I was in DUMBO on Wednesday for a shoot location scout and the sky did the New York thing where it goes from blue to apocalypse in about four minutes.
No umbrella. Of course no umbrella. I had checked the weather and the weather had lied to me, which is a relationship I'm used to.
The thunderstorm hit while I was on Washington Street, the famous spot where you frame the Manhattan Bridge between the buildings and the tourists fight for the photo. Everyone scattered. I ran under the bridge with a few strangers and we all stood there, soaked, laughing the way you laugh when there's nothing else to do.
My sandals were done for. Cheap, cute, dead. Pour one out.
But here's what nobody tells you about a summer thunderstorm in DUMBO — it is gorgeous. The cobblestones go shiny and black. The bridge rumbles overhead, trains crossing in the rain. The East River turns the color of pewter. For twenty minutes the whole neighborhood looks like the opening shot of a film I would absolutely cry in.
A man next to me was eating a slice from under his jacket, completely unbothered. A woman FaceTimed someone and tilted the phone up to the rain. "You're not gonna believe this," she said. The kid from the ice cream shop handed out napkins to strangers, which is the most New York act of charity there is.
The thunderstorm passed as fast as it came. The sun came out greedy and bright, steam rising off the cobblestones, everyone emerging from doorways blinking like we'd survived something together.
It reminded me of monsoon back home — that same sudden drama, that same smell of hot ground meeting rain. Petrichor, in Gujarat and in Brooklyn, smells exactly the same. I stood there breathing it in and felt, for a second, like both places existed at once.
I walked to the F train barefoot, sandals in hand, ruined and happy.
Some of the best things in this city are the ones you didn't pack for.
Love,