everything starts right now

i spent the better part of the afternoon sipping white sangria with randy and my permanent boyfriend in a sun drenched peri i cafe near trump towers in riverside park, near the 72nd street entrance, where eleanor roosevelt perches herself carefully, forever lost in thought. although it is a somewhat crowded and busy cafe, replete with wide umbrellas and fresh flowers and condiments, it is nevertheless a hidden one, tucked underneath the west side highway next to a set of basketball courts and a small field of green, suitable for soccer. so i feel pretty crummy about telling anyone anything about it. when i find something this good, the last thing i want to do is share the wealth with strangers. but there's just way too many people that i know who live in the area that don't know it's there.

case in point: randy lives on the upper west side and he' d never been there. mpb and i make it a regular pit stop, of sorts. i can't remember when i first discovered it. probably when i decided to ride my bike everywhere, for the sake of burning a calorie whenever i could. when i zip by on my bike, trying to make time to get to midtown without missing a step, i can smell the fine-tuned residue of char-grilled meat still lingering in the morning air. i can stop for an espresso on the way to work. and on the way back, i have to flit through an innocuous cloud of mesquite smoke and chatter to get home. in the evening, i can have a three course dinner if i want. with a view! it's like a good time that's always waiting for me. people are out there like it's their living room. and why not? babies are all over the place, little kids and dogs and grandma and everybody. you can even bring your own food, if that's your pleasure. no one will stop you.

but trust me, you really don't want to bring your own food. the menu is spot on and tasty.

so there we were, in the sun and sun drenched and drenched in white sangria, and i thought many things. i thought, this is beautiful. i thought, my life is beautiful. i thought, i am full of joy. i thought, thank God for this. i thought, this is the start of the summer, i hope the whole summer stays like this. i thought, everything starts right now. everyday that last thought churns through me like a sonic boom. somehow in moments like this, it's more real than any other. everything beginning and ending and being all the time, all at once. everything starts right now.

and that's when i began to hear more songs inside myself. i had to hurry up and get home, so i could catch them in a jelly jar before they flew away.