An Autumn Romance?

It’s hard to describe how I feel about being back in NY. Knowing this time is temporary and impermanent but, then again, isn’t everything? Love, moments, seasons, the places we travel, the places we live, the feelings we feel. NY is that romance I always wanted to work out but just couldn’t, just didn’t, for so many reasons - it was never meant to be or to last. But, fuck, did it - does it - still feel good (well, sometimes). The park breeze and the sun shining on the water, knowing my friends are a close hug and warm meal away. And even with its grit, exhausting energy, highs, lows and air of expectation, promise, hope and excitement - I know it’s not mine. Nothing is ever ours, anyways, but that’s something else to recognize during the course of our lives. In truth, we own absolutely nothing. Not a single solitary thing, but our choices and decisions.

Today, I saw a man that has been living in or near the park for the last 22 years. He has always been fed by and given blankets and clothes from the community. I walked past him, waved and smiled. I felt warm inside, and I was left wondering how some things change and how some don’t - left wondering that maybe things aren’t temporary or they’re only as temporary as our life path allows them to be? How I could feel so at home and so separated; so in love and so distant all at the same time? It’s wild. That’s New York.

I walked further into the park, under the trees and their falling leaves. I let myself feel the romance, only for a moment, only for a heartbeat, I allowed myself to indulge in Autumn in New York. I hummed and walked up to a familiar bench. I took a seat on the bench where I used to take Josie, my dog every morning, for 3 years. Next to me sat a man, his dogs name was Sally. Funny how dog owners know one another by their dogs names, isn’t it? Sally’s das had a drinking problem years ago and, there he sat at 3pm on a Thursday intoxicated and staring at me in a familiar way. Sally was not with him, I imagined that she’d passed on - like Josie.

New York. Choices. All of it, swirling through my mind like a twisted soft serve cone of dreams and nightmares. Since being back, I’ve been working to find peace in walks and on my yoga mat, at friends tables and on friends couches, after an active and heartbreaking two weeks. Maybe that’s New York, too? Heartbreaking? Beautiful? Ugly? Or is that life, more generally speaking? Can we find peace where we live? Can we find an energy to match the lives we want? I wondered?

I rounded the park, down the black pavement, trees rustling above my head, I kept humming. I momentarily went back to my Autumn romance. I heard a French woman’s voice “Hello!” I looked up from the pavement, it was my former neighbor. Estelle and I would run i to one another more often outside of our building, when we were on our separate walks, than inside the small confines of our humble lobby. She asked where I went and I said “I gave up the apartment.” She said “Ah, good for you, I’ve been wondering about doing the same but I don’t know where I want to go next. It’s hard to let go of New York.” I told her giving up the apartment was the best decision I’d made; that walking around the park in the Autumn, with the leaves soaring in the air and, then, next to my feet, was romantic, like a one night stand, because I knew I’d be leaving soon. We hugged goodbye because I’m sure I’ll never see Estelle again. I said “No matter what you decide to do, I hope it serves your heart.”

I continued walking in the park. No one familiar passed by. It was just me, myself and my memories.

Later that same evening, I was with my two best friends in the universe and we witnessed the Aurora Borealis together, yup, from a little balcony in Queens. It was in that moment, in the middle of eating take out diner chicken fingers for dinner and standing beside my best friends, that the sky smiled bright pink, purple, hues of green and starlight - right at us - that I knew … I knew I was exactly where I was supposed to be. And, the truth is that that is all any of us need to know day to day.