'Tis the Season for Spontaneity

A few hours ago, I showed up at a barbecue place in Brooklyn to meet with a group for brunch. It was a chilly 50 degrees spring weather, and I just came from my date, so I was still in last night’s clothes. I wrapped myself in a large black coat hoping I didn’t look like a huge embarrassment, and like this, I pushed the door and entered the restaurant.

The brunch was an invitation from a girlfriend, and I was expecting a typical girly encounter - like the one you see in West Village, with three, four girls sitting at a small table, making small talk. Instead, I walked into a day-drinking party, with 10 people I didn’t know all chilling under the sun at a long outdoor table, holding their glasses of beer. Which was great, because it was cold outside, so I didn’t have to take off my black coat and reveal what was going on last night.

Meanwhile, these people had already been there for 2 hours.

I introduced myself to a French couple who had just moved to New York from Madrid, and a guy who had just flew in from Geneva to visit his girlfriend working in the UN. I caught up with my girlfriend, and saw another friend that I last met 3 weeks ago at a bar. We chatted under the sun for 2 hours about everything and nothing - the Shanghai lockdown, Sunday scares, the best Italian restaurant in the city, and then we ended up at a courtyard of a cafe. We said goodbye afterwards.

And just like that, spring is back with its full spontaneity.

The other day, me and my friend were walking along the East River on Queens' side after work, when we decided to try out a new Malaysian restaurant nearby for dinner. Google map led us to this block behind all those warehouses right next to a homeless shelter, and it became questionable whether we should go back or not.

The sky was already dark at around 7:30pm, and the only lights we could see were the car bumper lights on the road. Tempted by the food, we decided to still give it a go and head to the restaurant on full speed, by foot. Suddenly, a random dude across the street started yelling at us. It sounded scary, and I didn’t even dare to look his way. I was about to grab my friend’s arm and tell her to walk faster, or even start running, except that she realized the guy was actually her boyfriend, trying to say hi.

So, all three of us made it to the restaurant, located deep inside a warehouse, and discovered that the place was just an industrial kitchen - with only one guy sitting at the front to greet all those delivery people. We watched him heat up all our food, took it away, and had dinner at the rooftop of my apartment building, overlooking the amazing Manhattan skyline. The food was great - we were definitely ordering it again - but probably just online only next time.

After a winter of hibernation, I, or we, start having escapades like this again. We get spontaneous, and give it to the world to guide us to where we are gonna go. Both you and I know that we are aching for things like this just as much as our afternoon naps, and we’re excited to have more of it this summer. After all, there are only so many days of Netflix and chill we can stand, before we get bored out of our mind.

So, there’s that, and cheers to the beginning of everything fun in the year of 2022.