Summer Quiet
Dear Diary:
My favorite street in the neighborhood has been under construction all year. I still walk it to get to my pottery studio, which is all the way down. A block from the East River.
I went early this morning and walked back to my apartment before work. Looking down at my phone, getting a jump on some emails, I walked right into a tree branch, an arm extended over the sidewalk.
It doused me in cold water. (I guess it rained last night.) It was like an older brother teaching a lesson: “Look up.”
A little family in bathing suits must’ve gone for a swim before 9 a.m. Kids waddling up the stoop. A few stoops down, a babysitter waits patiently at the bottom of the stairs for a little boy with a pool noodle.
It is summer now. I notice how quiet it is. Even the construction is quiet. Just the rhythmic sound of a shovel in dirt.
A red church door opens, and a man in a baseball cap comes out holding a cup of coffee. He breathes in the day. So do I. Dewy sidewalk and summer leaves. Three pigeons lazily walk in an accidental row.
I turn the corner onto a busier street. A woman is sobbing in a makeshift pergola outside a closed bar, a vestige of Covid-19.
She is saying “I don’t like to make big decisions under pressure” into a phone.
We all pass by on our way to somewhere.
— Laura Eckes
Hummingbirds
Dear Diary:
As I left my house in Staten Island, I nodded at the man who was mowing my next-door neighbor’s badly overgrown lawn.
It was nearly knee-high in some spots and thick with weeds. He had been at it for quite a while.
“That’s a lot of work,” I said. “I’m glad she finally called you!”
He smiled, gestured toward my front yard and said something I didn’t catch. Assuming he was asking if we would like to hire him too, I walked over to politely decline.
It turned out he was pointing at the hummingbird feeder at our front window.
“I saw hummingbirds all morning,” he said. “I live near I.S. 61 and have hummingbird feeders too. They come all the time.”
— Sarah Yuster
Extra
Dear Diary:
I was hired as an extra for a “John Wick: Chapter 2” shoot in Central Park. My part called for me to dress like a person who was down on his luck. I reported to the set appropriately dressed in torn jeans, a beat-up Army jacket, an old cap, a scarf and finger-less gloves.
Before being assigned a place in the scene, I grabbed some coffee from the craft services table. I drank it quickly and was holding the empty paper cup in my hand until I could find a trash can.
As I stood to the side waiting, an Italian tour group approached me and asked excitedly whether they could take pictures with me. I happily obliged, and then they moved on.
I looked down into my coffee cup. I had just made an extra $7 for the day.
— Alan Cory Kaufman
At Pratt Campus
Dear Diary:
My husband died suddenly in 2022, and I planned to spread his ashes in several places that were important in his life, including Prospect Park, Ditmas Park, where we lived for many years, and Pratt Institute, which he graduated from in 1975.
One beautiful spring weekend, I decided it was the perfect time to visit Pratt and leave some ashes there.
As I headed through the gate onto the main campus, I was stopped by a security guard who told me I could not bring my dog with me.
I explained the circumstances. The guard was kind but firm, explaining apologetically that he could not make an exception.
Dejected, I walked away. Then I saw two young men coming toward me down the sidewalk. They looked friendly, so I approached them.
“Excuse me, but you look approachable,” I said. They smiled quizzically.
I explained the situation and asked if they would hold my dog for a few minutes.
Of course, they replied. What’s her name?
“Leela” I said.
I was gone for a few more minutes than planned and did not see Leela or the young men when I exited the campus. Panicking momentarily, I crossed the street and searched up and down.
Then I saw them, sitting on the sidewalk and playing with Leela.
“Our pleasure,” they said.
Thank you, Max and Sam.
— Cindy Harden
On the 1
Dear Diary:
I was on my usual route on the 1 train. A man with a rolling cart was seated across from me. Among the items in the cart was a Target bag.
Another man came into the subway car through the door at the front.
He pointed to the cart.
“Target?” he asked “Where is that?”
The first man shook his head.
“They’re all over, man,” he said. “In all five boroughs. And Staten Island.”
— Nareg Seferian
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