April 4, 2021 - From Issue No. 8 - 2020 - “April 21, 2020”

The first time we read Spring and All we were on the ferry that takes you from Manhattan to Staten Island and back at dusk and thinking of running across the Queensboro Bridge the next morning. The city felt infinite, inexhaustible –––– as though at any moment we’d either reach just beyond the zenith or our lives might collapse and break –––– so we’d leave the city for a few weeks, six months, or a year, but then we’d always find a way to come back. I just remember that one spring morning when we crossed the Williamsburg Bridge in April and decided ––– this time, we’d be better at Manhattan. No more waiting for the light to cross, or only taking Seventh Avenue north and Sixth Avenue south. It wasn’t that we needed the city. We would have made due without it. But we were only young once, and if we wanted to go all out, or go all in, or even both, where else would we go.