Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “Do one thing every day that scares you.”
This time would be different. I didn’t want to eat eggs to save my ass or get me out of a hairy situation. I wanted to do it for myself. I wanted to show myself that although it felt like it wouldn’t at times, my life would go on. There is nothing that we as humans can’t accomplish if we put our minds to it, even if it is such a little thing. Sometimes it’s the little things that come across as our greatest fears, and it is up to us to put an end to those fears, because no one else can. It was a small battle, and yet it felt like a war: me vs. the egg. Luckily for me, I had new artillery: hope.
“I’m gonna do it.”
“Fine. Do it,” he said.
“I am. I really, really am. Screw this. I’m not afraid. There’s nothing to be afraid of,” I said, and even as I said it began to quiver with anxiety. The breakfast stared a hole right through my soul and spoke to me of greater fears to overcome.
Baby steps. I could take baby steps, and soon I would live a life without fear. Fear of eggs. Fear of failure. Fear of being alone. I could conquer them all if I could just … get myself … to take … the first bite.
I closed my eyes and took a heaping bite.
Within a matter of minutes, I had cleared the plate. I dropped my fork with a clang on the bar and let my arms hang dumbfounded at my sides. I had done it. I was officially the bravest man in all of Manhattan. What mattered the most was not that I had done it to begin with, but that I had done it for myself. At the end of the day, I didn’t die. I didn’t vomit or cringe or wince at the wickedness of the egg. I had always believed that the world would cease to orbit once I finally overcame my fear. Truly, it made me stronger, and I could feel my blood pumping in my veins and a smile begin to streak its way across my face. I began my life as sunny-side up.
Dean & DeLuca
Categories: Caterers, Specialty Food
Neighborhood: SoHo
As I walked through Dean & Deluca, I felt a wave of pure green envy begin to pummel me. Let’s not call it green—let’s call it “viridian.” Somewhere between green and blue.
I was teeming with jealousy, as I usually was when I went into places like this. I remembered that Dean & Deluca was one of the first places I ever went to get a coffee when I first visited New York City as a teenager. I was poor at the time, with little more than pocket change and a duffle bag full of crumpled tee shirts, paintbrushes, and hopes. It was a classic Manhattan love story. Most of us have lived it in some capacity, and it’s those first glances into a much larger world that shape us into the driven and relentless people we are today. I saw the well-to-do people of SoHo decked out in their all-black ensemble, drinking coffee and spending more money than I had to my name on organic produce and chic bottles of water. I was terrified, and yet I wanted so, so badly to fit in.
I didn’t know how to go about it, but I knew I wanted into the club. My stomach grumbled hungrily, as I’d not much money to afford food, and I watched as all of the people chatted casually over sushi on the eating counters by the front door. Everyone was smiling, and I felt the monster beginning to grow inside of me: jealousy. It’s been a constant question in my life, relevant in many ways: why can’t it be me?
Today, as a grown man who has somewhat found his way in the world, I revisited Dean & Deluca. Although I still remembered first setting foot inside the brightly lit and bustling room as a teenager, I suddenly felt like I had finally become one of the lucky ones who got to enjoy it the way it was intended to be enjoyed. I pushed my way inside, shoulder-checking my way to the produce aisle. I had no need or want of produce; I didn’t even have the desire to eat. That which I had once coveted seemed no longer desirable. It’s a tale as old as time: be careful what you wish for.
My cravings had changed over the years, and my palate had sophisticated. The things that I wanted seemed more important than that initial hunger I once had. Although I’d no desire for expensive pastries and designer coffee, the Green Eyed Monster still nagged at my coattails. Even though I’d gotten everything I’d ever wanted, I’d still be jealous of Him.
