Dear Manhattan,
If everything goes well, I will see you again soon.
It’s been how many days has it been? One year and six months, eighteen months, seventy-two weeks or approximately five hundred and fourty-ish longing days since we last saw each other.
Thanks for letting me step and hop on a windy day on Brooklyn bridge on my birthday. Thanks for blowing light snow on my blue coat and stripy wooly hat as I walked your Central park. Thanks for introducing me to my first acai berry bowl at the petite Pause Cafe at your Lower East Side. Thank you for the parades of great coffees in the morning and post-lunch afternoon at Abraco in East Village, Stumptown in the famous slim and gloriously erect Flatiron and Blue Bottle in Chelsea. Oh that scrumptious teeny little donuts at Chelsea market? Thanks for that too. Doughnuttery after a pleasant sushi lunch at Lobster Seafood Market (Est. 1974) wasn’t it?
It was a spring full of birthday gifts it was. I walked the Highline with my blonde bombshell Polish Chicagoan friend Shazy-Z. I sat on the bench by Hudson River. Stepped on the pebbles of Meat Packing District where some scenes of Sex and the City took place. I barely shed sweat on that walk, but I guess it was still good enough reason to drop by Gansevoort Market for one of the best chocolate-loaded gelato I have ever had. Yes I relish good food, always.
Back to sex, yes, Sex and the City (tour) was what I had, from picking up that richly-iced cupcake that Carrie and Miranda shared on their walks from Magnolia Bakery on Bleecker St, Steve’s bar on (supposedly) Mulberry St to Pleasure Chest on 7th Ave where Charlotte York discovered her ‘new found friend’ that kept her voluntarily locked in her bedroom for days, the bunny vibrator.
Thank you Manhattan, that Sex was good.
The pleasure escalated when I saw Village Vanguard, the oldest jazz club in New York conveniently steps away from 7th Ave’s sexy shop. Miles Davis used to hang and jam in this dark bar. I bet you it used to be smokey (though now no smoking indoors in New York), moody and cinematic. Decades forward, moody and cinematic still it was when I sat in that corner bobbing and shaking my head and tapping my fingers as the trumpets, saxophone, and the piano played. Of course with the company my pink Cosmopolitan.
Manhattan, if everything goes well, this time I will see you in November. As I close my eyes, I already see your beautiful face as your leaves fall. Orange, red, brown, whatever mood you are in, you stay gorgeous to me.
Ah Manhattan, wait for me, will you?
MARISSA ANITA 