#washington square park

Hi. 

Do you remember when, as we sat in the park eating our ice cream, some dancing personality approached us wanting to perform, and I said, no thank you & you were impressed that I offered such a kind dismissal? I scoffed then thinking you barely knew me. And do you remember that you told me you were *slightly* lactose intolerant when I asked why you got mint chip vegan? It seemed like such a personal detail to share to a stranger. What about when I started talking about how my father came the US and you gave me a look that said wait, mine too? And that story you told me about the last man on earth who received a knock on his door? Did you make that up on the spot? I was impressed and then quickly embarrassed because I couldn’t come up with a short story spontaneously even though I was supposed to be the aspiring writer. 

I’m jogging my memory and these are the little details that fill in around the one single thing I remember best: when you spoke your native language. Ironically, I can’t quite remember what it was that you even said, but I do remember its effect on me. I still think about the lulling sound of it sometimes.

I’m jogging my memory because I’ve been hearing a lot about regret lately. Actually there’s this book I learned of called The Power of Regret, about how thinking about the past and what we fail to do can inform us about what we value in life and how we can do better in the future. That’s not to say I regretour serendipitous encounter, or even its finitude – the short-lived conversations, the dinner that we never had, etc. But it made me dwell a little longer on the moment. Sometimes I am grateful for strangership and sometimes I am curious and wish there was more to it. 

I think about that evening like I’m watching a movie, except I know there was no script, it was all improvisation and some things played out well and some things less so. A lot of information was left out, both the kind you want to hear and the kind you don’t. And so without a script, it’s not fair to regret something you had little control over. But still, I wanted to create an opportunity to fill in some of those gaps, provide you with more information and also, selfishly and curiously, see what effect I had on you. And maybe that is the regret, not pushing further for an opportunity that would be more controlled, more scripted, so we could feel more satisfied about our performances and effects on other people. 

I like closure, I like clarity, and I like to communicate clearly. Just– I don’t know if it’s appropriate for me to do so right now. In the past, it would seem I’ve always appeared uninvited, and I’d prefer to respect the space that you’ve created, if that was intentional.

Anyway, if you get this, I hope you call. But if you don’t, that’s okay too. Sometimes there’s beauty in something unfulfilled. 

This time I wanted to meet new people. So I downloaded an app (no, it wasn’t Tinder, it was an app for travelers). I found a group that was going to meet and hang out for a while, but I wasn’t sure about it.

I decided to go the West Village that day, it’s a great place to take pictures and just walk around. The app was still online (how do you turn this thing off?) and I still got the messages of the group, they were going to a free concert in Tompkins’ Square park. I look it up, why not. It’s in the East Village. Close enough. A jazz concert sounded interesting, but hey, I’ll probably never find anyone.

I arrived at the park and looked for a place to sit and enjoy the rest of the show (I didn’t know it yet but it was ending already) and, out of nowhere, I hear “Mariana”. At first, I didn’t take the hint. I guess my mind inferred “who would ever call me here?” and I’d already forgotten about the app. But then I heard it again. OK that was weird now. Yes, it was one of the guys from the app who had somehow recognized me from a tiny pic I had on my profile.

His name was Jeremy, and he was actually looking for the people that were on the app. He said he saw someone looking kinda lost and assumed it was me. It feels almost implausible to hear your name in a strange country. 

Jeremy was with his brother and a British girl I couldn’t for the sake of me make out a word from (but loved her accent of course). And she loved to talk. They were all traveling around the US, and of course NY was part of their journey. And Jeremy was still very much set on finding this other British girl on the app, who never showed up, although she said she would. Many girls in red dresses, but none of them was her. 

The concert ended and the group was headed to Washington Square Park to see a Shakespeare play. I decided to join, it seemed like fun. Just when we started to head there, when Jeremy had already given up on finding Sara in a red dress, we found her. Don’t ask me how we knew it was her. I think she found us. The more the merrier, right?

So we headed towards to the park. Emma wouldn’t stop talking and I loved to listen to her although now I got about 60% of her words. We crossed the East Village towards Greenwich Village, and I was pretty exhausted from walking all day but decided to stay for the play.

We got there early, so we sat on the grass with the crowd. It seemed fairly informal, while I had pictured some kind of Shakespeare in the Park. I wasn’t sure what this was.

The actors were already there, and they seemed to be practicing their lines. All of them were dressed in white gowns, although some were not costumes- even white jersey and shorts seemed to cut it. This was A Midsummer Night’s Dream. 

All of a sudden, a bare-chested man started speaking to the crowd. This man did not seem like an actor, he actually seemed like one of those characters who usually roam the park and talk to strangers (or themselves) and wear funny hats. But he was talking Shakespeare. And he was speaking to the audience. He was an actor.

And the play begun, the actors portrayed Hermia and Helena and Demetrius in a simple but determined way. There were no props, no set but the magic gardens of the square and the buildings behind. No lights-except for a few people with flashlights sitting on the edge of the imaginary stage, who followed the actors to illuminate their expressions.

And after a few scenes, we learned we had to follow the actors too. Literally. They moved from scene to scene to another location in the park, so we had to move with them. 

It was a magical night in the gardens. I left the group with a deja-vu feeling that you never know what can happen in this city when you give it a chance to show you.