Tonight after cleaning up the detritus of Sunday dinner, I saged myself, took a salt bath, and went downstairs to pay my respects to the blood moon eclipse from my stoop. All around me, couples were fighting. Granted, I live in Williamsburg, melodrama central. But even for my neighborhood, it was a bit much. One couple was fighting at the corner, another was fighting in front of a parked car across the street, yet another was fighting right in front of my building. That third couple stopped their yelling for a second to stare at me when I settled in on the stoop, the “Do you mind?” hanging over their head in a cartoon bubble they didn’t utter aloud. (Millennials make for unusually passive-aggressive New Yorkers.)
In return I didn’t say aloud that it probably had been my stoop since they’d been in high school and probably would be after they’d moved on to easier cities and relationships. I just smiled until they moved a few feet away, and then kept smiling at the lunar miracle that was driving their night even if they were too self-absorbed to notice. Eventually the girl rode away on her bike and the boy shuffled off in the other direction. And still I sat, clad in a sexless caftan and the apron I’d forgotten to take off, a little sweaty, a little wrinkly, a lot smiley. I was smiling at where they were, smiling at how much younger and older I felt than I had at their age, smiling at what could come next for all of us. Oh, super moon, it’s your night. We’re just howling in it.
Tonight after cleaning up the detritus of Sunday dinner, I saged myself, took a salt bath, and went downstairs to pay my respects to the blood moon eclipse from my stoop. All around me, couples were fighting. Granted, I live in Williamsburg, melodrama central. But even for my neighborhood, it was a bit much. One couple was fighting at the corner, another was fighting in front of a parked car across the street, yet another was fighting right in front of my building. That third couple stopped their yelling for a second to stare at me when I settled in on the stoop, the “Do you mind?” hanging over their head in a cartoon bubble they didn’t utter aloud. (Millennials make for unusually passive-aggressive New Yorkers.)
I just smiled until they moved a few feet away, and then kept smiling at the lunar miracle that was driving their night even if they were too self-absorbed to notice. Eventually the girl rode away on her bike and the boy shuffled off in the other direction. And still I sat, clad in a sexless caftan and the apron I’d forgotten to take off, a little sweaty, a little wrinkly, a lot smiley. I was smiling at where they were, smiling at how much younger and older I felt than I had at their age, smiling at what could come next for all of us. Oh, super moon, it’s your night. We’re just howling in it.