june in new york
When the New York Knicks won the NBA Championship I was in an Uber in Long Island with my friend Audrey. I’ll be honest that at 10 PM I had stopped caring and by 11 I had forgotten they were even playing. We were melting this past June, all of us and especially me.
Like a dutiful New Yorker I had watched the first four games in hot, shitty bars with friends I hadn’t seen in a while. I wore my favorite jeans and I fried my curls; the strands lay limp and boring and long and I accidentally branded my neck with the iron. That was the beginning of the summer, when it was too hot to linger on the pavement but nobody wanted to leave. We had just come home. The sun hung deep and familiar voices cooed familiar tunes and my pillow was soft under my cheek and I hugged the people I had known forever each time I saw them. My friends from college and I love to dance late and loosely, so I tried to do the same in June in New York.
I’m guessing that strangers were slapping sweaty hands on sweatier backs—that night of the finals. They probably left imprints on each other and themselves long after the buzzer sounded. Red, engorged, scorching marks plastering a feverish city like zits. But in the Uber, the AC was biting and my hands were shaking and I didn’t know the score of the game and never thought to check after. I hadn’t been able to find my flip flops up at the house so I rode thirty minutes with my bare feet on the cold steel of the SUV. My mind was flickering and my heart was twisting and Audrey squeezed my pinky finger.
I wonder about critical moments. What makes one truly critical, and who must witness it for it to be deemed so. In the study of history, Tolstoy’s answer lies in infinitesimals—mathematical differential equations to explain the turning centuries. The flapping of a butterfly’s wings can lead to the rise and fall of empires. So what about with people? When are our critical moments? When do feelings turn to action? When do decisions signify character? At some point, two people grab each other because they just can’t take not being close anymore. I’m not sure what day in June I lost myself, or what day in July I found myself again.
Perhaps we, too, are made of infinitesimals. Little moments that make us who we are, make us love each other, make us leave each other. When the Knicks win the championship. When you leave a party without bothering to find your shoes. When your friend grabs your pinky finger to remind you she’s there and you slow your breathing and you crack a joke and she laughs.