The thunderstorm came out of nowhere on Thursday, the way July storms do in New York, all blue sky and then betrayal.
I was cutting through Tompkins Square Park after a meeting on Avenue A, sandals slapping the path, when the sky just opened. Not drizzle. Biblical. The kind of rain that makes everyone gasp and sprint for the nearest awning at once.
And I almost ran too. My phone was in my hand, my linen pants were suffering, my carefully done hair had opinions about humidity.
But then I saw this little girl near the dog run, maybe five, in a yellow raincoat, spinning. Just spinning with her face up, catching it. Her dad watching, laughing, not stopping her.
So I stopped running.
I stood under the big elms in Tompkins Square Park and let the July thunderstorm absolutely destroy me. Soaked to the bone in ninety seconds. Sandals ruined. And I have not felt that free in weeks.
There's a scene in every Bollywood movie where the heroine dances in the rain and I used to think it was so silly, so staged. Turns out you just have to be in the right park at the right wrong moment. Turns out the rain doesn't care if there's a music cue.
The East Village smelled incredible after, that wet-pavement-and-halal-cart smell that means the heat finally broke. People emerged from doorways blinking like the storm had reset something. Somebody's bodega cat sat in a window judging us all.
I squelched to the 1 train at Astor Place looking like a drowned thing and I did not care one bit. A man gave me a knowing nod. We'd both surrendered.
The city washes itself clean sometimes, and if you're lucky, it washes you too.
Go stand in the next storm. Ruin the sandals. They were only sandals.
Love,