new york, new york

I have realized that everything I consider romantic can be boiled down into my conception of the couple in New York winter (okay fine, John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale in Serendipity). Picture this in your head - two strangers holding hands, strolling through Central Park all bundled up in mittens and scarves, laughing as snow cascades and swirls all about them like a white tornado. You don't even have to have gone to New York to see this in your mind's eye - the movies have painted an image on us so strong that we can see them hovering under the lamppost, pausing to have a kiss, their breath freezing in the cold air into wet steam.

You see, everything I find romantic is from the movies - I grew up a dreamer and it continues still, albeit with a slight realist twinge because if I operated by the conventions of movies I would always be depressed by how it never turns out so. But think, everything I absolutely adore!: Steaming cups of coffee being sipped on the street corner waiting for the light to turn green, apple pie a la mode in some dingy diner across the street from a frozen ice rink where couples skating for the first time giggle as they hold the siderail and try not to fall over, Salvation Army santas standing at the corner of Times and 42nd Avenue ringing that fucking bell but people are in such a giving mood that there are a few twenties in there to help the less fortunate bless them, looking up into the endless expanse of darkened sky knowing that we are such a small portion of this universe but loving life nonetheless because we do exist here miniscule or not we are corporeal we are real we are part of something amazing; our gaze turns to the city skyline moving and shifting as the parallax from the falling snow dazzles and amazes us as the lights blink on the billboard sign displaying some ad for Mamma Mia.

So you and I, enjoying romance in the crisp winter air where love goes to live and, for the moment, escapes the clutches of reality, let us wander heels crunching through this snow, sipping our half-calf, avec whip, half-sweet hazelnut lattes, all bundled up in our winter parkas and just go nowhere because you know what?

We are here.