A Manhattan Love Story.

I move through the space time continuum like no other. Red eyes, dark circles. Metal tubes that move at incomprehensible speeds litter my dinners, and punctuate laughter filled nights. I sleep when I can, where I can, if I can- I love it here. Tonight, we call the Upper East Side home. An apartment so filled with love and firsts that it’s palpable. Tonight, we also called the Upper West Side home- feeding into a version of it that was presented to us in the form of childhood memories.

You see, the thing that brings me here is love. Love in all its many versions, with all its many faces that greet me like a doting father. The ever present version of love I get to indulge, partake and ruminate on.

Tonight’s helping of love comes in the form of my gorgeous, fiery red, red-head friend L. L’s loving fiancé, her silvered father, and bright eyed intellectuals who sat somewhere on the family branch- populated the table. Tucked away in a modern Mediterranean restaurant, as the joy of the holidays bubbled all around us. My mother, a woman who is always two flights away, sat right next to me and filled her 4x4 plate with foods I will now take note of and add to my mental note of her *favorites*. As the eldest, and seasoned family restauranteur- it is simply an undisclosed tasks of mine that I keep a very detailed account of what everyone likes to eat, when they like to eat it and likely drink pairings. An honor I take on, and execute flawlessly.

Before she was three train rides away, she was a domestic flight away. And before that? Two international flights. Now, she sits in the golden glow of the bathroom- laboriously taming my hair into place with a heating tool, lit to 400 degrees while the Uber driver waits patiently for us. We rush through the last swipes of mascara, a dab of undereye concealer and a glossy coat of lip paint before we dashed out of the door. A routine I’m so used to sharing with my girlfriends-it feels like home. We take a few pictures, and tap our feet as our 6th carriage has now cancelled on us. Me: a girl who thrives in the midst of chaos & her mother, who birthed her to be this way when she launched her into the throws of the world at the tender age of 16 ( aka the American college system lol).

There is much to be said about time, the way it takes up a non-linear form in our brains. The way in which it slips through our fingers. How the very best of us account for it, each and everyday. How our time is bought and sold. The effervescence of youth and the quiet luxury of old age. Much to be said and much to be left unspoken, to savor what we have left of time.