Spring, flowers, delightful madness

And Miranda July

There’s nothing like an early spring day to remind me of everything I’ve ignored. These past months I’ve moved my body from A to B like an automaton. It was out of survival, mind you. I’m not interested in walking through frigid streets.

But now it’s 6pm and I’m sweating through my wool coat. There’s nothing like an early spring day to remember that layers are best stripped off. I get off at Broadway-Lafayette. I’m on a mission to the flower shop. As I walk out, I see a lady biking up Bowery with a bunch of kale sticking out of her tote bike.

At the Bedford cross street, a man stands still on a box in a speedo, white sneakers and sunglasses. A woman, potentially drunk, in a large blue dress steps around the box several times over. Every few seconds she looks up at him and yells: “He’s gonna fall! That son of a bitch.” I wonder if they’re together, if this is the hottest new Happening in town I’d missed out on; but I don’t think the young man in the box knows who she is at all.

I feel an early-onset of summer euphoria taking over the city. Dollar-slice storefronts are wide open and groups are reclaiming their stoops. New York is ready to burst and today, the madness is delightful.

I wait for the subway with a bouquet. I hold it in front of me and I notice I like the contrast of the grimy subway rails behind the flowers’ delicacy and colors.

This morning, I resubscribed to Miranda July’s Substack. I want frequent reminders of what it can look like to be free.