Weekend New Yorkers.

When the weather is warm and everyone in Manhattan is out on the streets, it’s easy to see how much people change on the weekends. New York is a place that’s easy to forget yourself in, easy to go through your days on auto-pilot, passing interesting things all the time without even noticing.

But when the weather is warm on a Manhattan weekend that all changes, and drifting through neighborhoods I could see it as I walked the entire length of the east side of the city, down past the crowded shops near fifth avenue, through the street fair in Murray Hill where Lexington was blocked off for fifteen blocks filled tables selling t-shirts that say “I Love New York” (yes I do!) and expensive looking rugs for thirty bucks a piece, and handmade dresses and pulled pork sandwiches and big cups of cubed watermelon. In Madison Square Park there was live jazz (and the longest line at Shake Shack that I’ve seen in a while). In Little Italy, Mulberry street was blocked off, and through the crowd I watched people step up to the shooting range to score a stuffed animal, test out their throwing arm at the dunk tank (a man about seventy had a killer right arm and got him on the second try). They ate cannoli’s the size of hot dogs and listened to a man singing Sinatra while sipping cappuccinos.

Great days in Manhattan when the weather is warm it makes it even more difficult to have to face the beginning of yet another week. And there they’ll all be in the morning, all the same people but in their ironed suits with their eyes in their newspapers and blackberry's, chugging coffee and dreading their days. At the office there won’t be any watermelon or Sinatra or deals on floor coverings - just emails waiting for them, and responsibilities along with the constant watching of the clock to count down the day, and then the week, until the next (and hopefully warm) weekend is upon them once again.

tick tock goes the clock.

If you were to talk to me about timing, I’d be honest with you and say that I’m not the right person to be around if you want to get anywhere you’re supposed to be. Stay away, I’d tell you, keep clear if you’d like your life to happen, because I’m bad luck.

I’m never at the right place at the right time, do the exact wrong thing (and say the even worse thing) at the exact wrong moments. I’m constantly caught in the rain, walking outside without an umbrella (in the sun!) minutes before the sky opens up (how does it always happen so fast!?) and am forced to walk the entirety of Houston Street in a downpour. I’m always running towards the turn-styles just seconds before the 6 train closes it’s doors (please swipe again!), and wondering as it speeds away if there was something or someone on that train I was supposed to see.

I’m convinced I’m leaving bars (after sticking around for far too long) just moments before someone I could actually like walks in. I take chances when it’s too late, open my mouth to say something important just as someone else chimes in and speaks for me. I fall for people the day before they’re supposed to leave the country, and finally allow myself to admit I like them just before they’ve fallen for someone else. I repeatedly show up at happy hours minutes after they’ve ended, need a cab when they're all full, and always somehow have to leave town the same weekend my favorite band is scheduled to play.

In New York, with all of these people and all of these things happening every second of every day, I wonder how much these little shifts and missed moments I have no control over are changing my life without my even knowing it. Is there no choice left sometimes, but to watch the clock and hold your breath and have faith that somehow their hands will get you to where you’re supposed to be in the end, regardless of how long it takes? I miss trains and planes and opportunities every moment of every day that could all, if I were a normal person, lead me to somewhere that I think I’d like to go, if only timing would ever get me there.

love story.

I overheard a girl on the street talking to her friend about her impending marriage:

“..and I mean he just needs to be prepared. Like, I mean, let’s face it, like if I’m not happy, he’s not gonna be happy. I mean, right? That’s just the way it works. So he’d better do his best to get me what I want.”

“Totally.”

Why is it the people who don’t understand love always seem to find it the fastest?

could be anything.

I don’t know when spring got here but it did, behind my back. One day I was sitting on the cross-town bus going down Fifth Avenue and I could almost see right through Central Park to the West Side. The branches were bare and the yellow cabs were visible along with the early morning runners and people with their dogs.

But suddenly today, in what seemed like mere hours, green leaves were in abundance blocking my view and covering up the tall buildings of Central Park South. Spring showed up, officially ending another season, another year. Gone are the harsh winds of winter, the biting cold, the unbearable frigidity of the dark pavement of Manhattan that has a way, (by the time February rolls around), of making you start to lose your mind.

It never ceases to amaze me how much (our lives, everything) keeps happening right in front of our eyes in this city when we’re too busy (stupid, greedy, blind) to notice.

"...Requesting the honor of your presence at the marriage ceremony of..."

Things happen so fast in this city that it’s easier than you think to lose track of your life. Away for the weekend to see a friend get married in Boston it seemed like just yesterday that I met her in college when life was easier and slower and no one was worrying about things like planning for the future and where to start a family.

But time flies faster than the Fung Wah hurdling down the Mass Pike, and before you know it you’re dressed up in outfit one of two as Maid of Honor for the most interesting and long (3 hour ceremony!) Indian wedding you could ever have imagined. After two days of ceremonies and henna tattoos and stress leading up to the big day, it finally arrived and almost 400 people gathered to watch the street procession of the groom around the block before he was carried in where his feet were washed, and then watched again as the bride was carried to the altar in a basket filled with rice and fruit (bananas, coconut and...?) where there was a lot of throwing of rice and flowers and chanting of words I couldn’t understand for a few hours. As I sat there and watched her, this close friend I met so long ago (seems like yesterday) officially get married (from what I could gather) between the lighting of fires and dripping of oils, I felt time and my life getting away from me faster than ever.

I was panic stricken of course, (but tried not to show it), when my name was called and the spot light was on me and I walked slowly to the stage and up the stairs and reached out to take the microphone to talk to these almost 400 people about something I don’t know much of anything about but keep having to talk about at weddings: love. As I began to speak, I realized looking out over the shadows of people illuminated by the light, that days and weeks and years pass so quickly that when it comes to finding out how we’re meant to spend the rest of our lives I figure you’ve got to have some of the best luck in the world working on your side

I didn’t mention that of course, because I think it’s a good rule to stay away from using words like “good luck,” when giving a speech at a wedding. But I don’t think we should lie to ourselves about the rarity of finding what might be the most coveted thing in the world, more than money, more than success, more than a rent controlled apartment in the West Village. So I was glad to see they’d found It, and walking back to my table I realized how much we take love for granted and how we might already have It (once you have It, never let it go), or the hope that one day we will.

Hope. That’s a good word to use in a speech at a wedding. Hope for the best. Hope for the future. Hope for a long and happy life together full of all the great and wonderful things love has to offer.
Hope.
Hope.
Hope.

I suppose you could do a lot worse than live your life on the hope of love (better odds hitting the lottery!) - but for now I’m okay with just having to talk about it to people at weddings, and pretending every time I get up there that I have any idea what it’s all about.

Cheers.