Ice Rinks in November

There's a dame in Bryant Park today. I say dame and not woman deliberately to honor the way she carries herself. Clutching a purse just wide enough to fit her opera glasses and a shivering chihuahua, she tilts her head slightly as she examines the glasswork of a particularly ordinary vase. I crane. She turns abruptly and sneers one of those audible sneers as she catches me watching her. I avert my gaze in apology.

I'd forgotten how it feels to be a stranger in New York - to be caught in the crossfire of taxi honks and the occasional blue collar whistle. I'd forgotten what it's like to order a chirashi for one and ask the waiter to lend me a pen.

I grew up this past September. It was one of those swift agings, as daunting as a Dorian painting and as inevitable. It was a Woody Allen sort of growth, with an outpouring of tangible neuroses laying claim to my autumn. The little piece of solace I'd called self for the last five years evaporated in the face of my emotional recklessness, and I began to re-enlist Edith Wharton and the decline of contemporary mirth.

Adulthood seems to be the state of shifting time, both forward and revisiting. It's the act of running without moving your legs. It's an attempt at compromising without being compromised.

How do we learn to talk to people? For every friend I have ten special silences. I've learned to talk without sharing. Feelings are for nightmares and cold showers and google searches and therapists. I feel love, but that's different. That's unavoidable.

The dame from Bryant Park walks into the restaurant and orders a sushi for two for one. She removes her earmuffs to reveal two emerald earring set in silver. Her graying hair folds across her forehead and she reaches for the soy sauce with a shaking ringless hand. She recognizes me and smiles. Perhaps we aren't strangers any longer. Perhaps she's not alone. I nod to her and whisper to the waiter for my check.

Encounters should be fleeting. Who knows what we might start to feel.