Manhattan on a windy autumn night is straight out of a film noir. I was meeting someone near Columbus Circle for dinner. The leaves have fallen, the leaves swirled through the darkness. It was misty. Chilly, but not too cold. A brisk fall night. Columbus Circle is ablaze with neon and traffic but it’s right there that Central Park begins. A contrast. Everywhere I looked, I saw something beautiful, and striking, and singular. Darkness behind me, light in front of me. Or darkness in front, light behind. I was that jerk walking around in Central Park at night taking pictures of myself and experimenting with the light. It’s not every day that you step into a film noir. The only thing left was to meet a man in a trench coat and a fedora in a dark alley for some mysterious double-crossing exchange. The night felt wild, unfettered. I have been holed up with myself, mostly, for about two months, because of all these big writing projects. I went out into the world last Thursday night like an escaped prisoner. I was meeting someone in a loud and jostling Mexican joint across from Lincoln Center. The crush and hustle of humanity. I thought to myself, excited, bold, “I think I’ll even have a beer tonight!” (And I did. One Negra Modelo. Life on the wild side.) I had been looking forward to going out for days<\/i>, because the isolation had become a bit … prolonged. Emerging into that night was beautiful, because it was the kind of night, to use Anne of Green Gables’ term, that had “scope for imagination.” I was almost late for my date because I was too busy taking pictures of grates and the buildings of Central Park West and the neon of Columbus Circle and my own mug half-in half-out of the light. Everything I looked at was beautiful, dark, and dreamy. New York at its most evocative. <\/p>\n
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