I’d almost forgotten the way he had smelled by now. Or the way his voice sounded. But there were certainly some things that I’d not been able to shake. I walked around the produce aisle, touching all the fruit like a crazy person. The smooth skin of each watermelon, his forehead; the slightest dusting of fur on a peach, his butt. I knew in my heart that he had already forgotten the way my breath smelled in the morning, or the way that my lips felt on the back of his neck as I woke Him from his deep sleeping. He’d already found another man, and probably had come to love the little things about him that I once did that stirred a fire in Him.
Jealousy is the hardest battle to fight, especially when it is purely one-sided. I had craved Him endlessly, and yet he had found another. I had become the man I’d always dreamed and found a job, my niche, a fulfilling life. I had become the man I had once seen shopping in Dean & Deluca that I thought was the pinnacle of success, but I was still lonely.
Moving slowly from the produce department with one foot in front of the other, I found myself staring at a case full of gorgeous pastries. My eyes locked on a pile of the most beautiful almond croissants I’d ever seen. Instantly, I was taken back to the morning walks we used to take and the almond croissants we had shared while walking up Lafayette, which had somehow or another become the most traveled street in our day to day. He’d take massive bites and wind up with powdered sugar and big flakes of dough stuck in his dark red facial hair. With my free hand not clutching a cup of coffee, I’d reach up to dust him out, and he’d smile at me. I wondered if he shared croissants with his new lover. I wondered if they tasted even better than the ones with me.
I began to realize that everyone in Dean & Deluca was not the successful and impenetrable type that I had once pegged them for. We were all lost. It’s just that some of us could afford designer baguettes and artisanal cheese. The only difference between my younger self and my current self was a better outfit and more money in my pocket. I stopped to look at myself in the reflection of the glass door on the way out. Decked in all black, leather, and smelling of expensive cologne, I was something I’d never imagined. I thought this was what he had wanted.
Enough was not enough.
Chapter Six
WE DROVE TO MONTAUK in the middle of the night. I don’t remember how or why; I tended to block out the unimportant logistics of our history. What I did remember was this: the freezing air blowing through my hair and chilling me to the bone beneath that shaggy Ralph Lauren sweater that we would henceforth refer to as “the Montauk sweater.”
We had rented a convertible, because why not. We had pillaged his favorite store, the Goodwill on 9th Street, for used CDs to curate the perfect soundtrack for our spur-of-the-moment escape from the City. “Jagged Little Pill” was playing as we sped away from our hum-drum, typical little lives in Manhattan. Looking back, to think that we were bored with our day to day in the biggest and most exciting city in the world was foolish—but it spoke volumes of his general feeling toward life in general. He had always wanted more.
We went to Montauk simply because we could. I made a phone call to a woman I used to work with, completely out of the blue, and asked her if we could come and stay with her. She had gone to Montauk for the summer to work, and now that the summer was coming to an end, most of the inhabitants of the town were returning to Manhattan. The conversation was quick, and she didn’t ask any questions. She just said that all of her flat mates had already left and she had the house all to herself, and that we were more than welcome to stay. So we went.
My adrenaline spiked as we sped off into the night on an impromptu adventure to a place neither of us had been before. So much of our life in Manhattan had been curated by me—I had lived there for over a decade and was always taking Him to somewhere I had discovered on my own. I was sure it probably stressed Him out that everywhere we went together w
as a direct result of my own familiarity with a city I had been in a relationship with that was well in its prime. On this night, however, he was driving me in that silver Mustang to a place I had never known. Because I had moved to New York at such a young age, I had never driven a car before. He took the wheel and held my hand the whole way as we drove.
We arrived at the house, a cozy little surf shack with surfboards hanging from the ceiling and a roaring fireplace going at full-blast, at around midnight. Our hostess, whom I affectionately referred to as “Aunt Sandy,” was well into a very large bottle of cheap Pinot Grigio. He was having one of his regular stints of not drinking, so I too declined her offer to share the wine with her. We sat on the floor by the fire and caught up on chit-chat—most of what I contributed involved my current state of joy in having the company of Him. The whole thing felt surreal. It was as if my entire being had been electrified with the strange sensation of unfamiliarity with my surrounding and my general being.
