Spring Story: the Road to Recovery
Last week, while preparing to leave the office was the first time I was reminded of this experience we were robbed of last year. As I cleaned up and got ready to leave, I could see the beautiful orange sunset reflecting, somehow off of every window in our space. I knew the temperature without checking my phone, without poking my hand out of the window, without a doubt in my mind, I wanted outside. New York’s beginning of Spring, a rare occurrence to begin with, as global warming has all but robbed the northeast of one quarter of the seasons, instead now abruptly smacking us in the face with eighty degree humidity just a few weeks after raincoat and scarf weather — but last year it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. This time last year we would take to our windows at 7:00 to applaud our heroes. Some of us took to the streets cautiously for a short walk after dinner, just to taste reality and feign normalcy to spite our inverted existence of fear of the unknown, and the known. I can recall my wife and I purposefully walking around Central Park’s reservoir in the evening, then in the middle of West 86th Street just to take in that same sunset glowing off the Hudson River, in some desperate attempt to find joy in the simple things, natural beauty, reminders of what we once had, what we hoped to have again.
We have it again (which is not to say I believe that the pandemic is over), and truthfully I didn’t expect to feel so overwhelmed by it, a storm of emotions led by some semblance of gratitude, but dominated by the conflict between sadness and rejoice, the latter for obvious reason, the former because of the impermanence of it all. As I hit the block the climate was as predicted. It was perfect. It was L.A., which we get to experience in New York about 30–40 times a year, and reap the best of both worlds for a day. Not an ounce of chill in the air, nor humidity, and the streets and sidewalks were abuzz with that unduplicable pulse of the greatest city in the world, this time with a truly exhilarating breath of fresh air.
Real New Yorkers genuinely do not smell the smog in New York. We don’t see the trash on the ground, nor the homeless on the sidewalks, and we surely don’t count the dollars lost on rent that we could have saved by living in some spiritually hollow, copycat town anywhere else in the world. Call it wrong, call us blind, or a species brainwashed by some Peter Pan illusion of metropolitan magic, but I tell you, none of these alleged flaws or “problems” ever cross our consciousness. For those that see New York as some “great town” with “amazing food” and “culture,” but it’s “so dirty,” “dangerous,” and “loud,” they don’t get it. These are the people who think The Godfather is a movie about the mob, or Seinfeld vs. Friends is some legitimate debate. These are the people who left town during the pandemic because “New York was no longer New York,” some silly proclamation logically predicated on superficial appearances. New York is not just its restaurants and museums. It isn’t just the theater or the garbage on the streets, the subway delays or subway attacks. This is tourist shit, “muggle” shit, that come together far beneath surface perception in some magical mathematical equation to create some indescribable feeling more profound than the sum of its parts. A pulse to the consciousness induced by the pulse of the block, induced by the pulse of its consciousness, and so on, which births a frequency of belonging, a conviction that no matter how difficult the day was, no matter how shitty life may be, at least we are alive, we participate in the world, which is impossible anywhere else. Reminiscent of true love, my wife and I didn’t choose each other because we were “smart” or attractive (surely she didn’t). This is not some stupid fucking 21st century Rom-Com where adorable sex-bots who never needed dental work discover soul mates through mutually mediocre senses of humor. I don’t have the luxury of considering the proverbial garbage on my spouse’s streets or how costly or dangerous marriage to her is, because I get the gift of feeling invigorated by her energy, melting in her presence like I never have before. That is New York.
Last night when I hit the block I wanted time to stop. My mission was not up for debate. It was 8pm. We still are in a pandemic. I have a pregnant wife at home, a car in the garage that was about to close, and I had to go. I had to get my car and drive home, and for the first time in recent memory I wished that my drive home would be an hour instead of ten minutes. I wished that for some reason I had to drive uptown first, through Harlem, Washington Heights and the Bronx, make a few stops on my way to Queens, then every pocket of Brooklyn on my way home. I would do it with all of the windows down, all of the greatest hip hop songs from 1988-’94 would blast from my stereo, and at some point I would see everyone I ever loved. We would give pounds like we used to (wow, it’s been a while since my last pound), hug like we used to, and laugh the way New Yorkers do, smacking each other in the shoulders or chest, pushing one another like Elaine Benes, or running ten steps down the block, narrowly avoiding a pile of rat-laden garbage that we barely notice. If I could save time in a bottle… It would have been last night. I would have hit the block and headed home, but instead of the isolated banality of a luxury building in the still fretful context of our global crisis, my beautiful wife would be on our front porch, gently rubbing circles around her belly the way she does, sipping tea the way she does, talking to our neighbors on either side that are our best friends in the world, people who we see daily and love as we do each other. Maybe there are indulgences, maybe we stay up too late, in some slightly unaware, childish attempt to hold on to the night, to freeze time, and pause the video of our lives at Happiness.
