I get up
early on Sundays. When I walk to work at a little after 7 in the morning, the
streets don’t feel quite alive yet. I feel like I’m sharing a secret hour, a
silent time, with the few faces I see as I walk down the city blocks.
My Hebrew
school class is loud. In a way that only 8 year olds can be at such an early hour,
and together we learn. We talk about Torah stories and history. We learn the
Alef-Bet and sing songs. We draw pictures and do crafts.
After
class ends I walk home alone, enjoying what passes for silence in New York.
I’ve reached the point where the hum of subway trains underneath my feet and
the honk of taxi horns sounds soothing, white noise in a city full of sound.
I walk
home the same way every week. Cross the street at 79th, then a
straight shot down 2nd. I pass by the same shops and stare in the
same windows. I never see faces I recognize.
There is
a small diner right on the corner across from my apartment. I’ve passed it a
million times on my walk home, but I've never stepped inside.
Today I walked
back to my apartment. A man with a briefcase in his hand held open the door for
me and we shared a smile before heading down opposite hallways, opposite
elevators. I slowly make my way home.
Solitary
isn’t a word that scares me. I think my best in isolation, and my introversion
is strong enough that an MBTI would barely believe I’m real, but sometimes—just
sometimes—I need to be around other people.
After a
few hours of working home alone, I decided I needed to go out, somewhere,
anywhere, (and head to) that little diner across the street .So I grab my purse
and I grab a book, a pen and a notepad. Adventures don’t have to be big and
elaborate, sometimes it’s good to explore what’s right outside your door.
The air
is warmer inside the diner. It smells sweeter. Like hamburger grease and flat
syrupy soda.
A middle
aged Italian man with a beer belly calls me sweetheart in a warm voice that
somehow manages to be endearing instead of predatory. He hands me a menu and
leads me to a booth. He tells me I look like his daughter. He tells me he
wishes she would call him more. He tells me to call my parents.
One of his sons- the younger one I
think, he seemed so much like a youngest child- makes a show of mopping the
floors. Dancing with the mop in the small center aisle and bowing when he sees
me fighting to hold back a laugh.
There is a banner made of cutout
letters reading 'Happy Welcome' that hangs over the door. I didn't notice it
when I walked it, but I can see the back of it from my booth and it's
reflection in the window. I wonder who picked it out. I wonder who
painstakingly hung it there.
People sit alone, mostly. With
laptops or books or cellphone screens, whose reflective light makes their faces
glow.
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The booths are that squeaky imitation
leather that remind you of every diner you've ever been in. Coat hooks hang
from their sides, and the tops are decorated with sheer headboards that reflect
the glow of neon that calls to passers-by from the windows.
I'm in a tiny booth, alone in the back
corner. I slowly eat a plate of french fries and sip on an iced tea that's so
committed to being unsweetened it almost tastes sour. The lemon on the rim of
my plastic glass hits my nose as I take a sip, and I breathe in the scent.
Blame the genetics, but I always
feel more home in places where matzoh ball soup is on the menu. I listen to the
kind Italian man yell take-out orders to the cook, pronouncing Yiddish words
with Italian flair and a distantly New York attitude.
Sometimes you forget when you stare at
people through the window that the people can see you too. I watch the traffic
on the sidewalk, and almost jump out of my seat when a young man,
laughing, presses his face up against the window right next to where I'm
sitting. He laughs and walks away as I try to get my heart rate back to normal.
I stay there for a couple hours. In the
booth in the back corner. Watching the sunlight start to dim and the
streetlights start to glow. The cook sings along to the radio and I type
quickly, the sound of my keys jarring against the beat of the tunes.
My computer makes an angry sound and I
realize it’s about to die. With a sigh I gather my things, pay my bill, and
cross the street to head home.
I’m back in my apartment now. In
pajamas. Nice and warm. I didn’t climb a mountain today, but I took a step—a
scary step—and did something different. I might be bad at change, but I’m good
at cozy corner booths and drawing initials on breath steamed windows. I had my
own little adventure today.
And it was just what I needed.
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