Sleepless

Last night I could not sleep because I love New York so much. After dinner with a friend in the East Village, I wandered through the Lower East Side past the terribly hip bars and arrogant fashionistas as winter’s impending fury rippled through my bones and my hands felt cold for the first time. I stood at First Avenue and watched the taxis zip uptown and felt the pulse of the city and the thrill of its call course through my veins. As I wound my way down to Chinatown I marveled at the children playing football in shorts and t-shirts, knowing full well that the chill 40-degree temperatures would feel balmy by January, when the city would unite in one brave front against the discontent of winter.

As I lay in bed later listening to music I found my eyes wide open with the expectancy and urgency of the city. I wondered who that night had found a long-lost friend while leaving dinner; who had met the love of their life by chance; what next great actor had gone to the theater and decided that their destiny lay in the hushed yet frenzied lights of Broadway. And in the darker corners of the city I wondered what man had cheated on his wife; what woman had abandoned a child just hours ago, never to return; and what private agony was endured by those who fell asleep with sorrow in their hearts and no one to whom to relate it. I wondered what my neighbors across the alley were doing, their light still dimly lit. The moon was bright through my skylight, which looked like a James Turrell skyspace. I felt for the first time that my life might stretch long over New York like the avenues that we go up and down each day, and that my friends too would criss-cross the city and form a grid with my own life. I remembered the taxis streaming up First Avenue and thought that the sense of life being pursued and chased and bandied about is so palpable in New York that it takes my sleep away and I was happy for it and then I slept.