I took myself on a date to DUMBO on Friday evening, which is the most New York sentence I have ever written.
Summer Fridays mean we get out early in fashion, so by 4PM I was on the F train heading toward York Street with no plan except to be somewhere beautiful before the light went.
DUMBO in June is almost rude with how good it looks. You come up out of the station and the cobblestones are warm and there's that one street — Washington — where the Manhattan Bridge frames the buildings perfectly, and forty tourists are taking the same photo, and honestly, I get it. I took it too. I have no shame.
I walked down to Jane's Carousel by the water as golden hour set in. There's a particular light that hits DUMBO right before sunset, bouncing off the East River, turning the whole waterfront the color of warm ghee. The carousel was spinning, full of kids, organ music tinkling, and I stood there alone with an ice cream and felt — not lonely. Held.
That's a distinction I'm still learning to make. Being alone in a city of nine million is not the same as being lonely. On a summer Friday in DUMBO, surrounded by strangers and their joy, I felt like part of something without having to perform for anyone.
It reminded me of the song that plays in every Bollywood film when the heroine finally exhales — that swelling string moment. Except my version was a carousel organ and a sweating cone of pistachio.
I sat on the rocks by the water until the bridge lights came on. A couple was arguing softly nearby. A man was teaching his daughter to skip stones. The ferry slid past. Manhattan glittered like it always does, indifferent and gorgeous.
Then I took the F train home, sunburned and happy, and didn't talk to a single person I knew the whole evening.
A summer Friday in DUMBO fixed something in me I didn't know was broken.
Go somewhere pretty alone this week. You're better company than you think.
Love,