It hit ninety today and my apartment became a tandoor, so after work I did the only sensible thing: I took the F train to the Lower East Side and walked along the East River until I felt human again.
The evening walk along the East River is my summer religion. The FDR hums above you, the water does its slow grey shimmer, and Brooklyn sits across the way pretending it's not jealous.
I bought a mango ice from a cart near East Broadway and it was so good I almost cried — that sweet-tart shock that took me straight back to summers in Ahmedabad, eating Alphonso mangoes over the sink with juice running to my elbows, my mother yelling not to ruin my clothes.
There's a particular kind of New Yorker you only meet on a summer evening. The grandfathers playing chess. Teenagers on the benches being loud and immortal. A couple slow-dancing to a phone speaker like the river was their wedding.
I sat on the rail and watched a tugboat push something enormous downstream, patient and unbothered, and I thought, be like the tugboat, Pooja. Just keep pushing the big heavy thing forward, slowly, no drama.
My job had been a lot this week. Three deadlines, one printer that hated me, one email I rewrote eleven times. But an evening walk along the East River dissolves all of it. The breeze comes off the water and takes the day's static with it.
By the time I reached the bridge the sky had gone peach and lavender, that soft Yash Chopra color, the one that makes you believe in things.
I finished my mango ice. I walked back to the F slower than I needed to.
Some days the river fixes what the meeting broke.
Love,