My friend Reema lives in Astoria so on Friday I took the N out to see her, and instead of sitting in her hot apartment we walked to the Astoria Park pool, which is enormous and free and one of the great democratic miracles of New York City.
The pool sits right under the Hell Gate Bridge, this massive steel arch that looks like it was drawn by a child who loved bridges. At golden hour the light comes off the East River and turns everyone the same warm color. Kids shrieking. Teenagers being too cool to swim. Aunties in full salwar kameez sitting on the grass with tiffins, which made my heart do a small happy thing.
We didn't even swim. We just sat on the concrete steps and watched. There's a man who sells icy mango with chili from a cart and Reema and I split one and let the juice run down our wrists like we were twelve.
This is the New York I forget exists when I'm stressed about work and rent. Not the skyline-postcard version. This version, where the whole neighborhood shows up at the Astoria Park pool to be hot together, to escape their tiny kitchens, to let the kids run wild while the parents finally exhale.
A group nearby was playing music off a speaker, some Punjabi track bleeding into reggaeton bleeding into something I didn't know, and nobody complained, everyone just absorbed it. That's the trick of summer here. Tolerance becomes communal. We're all in the same swamp.
The bridge went dark against the orange sky and the lights came up over the water and for one second I understood why people stay in this exhausting city.
We walked back to the N slow, mango-sticky and quiet, the kind of tired that feels like a good day did its job.
Free pool, full heart, sticky hands.
Love,