Aunt Sandy enthusiastically decided that we should go to the beach. It was the middle of the night, and the wind was picking up, but no one seemed to care. In the spirit of adventure, I just looked over at Him and shrugged my shoulders and smiled. Again—why not?
It was apparent that Aunt Sandy was tipsy as we piled into her rickety old Jeep that didn’t have any windows and seemed held together by faith. She ripped through the empty streets on our way to the beach, and we held on for dear life, occasionally gripping each other’s hands as we turned sharp corners and gritted our teeth. In a matter of minutes, we pulled up to a pitch-black and deserted stretch of seaside.
Up by the water, the air was freezing. I wrapped the Montauk sweater around me, and he clung to my arm as we trod through the dunes to come to a sparse place with nothing but the wind and the light of a million stars surrounding us. The three of us lay down on the sand and stared up into the night sky, which was unfamiliar to the one I had been used to staring at back home in Manhattan. Unlike the City sky, this one was filled with stars. I had forgotten about the existence of stars, and, like many things I had come to take for granted, being with Him had brought them back into the forefront of my being. I sidled up close to Him for warmth, and he crawled up into the nook of my arm.
Shooting stars were everywhere. I made wishes for each one I saw. The first wish I made: please let me stay like this forever—never let this feeling end. It was a corny and utterly predictable whirlwind of romanticism, but my heart felt instantaneously so swollen in my chest that it threatened to burst. I felt like I could defy gravity and fall upward into the endless darkness and happily float out into nothing. He was my anchor, and his weight kept me pinned to the sand.
We barely slept that night. There was something propelling us out into this strange new world that couldn’t let us be. We got up before the sunrise and went out to explore. Somehow we wound up back on the beach, and it was still deserted as far as the eye could see—nothing but miles of pristine sand and a faint orange light that was the sun beginning to rise. We walked on the beach hand in hand for a very long time until we eventually came upon an empty lifeguard tower. I dropped his hand and ran up to the tower, and although it did not have a ladder, I scaled it with ease.
He was afraid of heights—one of his many phobias that seemed so silly coming from a man that was so wild and filled with reckless bravado. He stood at the foot of the tower and paced repeating his common mantra of “I can’t.” I just nudged Him on, as usual, telling Him that it was okay and that I would help Him. I extended my arm, and he eventually, begrudgingly, took it, and I hoisted Him up to join me. Once he had settled in with me high atop the tower, he wrapped his arms around my arm and burrowed his head into my neck. His breath was noticeably warm amidst the cold morning air that was wrapped around us, and I felt it hit me and stay moist as he planted a series of small kisses on my neck.
I don’t remember the exact conversation we had that morning on the lifeguard tower. I do remember the gist of it, though. It had to do with both of us realizing that this feeling we were sharing—this sunrise, this beach, this symbiotic warmth—could possibly last forever. He said he had never felt so alive, and I couldn’t help but agree. We existed in that moment and became frozen in time. This minute, this second, this place, and this sunrise were all becoming monuments in my memory of what I would keep from my time with Him.
We always used to play those silly scratch-off lottery tickets whenever we came across them in bodegas because being together made us feel lucky. We were lucky to have found each other, and he would say stupid things like, “I can’t believe they made two of us.” Win or lose, it didn’t matter. We probably spent hundreds of dollars playing those dumb little things. To some, that would probably matter, but to me, it was a priceless purchase of time that I bought to spend with Him—giddy and hopeful at hitting a jackpot, which I felt I had already won. Truthfully, we never really “won” much more than a few dollars here and there, but the laughs we shared as a result were priceless.
The real treasure of my time spent with Him was not the epic sunrises or adventures out of town or shooting stars or lottery prizes. It was not the grand gestures that I built in attempts to keep Him even as he was pulling away from me over and over again. I had orchestrated a romance that I had been anticipating since the minute I came to New York. I had built a platform for this love and was spellbound as he took my carefully laid notion of love and rearranged it from the floor up.
