Very Kind
Dear Diary:
I was in the audience for a performance of Rebecca Frecknall’s production of “A Streetcar Named Desire” at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
In the play’s final minutes, my heart was in my throat, and tears were flowing. In my clouded peripheral vision, I noticed a young woman next to me. Her shoulders were shaking softly as she wept. After the house lights came up and the ovation died down, I turn to her.
“Could I give you a tissue?” I asked.
“Yes, actually,” she said. “That’s very kind.”
I handed her a tissue.
“The kindness of strangers?” I said sheepishly, unable to help myself.
She took the tissue and blew her nose.
“Too soon,” she said.
— Deborah M. Brissman
Like Diamonds
Dear Diary:
In 1954, when I was 11, I traveled from Washington, D.C., to New York City to visit my camp friend, Judy, for a week.
Thrillingly, my parents let me travel alone on the train. It was part of a planned “historical adventure.” Another part involved returning alone by airplane.
Judy’s widowed father met me at Grand Central. I waited for him near the lost-and-found window. I remember looking up at the sky mural on the ceiling and feeling at home in the universe.
Judy lived in a huge, old-fashioned apartment across from Central Park, with maybe 12-foot ceilings and tall windows hung with dark red velvet curtains. She had cats and an older brother who played the violin.
Her father seemed old to me. He also seemed confident, which is probably why my parents trusted him to host me.
He took us to museums and the public library and let us explore on our own via the subway. The family had gotten tickets to “Peter Pan” on Broadway, with Mary Martin as Peter.
On the day of the show, a big storm with high winds materialized. I was afraid we would miss the show, but Judy’s father was undeterred.
We walked and then ran together to the theater in the rain, without umbrellas. As we did, gusting winds shattered a window above us, and glass showered down onto our heads like diamonds.
The play was magical, and the characters flew on wires. The next day I flew home on American Airlines. It was a very bumpy ride.
— Ruth Henderson
The Guggenheim
Dear Diary:
My first day as an intern at the Guggenheim Museum was my third day in New York City. Fresh off a plane from Scotland, I had rented a room at the 92nd Street Y because I didn’t know a soul in town.
My internship supervisor took me to lunch to celebrate my first day, and while we were in line getting our food we met a tall, shy man, a former intern. When I sat down at a table, the former intern did too.
My supervisor got up and went to another table to talk to some colleagues. The former intern, Austin, and I struck up a conversation. Eventually, we became part of a gang of friends that summer.
After the internship ended, I was hired full time, and a year later Austin became my roommate. Two years after that, he asked me out on a date, and three years later, we were married.
The group of friends I met that first summer came to our wedding and have remained our New York family ever since. These friendships are now two decades strong. I think of them every time I am in the Guggenheim’s rotunda.
— Michelle Millar Fisher
The Band Shell
Dear Diary:
Earphones in and sunglasses on, I was power-walking home through Central Park.
Suddenly, I noticed an older couple waving at me. It turned out that they were lost. They unfolded a paper map and asked for help finding Naumburg Bandshell.
I squinted at the map, nodded as if I understood it, then pulled out my phone to check Google Maps. As luck would have it, we were heading the same way, so we decided to walk together.
They were off to hear an orchestral ensemble, and their faces lit up when I mentioned that I played the viola in a graduate medical student orchestra.
When we got to the band shell, they surprised me with an extra ticket and insisted I join them. At intermission, we discovered that we lived just a few blocks apart on the Upper West Side. We shared a taxi home, and over an impromptu dinner, a friendship took shape.
A year and a half later, we still gather for dinner, a reminder that some of the sweetest connections are the ones that come unexpectedly.
— Mollie Hobensack
Unacceptable
Dear Diary:
I went to a new bagel store in Brooklyn Heights with my son.
When it was my turn to order, I asked for a cinnamon raisin bagel with whitefish salad and a slice of red onion.
The man behind the counter looked up at me.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t do that.”
— Richie Powers
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