The East Village in early spring felt like a treasure hunt, a secret trail littered with delights tucked into nooks and hidden in plain sight among the sandstone and steel. A golden chain of bodies danced across a building’s facade and up the faded bricks, reaching for the sky. A tiny turtle painted on the side of a nondescript row house peeked out from its shell, glittering with all the colors of the rainbow. Buds winked open in the magical pocket parks nestled into all those urban crannies, you could almost see the faeries flitting about if you squinted.
To say that New Yorkers have a knack for creative use of space is to trivialize the ingenuity required to squeeze 1.7 million people onto an island with less than 23 square miles of land. Genius abounds.
I hadn’t been to NYC since before my teenagers were born, but my memory held the idea of it. That feeling of awe, as a hive of individual entities moved in concert, a delicate dance guided by some internal rhythm inaccessible to an outsider. I remember wondering how they all managed to navigate the crowds so smoothly, without ever looking directly at another person. So that’s what I expected, especially now, post-pandemic, when it seemed this was just the way of the world in general. Each of us buzzing about, immersed in our own private universe, glancing up only occasionally to gauge our bearings or avoid a hazard in our path.
But this time, I saw a different dance. Pedestrians actually looked up from their devices and nodded in greeting as they passed each other. Strangers exchanged pleasantries in elevators and offered to take photos for families struggling with selfies. When I dropped my bag, its contents spilling out onto the sidewalk, then promptly dumped my coffee over it all as I bent to pick it up, an elegant young woman noticed but did not simply sidestep the mess and continue on her way. She stopped and helped me collect my glasses and retrieve the lip balm that had rolled off the curb. It all felt so… human.
Huh, I thought as she clicked away in her red-soled Louboutin stilettos, is it just me, or is something shifting?
I was busy trying to quiet my inner critic as my friend Dana and I approached one of those anonymous doorways that are sprinkled among the bodegas and the bagel shops, quietly standing guard over their private worlds. They held such mystery — what secrets lay within? The one we sought led to the home of my developmental editor. She had invited me to do a reading from my memoir The Tricycle, at her annual Writers Potluck, and it would be my first.
I’m generally pretty comfortable with public speaking — I’ve given Grand Rounds lectures to auditoriums filled with hyper-educated medical professionals, I had a flirtation with theater in my youth and did a lot of improv (what can I say, I’m from Chicago), I even officiated my sister’s wedding without falling apart completely. But this was different. This was an audience both erudite and accomplished, with that bohemian-chic vibe that I’ve always wished I could embody with even a whiff of authenticity. This was a collection of real artists. And I was about to strip naked and spread my insides out before them. Terrifying.
We were greeted by our hostess’s two young daughters and their friend, who had enthusiastically volunteered to take charge of book-selling for the event. And I’m here to say, a more effective sales team has never been curated. It turns out that adorable, charming, and tenacious are an irresistible combination. I watched as her six-year-old asked a new guest if they’d like to buy a book, “I would, sweetheart, just let me say hello to your mom first.”
“Okay,” she said, trailing the new arrival across the room. She waited patiently as greetings were offered and hugs exchanged, but the instant the adults paused for a breath, she tugged on the prospect’s arm, “How about now? Wanna buy a book now?”
Later, she approached me wearing a deeply concerned expression, “Sara,” she said solemnly, “that lady over there wants to buy a book, but she doesn’t have Venmo or cash, what should we do?”
I squatted down so our business consultation would be eye-to-eye, “Well, why don’t we just give her one?” And I had to bite my lip to keep the laugh in my belly from rising up and diminishing the seriousness of the moment, because I can only describe the look on her face as shocked and appalled — why had she been working so hard if I was just gonna give them away?!
I embarrassed myself almost immediately as I was introduced to a string of welcoming, gracious guests. I shook the hand of a lovely woman who I was sure I’d met before, “You look so familiar to me — did we take a class together?”
“No, I don’t think so,” she said.
“Are you in the medical field? Maybe we met at a conference or something?”
“No,” she said softly, “I’m an actress.”
“Ohhhh! So maybe I’ve seen you in something?”
“Well,” she said with a nearly imperceptible sigh, and a quiet smile, “did you ever see [ name of legendary television series that anyone who doesn’t live under a rock has at least heard of ]?”
I instantly knew who she was, of course, and had to smother my fangirl instincts. This did nothing to calm the butterflies flitting around my belly. I stepped away for a moment, to have a chat with myself.
I see you fear. I know you’re here, I feel you in my body.
But you are not the enemy.
You are an opportunity.
Because, just like I tell my children — the only time we can be brave is when we’re scared.
Otherwise, we’re just doing stuff.
Then I took a deep breath, and dove in.
Dana filmed the reading on her phone. My initial intention was to share it with you here, but the audio wasn’t great. A function of open windows and small children — of the very things that made the afternoon so profoundly meaningful to me.
Because when I watch it back, I am struck by the power of the scene. And by that, I do not mean the reading itself which, while not a complete disaster, definitely left plenty of room for improvement. No. It is the whole.
It is the community, the connection, the shared quest for expression of this human experience in all its forms, that speaks to me. That desire within us to mine our most intimate moments, to give them shape through words or paint or clay. To weave the threads that tether us to each other. Those threads that slip through our differences, that don’t care what we look like, or who we voted for, or how we identify the body we inhabit. That remind us, we are all here in this fleeting moment together, doing the best we can. Those threads that encourage us to offer one another a little bit of compassion, a little bit of grace.
That is what I see in the video, a roomful of weavers. It is deeply comforting.
I see you fear.
And I choose hope.
Join me next time for Part Three: To Providence and Boston and Home Again
Loved the funny, hopeful story and photo. Makes me almost want to brave NYC!
Incredibly beautiful evocation of a remarkable day and reading!