My social networks remind me that two years ago I was in my favorite place on the planet, New York. The same city where the last series I have seen takes place at once, The Undoing.
Neither the script nor the plots, which are quite regular, have caught me, but the walks of Nicole Kidman through the Central Park of my loves; the House of Donald Sutherland, with superlative chimneys and breathtaking views of the park; transporting me to some streets that represent a large portion of my happiness and that I have forbidden until further notice.
So much visualization has had the same effect on me as those dreams after which you feel like you’ve really hugged your ex, or just walked along Columbus Avenue, on your way to the apartment you rented to finish your first novel. I can smell the hot dog stands. Feel the cold sitting in front of the Bow Bridge, gazing at the towers of San Remo. I hear Upper West Side women queuing for cakes at Magnolia Bakery over tea and a muffin from apple Y cranberry. I admire dumbfounded, as every time, the portals of Dakota House, steeped in mystery since they filmed there The seed of the devil, mourning since John Lennon.
My eyes fill as I surround the Jackie Kennedy Reservoir and I smile at the old ladies on the Upper East Side, who walk their spotless dogs in huge black pasta glasses, which are extremely thin. They talk about their dogs, what they eat, whether they have been sick. They move to the rhythm of a thirty-something, although they have passed eighty. I always wanted to be an Upper East Side lady. I have a heavenly fruit salad at Sarabeth’s, and some toast five grain with a tea that comes in a good teapot, with a lace on the plate. I’m almost an Upper East Side lady.
I walk through the east of the park, I pass through the majestic stairs of the Metropolitan, the Guggenheim, I arrive at the Plaza hotel, I continue down Fifth Avenue, crowded as always.
I walk through the New York Library, I smell the books, my neck hurts from admiring the coffered ceilings, I sit down to write for a while at one of its huge tables, something good has to come out of this romantic scene.
I walk down Broadway to Union Square and stop at Fish Eddie, that china shop that fascinates me and from which I always come out with a thick-rimmed mug with some funny message on it. I wander through the farmers market, I like breads and cheeses, and I continue down to Strand Books, which is now in danger of extinction from the shit of the pandemic. I gossip books, notebooks, agendas.
I head west and climb the High line, those old railroad tracks turned into gardens and walkways. Tourists and locals mix in a hodgepodge of races and languages that excites me.
I go downstairs and continue walking along the river, where the mothers run with their super-modern carts. They have the face that motherhood does not overwhelm them, they are very yankees, very practical and very decisive, or so I want to imagine myself, who idealize to the extreme everything that happens between the Hudson and the East River.
I get to Ground Zero. I’m short of breath, the scare will never go away. I look out over the pond that takes the place of the north tower. I am terrified and admired by that emptiness, how well they have reflected the darkness of the day that marked a before and after. Time stops, like on that September 11, when I couldn’t locate Clara because the phone lines were not working and everything was chaos and he just wanted to know that it had not occurred to him that morning to go to the south of Manhattan.
I’m going to Battery Park, to check that the Statue of Liberty is still where I left it. I walk to the Pier 11 Ferry that takes me to 34th Street. I sail under the Brooklyn Bridge, so pretty and so stony and so Spiderman. Colder.
I get to Midtown, where Clara is waiting for me to eat at Friend of a Farmer, which we like because it’s made of wood, it has a fireplace and they make Eggs Benedict. We chatted for hours, as if we hadn’t seen each other in months, since a pandemic robbed us of freedom, hugs, and the Empire State Building.
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