Every evening during our trip to New York, my friend asked me for the highlights — what she defined as the best parts of our day, or the worst. The stories we’d want to tell our friends and family.
She prefaced this, a few nights in, as her habit of doing a recap. She said she hoped it wasn’t annoying. I thought it was anything but.
My mind, too often, rests a step away from the present, like a balloon at the end of its string. There, but not quite. Days can go by in a blur so that, without a specific memory cue, when asked what I’ve been up to, I might quite literally draw a blank.
As the days went on, with our nightly recaps, my memories of this trip were reinforced and compartmentalized. It was also a pleasant way to end a day of exploring the city.
Here, in inexact terms, are a couple of highlights:
The world outside the train to New York is cast in sepia through the yellowed window. At the slow pace we’re traveling, the view changes like a slow turning flipbook, each frame given time to be seen. Frames include: the Newark Liberty International Airport. The lake spread below a white bridge that is shaped like a mandible. Rows of suburban houses, their pointed roofs and square porches.
Times Square is a blur of noise and bodies, but many streets are blocked off for the half marathon. Without cars, tourists find their spot in the centers of emptied roads. I take a picture of a man carrying his son on his shoulders. The boy’s arms are spread high. The pair is in the middle of a crosswalk bordered by tall buildings, untouchable.
The KBBQ place is empty when we arrive, a couple minutes late to the birthday dinner. We devour the sides and the smell of marinated beef sizzling at the center of the table. After the sun has set, nearly all of us walk ten blocks for some last minute ice cream, marking our third night of venturing out for late night ice cream.
A stage of moving parts, walls of shifting video screens. Maybe Happy Ending is a hopelessly hopeful musical. The robots sing with human emotion in a field of fireflies and the small theatre brightens with tiny lights, carrying everyone into the scene.
I picnic in Central Park with a friend from high school and a friend from college, worlds collide in the form of boxed gnocchi and bubble tea. We watch the elderly dance on roller blades, circling around on the gravel walkways, boogieing to 70’s music and hollering each other on. There’s a violinist, then an opera singer performing by the stairs where John Wick was filmed. The ducks in the pond glide by, unbothered by the afternoon heat. A turtle bobs its head up out of the water.
Our whole Hopkins household reconvenes at an actual house for poke and more bubble tea in a cozy Long Island basement. On a couch with the comfiest blankets, we watch Smile 2 (and decide not to venture into dark hallways for the rest of the night).
This library has a glass ceiling, but it is still classic for its ordered white metal shelves, its rows of short wooden desks and a librarian that tells us off in a whispered shout. Fueled by iced coffee, the three of us ready for a reluctant return to class. We finish our bagels outside, watching the geese. In spite of our early wake up for the drive back, we watch 27 Dresses. We forgo our plans to watch only a part of it, because who can pause a movie like that?
The ride back — through suburbs, over water, past tall industrial buildings’ steaming white clouds and many fraught insurance advertisements — is fast with company. We unpack the car to head upstairs; Baltimore is the same as we left it, only a little warmer, and it almost feels like we never left. Almost.
Kaitlin Tan is a junior from Manila, Philippines majoring in Writing Seminars and Cognitive Science. She is a Magazine Editor for The News-Letter. In her column, she tries to parse through the everyday static for something to hold onto.
