I.

Crafting sentences is best done by watching. Watching out a window, preferably.

Things are easier examined through the barrier a window provides.

For example:

…That boy in the yellow windbreaker, carrying a paper bag from the Gap has circled the block three times so far.

….Women wearing rain boots walk without bending their knees.

….Men stride forward from their heels to their toes, covering in a single step the geography of their entire foot.

“She’s a big girl,” says one mother to another, “but she wears it well.”

Map your body out. Feel it. Wear it well.

My life is composed of actions observed. Conversations overheard. In New York City Starbucks.

II.

Always in Starbucks…The couple next to me.

They are every couple and this is every Starbucks. Green and white and buzzing with the interrupting whir of people chatting, blenders blending.

First date, I decide.

Coffee.

Coffee means sex, I decide.

“I’ve only been in one serious relationship,” he says.
I am surprised by his directness. She is trying to impress him, hiding her interest.

“It’s hard in the city,” she says instead of the “why?” I decide she’s wondering.

The conversation stalls. I empathize with her.

III.

I’m looking out on Amsterdam, all green leafed. All fresh. The sidewalks have been washed into a darker grey by the evening’s ritual rainstorm. The cabs, the streetlights and that woman’s purple rain boots are brightened by the drizzle.

The world is buzzing. This is where I stop and listen. This Starbucks, which is every Starbucks. And this not quite couple, sipping their pre-sex coffee. Asking the requisite questions. Buzzing their way towards the night.

Buzzing his way towards home, that man, crew cut and brown skinned with “Leon” embroidered on his shirt. Stitched in white thread onto the left breast pocket. All lower case. A super for some fancy co-op. Spends his day sticking roach motels to the tiles of old lady’s kitchens. Smiling at them and being polite.

If I were a super, I’d want to be named Leon too. I hope I’d know myself deserving of a capital L.

I know so now. Finally. Know myself deserving of a capital S.

A capital AR.

Know myself a capital woman who deserves to be capital L.O.V.E.D.

If only because I laugh at myself as I write this all out.