger. The narrator moves between two salons—one in Brooklyn and other in SoHo—and navigates not just class differences, but also ethnic identity and the subtle tensions that arise post-9/11. What begins as a tender moment of shared heritage with her waxer, Wanda, dissolves into unease when another waxer, Dina, projects suspicion onto Wanda’s Egyptian husband. Suddenly, even the most mundane interaction becomes charged with political meaning. It’s about bodies, perception, and the fragility of connection across difference.

Then I jumped back to Before and After by Rebecca Letz—written just after 9/11—and was struck by its emotional rawness. What makes this story powerful isn’t just the tragedy, but how the community quietly reassembled itself in its aftermath. On a volunteer bus headed downtown, strangers—union workers, immigrants, young people—sit in shared silence, passing around sandwiches and newsprint like it’s sacred. In a city known for its speed and noise, the stillness is what resonates most. It made me think: What if solidarity isn’t always loud or performative? What if it’s made in glances, in shared silence, in showing up?

Lastly, That’s Mad Creepy, Bro by Joseph Rauch takes us into a subway car—a symbol of New York’s collective anonymity. A man lets a stranger’s sleeping child rest on his shoulder, provoking both judgment and quiet approval from fellow passengers. The story hovers in this ambiguous moral space: compassion vs. discomfort, care vs. public boundaries.

In a post-9/11 city shaped by suspicion and grief, even kindness becomes complicated. These three stories don’t announce themselves as grand political statements. But together, they reveal something important: our public and private selves are never fully separate. Class, race, grief, and compassion bleed into each other. Intimate moments—whether in a spa or on the subway—become tiny battlegrounds where trust, fear, and recognition play out.

This left me wondering: What kinds of human connection are possible in a city that’s been shaped by trauma, class tension, and cultural bias? And how do we read the body—our own and others’—in public space? As vulnerable? As suspicious? As worthy of care?

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Zoe Kalaw is a Boston native and a student at the University of Chicago. As an intern at Mr. Beller’ Neighborhood, she has been exploring and writing about stories from our archives to mark our 25th anniversary of our publication.