I meant to go to Astoria for one thing. I do not even remember what. That is how these Sundays begin.
I got off the N train at Broadway and immediately went the wrong way, which in Astoria is the correct way, because every wrong turn deposits you in front of something delicious.
First it was a Greek bakery where I bought a slab of galaktoboureko I did not need and ate standing on the sidewalk like a raccoon with a fashion degree.
Astoria in July is all open windows and cooking smells and old men playing cards outside cafes at three in the afternoon. It reminds me of home in a way I cannot fully explain. The way a neighborhood breathes when it is not performing for anyone.
I wandered down 30th Avenue with no plan. This is my favorite thing to do in New York and the thing I forget to do most. Just walk. Let the city decide.
An afternoon lost in Astoria taught me something I keep having to relearn. My best days here are never the planned ones. They are the accidents. The wrong turns.
I found a little Egyptian spot and had coffee so strong and sweet it rearranged my personality. The man behind the counter asked where I was from and when I said India, he told me his daughter loved Shah Rukh Khan, and we stood there bonding over a man neither of us has met.
That is the thing about spending an afternoon lost in Astoria. Every block is a different country and everyone is a little homesick and somehow that makes us all neighbors.
By evening my feet were destroyed and my tote bag was heavy with pastries and a bunch of mint I bought for no reason. I took the N train back over the bridge as the sky did its pink thing.
I never did the one thing I came for.
Best Sunday I have had in weeks.
Love,