My first Saturday at New York.... New york!!!!.......where do I begin?
So I'll do it in small chunks and musings here and there until I get a hold of what i really want to say (remember the guy who really liked you but was just too confused or didn't have the b!@#$ to say so?) and then of course the fact that this was my first and only a two day trip, I will not do justice to my blog if I attempt to recapitulate all that I have to say at one go.
For starters, I saw them everywhere. Couples. No really in hundreds! Swarming around in hordes. Whoever said "Live the amazing single life in NYC!" obviously was suffering from epileptic hallucinations. So yes....there they were: in the museum, at cafes, at Central Park, at the subway, in the pubs and almost every corner I mapped in NYC last weekend had this mutant glued to each other humanoids making me wonder if the universe was sending me a sign or just telling me "you dufus moping broken hearted weirdo, there's love in the world and cynical b!@#$&^ like you can well........ jump off the Brooklyn bridge".
And so I sighed and I looked away in vain as they seemed to multiply. Couples in love and holding hands at the intersection; couples kissing while their train stood patiently with its doors wide open; married couples as they rode their cycles with their babies in little baskets, like addendums to a four legged species; gay couples (and there were a lot thank God for this country!) this time even teenage girls groping each other as I pretended to focus on French paintings at the 'Met'; athletic beautiful men and women playing games (and I mean the literal sport variants people! unlike us boring 20 year old Indians who only socialise with the opposite sex at parties and over drinks shuddering at the potential of what a day out in the park or over sport will do to our limbs) and OF COURSE couples known to my friend - who was kind enough to provide me shelter - dancing on Saturday night to the song on the radio in the living room..... just because they wanted to. I swore at the universe and the zipper of my red cocktail dress which refused to let me in (ME!!!???) while the girls looked excited about my wardrobe and my first night out in NYC.
I embarked solo that Saturday night, my first Saturday night, hailing a cab to meet.....wait for it.....four women for dinner at a French bistro. And as I ate my salmon and asparagus, I tried really hard to be enthusiastic about the fact that we were HERE at this famous prized French bistro.... doing a wholesome happy dinner. It was a Syracuse batch-mate's ritualistic celebratory birthday dinner (she's from Montreal and well almost French even though she's Haitian by origin) so don't get me wrong, it was a new experience and not a bad one. So here we are single (oh sorry! one girl is being dodged by a boyfriend back in Athens to marry him), possessing a sense of humour to cope with the ironies the world has doled out to us in terms of queer sorts of men we have encountered. Logic for women like us therefore would be, given it was a Saturday night in NYC: 'Let's grab drinks after this, dance!!!' .
What would you know? They all seemed tired and so was I. Somewhere along the last year, the 'Saturday night! Let's party it out spirit' died. I think the overkill in Mumbai with a group I presumed would be my family for forever did it. Or more recently, the fact that the Saturday nights I was planning in NYC - with someone who assured me like no has ever before- now only seems like a fantasy driven construct of my memory.....
I went home that night after dinner at 11 pm, feeling like a complacent lonely 37 year old. My 'dost' from Mumbai - who was kind enough to offer me shelter - accompanied me. We talked all the way back despite the fact that he was jet lagged from his trip across Vietnam and had just stood through 3 hours of Chemical Brothers. He put on his enthu cutlet look and introduced me to the best coffee ice cream I have ever eaten. At the diner we spoke more ....of life, long distance relationships, heart breaks, what we thought of marriage and our desire to return to India to be happy with our decisions and hopefully find love. For someone who pursued his childhood sweetheart for 2 whole years from NY while she was in Mumbai and went through a break up he never expected, flunking school (under-grad) for a year, this guy has picked up the rope and climbed up pretty well. Today he is happy, although unsure of whether he will find someone back in India where he wishes to settle. He chuckles as he explains that his new all shaved look is not the pursuit of Buddhism which I suspect but an attempt to cheer up his uncle who is dealing with cancer. I play around with the ice cream and my spoon, look down at my boots and almost feel too small to even be noticed.
It was one of my most 'where is life taking me' toned Saturday nights. The city of bright neon lights swarming with young men and women gorgeously dressed to make the most of the long weekend sped on. I slowed down. And I am almost glad I could instead of hurtling downwards, for once I think I managed to pull it off.
It stays doesn't it? The sticky sad sense of an epiphany- almost achieved yet one that your heart refuses the brain to register.
