we call that "total package" where i come from

Tonight I went to hear the New York Philharmonic play in Central Park on the Great Lawn. The Great Lawn really is great: it's where Simon and Garfunkel played their concert in Central Park many years ago. Tonight was no different.

I arrived, alone, about an hour before showtime. The place was packed. I didn't want to hunt for a place, so I found an open patch of dirt on one of the baseball diamonds. Pitcher's mound. Apparently I'd plopped in the middle of a pathway that didn't turn into a pathway until I got there, so my spread was bombarded by shoes and people and footprints. A man and his mother opened their chairs on a patch of dirt too small for them both. George and Mary. George reminded me of Uncle Greg. Gay, bald, earring in the left ear. Sam vocal inflection. It was uncanny. We talked about opera, the Met. Mary didn't speak.

Christina arrived. The orchestra began. It was beautiful. The last piece was my favorite, however. I don't even know what it was. But I laid back on the sheet I'd brought and stared into the sky. It was nighttime, but New York never has a true nighttime with all its lights. The clouds wove together into a delicate silken lace, dyed pink by dusk and the sparkling city. I watched a few sets of balloons disappear into the sky. One bundle was pink, just like the sky. I couldn't follow it. It floated off, seemingly evaporating into the clouds. A plane darted up and down between the cloud's fibers. I called it a firefly. A girl tried to walk over my outstretched legs. "Excuse me," she said. "You can step over," I replied. She huffed. Four people had just successfully maneuvered my and Christina's outstretched legs. She could do the same.

I love New York. I love my life. I even love the premature melancholy that's been setting in. I have three weeks left in New York. I'm giving it all I've got.