Thoughts Walking Home from Class

"I remember walking across Sixty-second Street one twilight that first spring... I could taste the peach and feel the soft air blowing from a subway grating on my legs and I could smell lilac and garbage and expensive perfume and I knew that it would cost something sooner or later... I still believed in possibilities then, still had the sense, so peculiar to New York, that something extraordinary would happen any minute."

-E.B. White

Last night after class it was still above 70 degrees, too warm for a sweater at my brisk pace home.

The restaurant facades are all thrown open to let in the warm spring air, and let out the smell of exotic cooking that takes the place of the more noxious smells one encounters during the winter.

The tables are filled with young revelers, fancy cocktails in front of them as they chatter. I know those drinks are more than twenty bucks a pop. How do they afford that, night after night?

Mostly the groups are same sex, and for that matter mostly young women in groups of three or four. I rarely see an actual couple, and Peg and I are a genuine oddity in that we usually are holding hands when we walk down the street.

And yet when one heads up to Yorkville, there are these same people, now a few years older, pushing baby strollers. How does this happen with the apparent complete lack of romance all around me, despite the spring sap rising all around?

I did encounter one couple pressed against each other in the darkness, her leaning against the wrought iron fence rails of the old cemetery a couple blocks from here where some of New York's founding families spend eternity. He fumbles around and seems to lunge for a kiss. she playfully turns away, then seems transfixed by the headstones outlined in the darkness.

Last night I walked past two movie shoots, something P tells me is pretty common this time of year here. It stands to reason, given the iconic architecture and vibe--New York is the most American of American places, this city filled with every flavor of immigrant and a soundtrack that includes all of the world's languages. Peg looked it up and told me Timothee Chalamet is shooting somewhere down here in the neighborhood, which probably accounts for the huge crowd gawking at one of the scenes.

The warmer weather brings out the crazy, high, or drunk, or sometimes an unfortunate bearing all three attributes. Peg is frightened of the insane; I reckon she's seen too much in her job. Mostly though they argue with no one in particular (one has to be careful in evaluating this form of madness to look for earbuds, because plenty of the people on the sidewalk who appear to be communing with a dead relative are actually on a conference call, speaking absently into space), and finally curl up in a warm alcove or alley for a midday nap, as might a cat or a labrador. The same spaces seem to host their bedspaces on the sidewalk day after day, and one sometimes notes that they alter the feng shui of their boudoir by moving around the discarded bedsheet or plastic bag full of, well, I'm afraid to ask.

On a related note, the sidewalks seem a little cleaner now that the restauranteurs and shop owners can hose the urine and vomit and spilled drinks down into the gutter, an exercise that is pretty much impossible when it's twelve degrees outside.

Sidewalks double in traffic with the warm days, and one must dodge and weave to avoid being rammed by a Millennial staring at his or her phone while speed walking down Houston Street. The CitiBike and Doordash traffic also dramatically increases, giving one another opportunity for serious bodily injury because at intersections they treat traffic signals as entirely precatory.

Fashion also welcomes to season. Gone are the blacks, wool caps and mudboots, replaced among the young women with bare midriffs, those stretch leggings that make it appear they've painted themselves blue or salmon from navel south, and white running shoes. The fact that it's not far-fetched to observe I could be their grandfather with a little generational compression calls me up short. Really, Donk the World's Greatest Fighter Pilot and Trial Lawyer is brilliantly camouflaged under all these wrinkles and sag and white beard. But only P sees that, which is definitely best.

Spring also means the return of baseball, and my brisk pace walking home was driven by a desire to catch the last few innings of the Braves game. The Bravos came up short, stranding too many runners and losing to a mediocre Athletics team that is definitely in a rebuilding year. Still, having the game on in the background as I handle the last few tasks of the day, then call P for a goodnight, is a blessing.

Yesterday was a twelve hour marathon, and today should be busy but not that busy. I get to split the day with a FaceTime call with Jim in the middle. All good, and only one more day until I drive back to Corning.