DEAR ALIZARIN: A Saturday Rain in Four Parts

Part i: the breakfast

New York greets me with rain. Waking up late on Saturday morning, I realize I forgot to pack my umbrella as I head out for breakfast. Luckily, my hosts have plenty to borrow. Being the weekend, I know my favorite bagel carts are not an option for my first New York breakfast. (In fact, I never did patron the bagel carts on this visit). I pass all the pricey, restaurant style cafes and found my breakfast place for the week: Nussbaum and Wu’s. Though a few brave souls sit outside under the navy blue awning, the combination of bagels, coffee, and indoor seating draws me in. Excitedly, I order my “cinnamon raisin bagel, toasted with butter, large coffee, milk and sugar,” then scoot along the line to the cashier, repeat my order, pay, pick up the goods and snuggle myself at the dark wood circular counter between a student and two girls having breakfast with their father. The coffee is steaming. I take out my book, the perfect companion to my New York breakfast. Ah, just like coming home.

Part ii: the market

What to do, after the perfect breakfast, on a rainy New York City Saturday? Apparently, if you live on the Upper West Side, go to Fairway Market. Refusing to shop at the only place near your apartment, I head there to stock up on a few essentials for my visit: soymilk, coffee, fruit, etc. I had forgotten what a madhouse this place is. I cannot turn without bumping into someone. I imagine it would be something like market day in some old village square, as each merchant tried to serve the hurried and demanding shoppers. In fact, one father sayas to his daughter, preparing to procure something from the butcher counter, “Wait right here. I don’t want you to get hurt.” They live in NYC for god’s sake, and he’s worried she will get hurt in the supermarket! I find the place of calm: the upper floor organic section. I am not sure why no one else is there, since the organic selection is large and affordable. It even has its own check-out, allowing me to avoid the dangerously chaotic Fairway checkout lines downstairs (even I am afraid of injury there).

I emerge into the rain again and head toward the 72nd and Broadway subway station. The bus ride down slick Broadway was so slow I decide the less scenic subway would do. Of course, I stop for a shot of Gray’s Papaya papaya juice, the perfect desert to top off that NYC breakfast and Fairway bustle.

Part iii: the reflections

I take the familiar and unchanged route down the 1, transfer through the Times Square station to the N/R line. My feet move by memory, a routine memorized so many years ago. In the town square of this subterranean world, entertainers hope for a dime. I rush past, back in the rhythm of my city, feeling the confidence of my stride in my black boots, slightly flared soft jeans, black wool coat, and red hat. Early for my meeting, I emerge into the misty winter night of Union Square. The vastness of the space welcomes me back. The landmark Virgin Megastore is now mirrored by Whole Foods, a mark of both the progress and sterilization of New York City. I pass by the megaplex movie theater (everything is mega in Union Square, including the wind and chill factor), striking a memory of nights out with P, almost automatically entering the comic store across the corner. Instead, I continue on to The Strand bookstore. The perfect browsing store. A true book store. Not an LA book store. No glitz, no glamour, no coffee counters, no see or be seen. It is all about the books. Piles and piles of books. The walls bleed books leaving little room for the patrons. Nothing there I could not find elsewhere, except for the experience of this communal worship and reverence for books.

I dread the rest of my walk to dinner through the cold and rainy night, so I leave with enough time to duck into the only café on the midway point of Astor Place: Starbucks. It is one of the largest temples of coffee I have seen, and, as I remember, is packed. Everywhere patrons cuddle with books and laptops. Some are even in groups and chat. As I stand in the queue for the loo, a comic book artist alternates between focused attention to his work and animated conversation with his friend, who is viewing comic art on his ibook. When he looks up to talk, his smooth hands gesticulate and his eyes dance through his glasses as he explains his plans for the panels. I am disappointed when my turn comes.

I order a basic coffee and seek out a seat for one. First, I find a seat by a drafty window. I gather my coat and coffee and score a seat by a mathematician at the window bar. I sit at the window, sipping coffee, writing, on display for all of Astor Place. Or the spectator of the fishbowl of people and traffic, rain and wind. Everything moves, to fro, up down into the whole leading to the subway propelling the movement to other parts of the city. It is the constancy of change embodied in this city. Everything in a constant state of (or potential of) shift. With a small shift of a perspective, of focus of thought, the window on the world in front of me turns into a mirror reflecting myself looking out, or at me, the lights of the café and the Starbucks sign, superimposed on the new buildings across the way, me superimposed upon the people passing, upon the life of this city, the painting of the jazz trumpeter hangs suspended in the middle of the sidewalk as the ghostly pedestrians pass through it. Any shift in my mind could make any one real and the others fade into oblivion, or, with discipline, I can hold all of them together in the one plane of time and space. Likewise, in this materialistic, incorporated city, my anti-materialistic, meditative self emerges stimulated and alive. Rather than overwhelmed, I calmly take in the unity of the city, just as all the image are unified in the transparency and reflection of the glass. I feel the closeness of the man’s thigh next to mine in his purposefully faded jeans and of the woman’s elbow to my right in her Gap sweater. The city boils over with people, uncontainable. Yet every need is here to be fulfilled, for the right price. And for the rest of us?

Thus, I sip my coffee and pretend to create poetry in this lower east side café full of scientists and mathematicians from NYU, studying for tests and examines.


Part iv: the dinner

Dinner at the Mogodor Café, St. Mark’s Place, NYC

Chilled through from the windy two block walk from Starbucks, I pass through the velvet curtains shielding the warmth of the patrons from the cold of winter. I sit at the bar until M and A arrive. M arrives first, complaining of the cold and rain, though dressed entirely inappropriately for such weather in her slip on shoes and tank top with lace. About 20 minutes after our meeting time, I suggest we look to see if A is waiting outside. M insists no one would wait outside in such weather, but I know A better than that. I check. There she is chatting with her beau, J, who was keeping her company until we arrived.

Though it has been about two years since we’ve all been together, though we were all in vastly different places in our lives then, it is as though time has not passed as we fall into conversation: silly, frivolous, intelligent, racy, and laden with friendship that would make the Sex in the City girls envious. A flirts as M customizes her order. After a delicious dinner, M and I head to Rue B. Long and narrow, photos of jazz greats hang on the walls. The piano presses against the wall, the trumpet plays into the pianist’s ear, the bass plucks into his other ear as this jazz trio thumps out syncopated rhythms. We lean against the bar next to the trio and order our $10 glasses of wine. My second for the night. Though I enjoy catching up with M, I am disappointed that the surrounding New York men do not live up to my expectation and strike up a conversation. Too many transplants, too many frat boys. I realize, like in LA, these new New Yorkers stick to their parties like everywhere else.

As we emerge from the bar, I feel my New Yorker status still holds as I give M directions home. An early New York 11pm on a Saturday, I head home. New York, contrary to myth, does sleep.