No Tissues
Dear Diary:
I was staying with a friend in Murray Hill while back in New York for a visit in 2019. I got together with an old boyfriend. He was a drummer, and I went with him to a gig in Brooklyn.
We talked openly and honestly and deeply on the subway ride back, acknowledging the love that still connected us.
I kissed him goodbye at Grand Central and started walking. I was crying hard. He had been the love of my life, and I knew this might be the last time I ever saw him.
My face was drenched, and I had no tissues. Hoping to get some napkins, I stopped into a diner on Lexington Avenue that I had often gone to when I lived in the city.
There was a long line for tables and takeout. I told the people who were waiting that I wasn’t cutting the line. I just needed some napkins.
“Hey, let her through,” one man in the line yelled. “She’s crying.”
The crowd made way, and I stepped up to the counter. The manager recognized me as a regular.
He handed me a wad of napkins.
“Some nights are rough ones,” he said. “It’ll get better.”
— Sandra Eisenberg
Back in Town
Dear Diary:
I landed at La Guardia Airport, thrilled to be greeted by the familiar skyline. I had been away for a year. It felt like a lifetime, but the rhythm of the city quickly came back to me.
When the car I was in got stuck in traffic on 31st Street in Queens, I decided to make a call.
“L & M Deli,” a familiar voice answered.
“Two Italians, hot, add banana peppers,” I said. “To go, please.”
There was a pause.
“It’s you!” the familiar voice said.
I knew I was home.
“It is,” I said. “See you soon.”
— Alisha Bouzaher
West 23rd Street
Dear Diary:
I was 22 and had just moved to Manhattan. I was living by myself on 24th Street. Every day, I would walk along the north side of 23rd Street from Ninth Avenue to the subway station on Eighth Avenue, where I got the train to work.
I soon began to notice a handsome young man who passed me regularly while walking in the opposite direction on 23rd Street.
Eventually, we began to smile and nod at each other as we passed. This happened every weekday for several months: pass, smile and nod. We never spoke, but I began to look forward to seeing him very much.
Then I moved to 21st Street, and I switched to the south side of 23rd Street when making my walk to the subway. I didn’t see the handsome young man for some time.
One day, though, he spotted me and ran across the street. He asked for my phone number, but I was reluctant to give it to him. A few days later, he ran across the street again.
“Are we just going to keep meeting like this, but never speaking?” he asked.
We agreed to meet at a coffee shop after work. When we met, I discovered that we shared many interests and that he had a number of talents.
He wore a large, knitted cap and a six-foot-long scarf that he had knit himself. He knew Japanese archery, was learning flamenco guitar and had gone to school to study photography, which I loved. We were both interested in poetry and writing.
So began our relationship. We lived together, married, had a baby and divorced. Sadly, he has since died. But our beautiful daughter is now 48.
— Patricia Barconey
Photo Bomber
Dear Diary:
It was the winter of 1981 or 1982. My friend Maya and I were acting as models for a friend who wanted to photograph us on the subway for a project she was working on.
We got on the No. 6 at Astor Place and headed uptown. At 23rd Street, the comedian Andy Kaufman got on the train and took a seat at the other end of the car.
Then, apparently noticing that my friend was taking pictures, he got up, walked into the shot, sat down again and looked directly across the car. As the train approached the next stop, 28th Street, my friend took the photograph.
The train stopped, the doors opened and Andy Kaufman, without saying a word, stood up and walked out onto the platform.
— Lowell Downey
At the Corner
Dear Diary:
As I got to the corner at 59th Street and First Avenue, a man and a woman were standing there talking. They were disagreeing about whether they should cross the street.
The man was arguing that no cars were coming, and the street was empty, so they should go.
That would be jaywalking, the woman replied in a shocked tone.
As she was speaking, another man passed.
“Here, we just call it crossing the street,” he said.
— Karen Raffensperger
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Illustrations by Agnes Lee
