🍰✨

Looks like an unremarkable salad eaten in a heated outdoor patio on a Thursday night in February, yes? Well, note the small glass of wine to the left. One of the most transformative drinks I’ve had in recent memory. It was handed to me from a neighboring table by a woman whom I’d just heard described as “one of the greatest mezzo voices of our time.”

She had gotten up excitedly from her table to hug a friend passing by, and as she sat back down she apologized to me for the disturbance, which there was no need for! I told her I was in my own little world, which I was. I had been watching a group of early-20-somethings emerge from the SAG-AFTRA building next door and experienced a deep swell of nostalgia rise, churn, and fall within me, almost to the point of tears.

So, moments later, to be handed this small cup of wine from the mezzo soprano, whom I now saw had large, kind, open eyes and wisps of silver bordering her hairline like a halo, felt like a benediction. “Cheers to you,” I said. And the holy wine tasted like a reminder that I am alive here, right now, sitting literally at the hypotenuse of this familiar slice of city between past and present selves.

And I thanked her and the whole table once more before they left, promising myself that I would pay the kindness forward the soonest chance possible.

I accept the strange gifts of my life. I try to stay awake to it all.