Member-only story
Saved By Art
Kasson was alone when he answered my call. It was just me and him. I knew he was in the dark, hearing nothing but my voice. He was silent while I read the story. But it wasn’t a distracted silence. It was a focused silence. A heavy silence. An intimate silence. A silence of communion. Kasson was hearing my voice. He was hearing his story in my voice. But not just that. He was hearing his voice, in my voice. And the gravity of that responsibility had never been clearer to me. The stakes felt so high. I was giving him back the words he’d given me, several weeks before. But with structure. It was a story now. We felt joy in the same moments. We were crushed by the same moments. We felt the suspense, even though we both knew what was going to happen. And when the story was finished, both of us were a little stunned. Before any words were spoken, I knew that I had gotten it right. ‘Wow,’ said Kasson. He was crying now. ‘I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it happened to me.
— Brandon Stanton, Humans of New York
*
“The worst thing we ever did was take the dance and the song out of prayer,
Made it sit up straight and cross its legs, removed it of rejoicing,
Wiped clean its hip sway, its questions, its ecstatic yowl, its tears.