This was where it all fell apart and the mythology of Us started to crumble from the inside out. We based our love on a series of cinematic cityscapes and sunsets and shooting stars and were left hollow by the day-to-day realness of what it meant to be in a “normal” relationship. Although I wanted to believe it could always be that way—almond croissants and fireworks and fireflies in the bushes while we kissed in the park—there was a stake that was set that made Him terrified of the commonplace. I felt that if I wasn’t providing a pristine view from the top of a theoretical ferris wheel for Him, he would stray and look for another. And the truth was that I was absolutely right.
The many earthly splendors of New York made it easy to captivate his attention most of the time, but I knew that it just fueled his thirst for more. It’s a city with a million different flavors and limitless possibilities—how was a man with his hunger for life not to taste them all? Such are the curses of our time. The world was now at our fingertips with the click of a button, the flash of a computer screen, or a simple head tilt from which to avert your gaze from your own reality. With so much world and so little me, it was impossible to assume that I was to be his endgame. After Montauk and Paris and Fourth of July and Central Park and Minetta Lane and the first snow and the last days of summer, there was just me—sitting in my small and quiet room up there on the fifth floor in my pajamas, waiting for the simple reality of me to be enough for Him.
Murray’s Cheese Shop
Category: Cheese Shops
Neighborhood: West Village
What I lack in common sense, I make up for in cheese knowledge.
I am the king of the dinner party cheese board. When I go into Murray’s Cheese Shop, I go hard. I have a formula that I attend to, and it usually leads me to having a full-blown meal of free samples as I pick out the perfect New World–style aged manchego. The cheese mongers sigh and roll their eyes as they turn away from the counter as I contest the sharpness of their suggested Gouda that doesn’t cut it for me. For someone as conflicted about every move I make in the world, I have a curt sense of steadfastness when it comes to my taste in triple crème.
One of my best friends was throwing a dinner party in Hell’s Kitchen, and I arrived with a big bag of cheese in hand like I always did. She had lit every candle in her apartment, which looked a lot like the Mad Tea Party by way of Martha Stewart Living. Women who prefer the company of other women can be so heartwarming at times—the candles and the twinkly Christmas lights and the teacups everywhere made me weak in the knees. The soft
jazz spoke to my soul. I knew it was inevitable that at some point we would do a group reading of passages printed out from online about the current moon cycle. Outside the second floor window it hung, bulbous and full.
Some days were better than others. This day was not one of them. I recalled a poem that I had read at a roundtable poetry reading at one of the last dinner parties she had thrown. It was by Marge Piercy, and the real kicker of it was the subtle synchronicities of the words “I went visiting, I ate meals, I sat in front of television and movie screens eyes glazed over like ponds just freezing opaque.” I sat there amidst the festive chit-chat that these kinds of dinner parties tended to produce and stared at nothing. I spoke words but didn’t feel them coming out of my mouth or even know their meaning. I was there, but I was not present.
As we sat around the table, I began by leading a prayer. We all held hands and closed our eyes and bowed our heads. Suddenly I felt like my dad, the big public speaker that I never really was. Prayer was not something I indulged in regularly, but it just seemed like the right thing to do at the time. It was a room full of artist types and the spiritually wayward, but I guess it was more about me just needing to do something for myself.
As much as I hated it, I’d fallen into a way of making everything come back to me somehow. In truth, I was sick of talking about myself and my stupid heart, so after the prayer I sat there at the table in complete silence. My friends told stories; I feigned laughter occasionally and nervously played with the rose petals that decorated the dinner table. Every time there was a lull in the conversation, I took a petal into my hands and played with it anxiously. I pressed them between my fingers under the table and rubbed them until their moisture began to seep out. Soon they became fragrant mush in my hands, and I didn’t notice it initially, but by the time dinner was over there was a big pile of macerated rose sitting next to my untouched fork.
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