I am adding up what there is of my
life.
I
have never considered doing that before, because I never thought in terms of
its ending. I thought only in terms of
failure and success. Not living or
dying.
But here I am in New York on a truly
glorious day, if one can define ‘glorious,’ by a radiant sky, patches of truly
warm sun, and a crowd of enthusiasts screaming out their approval for those who
could get into ‘Hamilton.’ There were
hundreds of them I would venture, screaming out their enthusiasm for the fetching
kind-of barker she was, the actress calling out the numbers of those who’d won
in the raffle for who went inside to see the show. It was probably as dramatic as what went on
inside, on the stage. There was no guy
in the crowd as cute as she was.
I hope one still find romance in New
York. I mean romance the way it used to
be. With a guy you were attracted to. If you were a girl.
Am I terrible? I miss romance the way it used to be. Where some words were exchanged that seemed
friendly. Wrist brushed against
strangely electric skin.
It is my hope that somewhere, maybe not
exactly where I was, because to my surprise I am older, I who was, almost
always, the youngest one, romance exists.
But except for what I have seen of a sort of passion, New York is still
streets freckled with garbage. Trucks
waiting and cranes hauling up. No place
to come for peace.
And yet that is exactly what I am
seeking. I have come to that point in my
life where I no longer think about conquering.
I wanted nothing more once than a show playing on Broadway. I had one once, and it failed, Opening Night,
like in the bad comedies. The same week
I gave birth to my daughter. My sweet,
handsome husband drove with me back from the theatre to the hospital, after the last
laugh. It wasn’t there.
Mel Brooks and his beautiful wife, the
great actress Anne Bancroft, came with us in the cab. “Well, you had two things happen tonight,”
Mel said. “If one of them had to be less
than perfect, if your daughter had been born with six toes, or two noses… that
would have been okay. What mattered was
the show.”
That was my life Ago. I am trying to live in the present. It’s hard.
But I have a pigeon, or a small bird
of some kind—I am not a student of ornithology—is that birds?—on my window sill, in a flower box she nested in, on
top of an egg. We are expecting a chick.
I can hardly wait. I take it to mean We Have a Future.
