THINGS I MISS
I Miss This Time, Already
Why it’s possible to feel nostalgic for something that’s terrible and sad
In Regular Times, walking home through the East Village on the first warm evening of spring would be like swimming upstream. Groups of people would drink spritzes and rosés in the open-air bars on St. Mark’s Place. My neighborhood would normally be a noisy, multi-block fashion show of tourists and NYU students debuting their warm-weather ensembles.
But last week I took a walk around the East Village on a lovely, springy night and heard birds and the rustle of trees (debuting their new green leaves). It felt romantic even though, or maybe because, I was alone. It was nice to walk around a fairy-tale part of the city and not see couples caressing each other’s hair over a bottle of Lambrusco. On St. Mark’s, I was delighted by an unexpected scene: a jazz band played, wearing masks and toe-tapping at a distance from each other and onlookers, with a Venmo sign instead of a hat for cash and coins. People sauntered in the middle of the street. Bars had converted their big front windows into take-out operations, offering cocktails to go with ambiguous legal implications. The street had transformed into a New-Orleans-esque boulevard.
