A Not So Quintessential NYC Night
The night time coffee culture was not something I expected to see in a city with sidewalks that are lined with clubs and bars. But Caffe Reggio seemed to be the refuge for the caffeine addicts of Greenwich Village.
I was meeting my college roommate for the first time after five years on a night that had the same crisp smell of fall that transported me back to college move-in day. We decided to sit in one of those outdoor indoor spaces that now encroached the space meant for cars that dared to drive down MacDougal street. While sitting in our shielded interior space, I observed all the NYU students walk by with loud laughs or hushed whispers. I empathize (or deflect) with the anxiety and excitement they must be feeling with the beginning of the school year, the beginning of fall, and the beginning of change.
With the flurry of college students around us, the two adults sat, reminiscing over our glory days in college.
After that, we managed to summarize the last five years of our lives: the career moves, apartment moves, breakups, family, friends, etc. There was so much more to say but I managed to cover “everything” within the span of 30 minutes by categorizing life into 3 neat boxes. Who cares that we spend 24 hours experiencing a day, when we can talk about it within a few seconds or scrap it from a spoken memory all together. Does this mean that words can never explain the essence of these moments? Or maybe life is that simple; all we need is some late-night coffee on MacDougal street to remind us of that essence.