Mad dash.

I hotfoot it out the library in a huff, cascading down those massive steps of the public library, quickly turn a corner, and hop onto a marble divider in hopes of sidestepping the people traffic. I'm not sure whether it's my own tenacious procrastination or just the excitement of the city that causes me to scurry at the speed of the proverbial New York minute. It's most likely the former masking itself as the latter. Suddenly, out in the distance, on the other side of the divider, appears my instant nemesis, a fellow marble-rider. She's strolling atop the slab carefree, delicately swaying to and fro as her hot pink long-sleeves reach for balance. My eyes squint and internally mutter "I don't think so, sister." I shift my focus to her cheery grandma helping her along and ask myself what the heck I'm doing playing chicken with a little girl.

Urban Oasis.

There I lay, impotent in the grass until breaths become louder than streetcars. Days like this come not too often, a light overcast keeping out harsher rays; this is not an afternoon to squander under shelter. The green bed cushions the backs of my knees as I rub together blades of grass between my knuckles. Tension built up from hours locked behind the cash register pass away like chaff in the summer wind. The ever-hospitable Bryant Park is small but mighty, a square lawn bordered by concrete and pastimes delicately grafted into city stresses. A bonafide urban oasis, a fertile ground for calm, a cool drink between nagging thoughts.

My eyes scale up metropolitan towers, far past the trees that protect this place, up to where imagination is untethered. Higher and higher, window after window, to the furthest point of the furthest-reaching building where I spot some visitors: interplanetary diplomats, ambassadors of a galaxy not unlike our own. Their headless eyes peer over the edge, two large squares, and a metal beam for a mouth. Talk about a stiff upper lip. I smile back and nod with discretion as not to alert the other residents of their presence.

Unknotted and awake, I rise refreshed and begin to peruse the premises. Time strolls along with me around the perimeter of the park, observing bookworms in the reading room, dining socialites in the upper terrace, ping pong rivals on the iron tables locked in bitter stalemate. An emcee halts my saunter as peculiarly even-tempered New Yorkers crowd shoulder-to-shoulder in the artists den, and still afar off I catch a garbled announcement followed by uproarious applause. By now the light has gone down in the sky and come up on the stage and surrounding courtyard. Suddenly a larger light floods the plaza, brilliant enough to herald in a seraph. I trace it back to the top of the building I visited earlier and find some old friends. I smile back once more, giving another nod, this time of gratitude.

I don't know who is playing tonight, there are no signs or logos around, but after a moment of thinking I decide that it's fine with me. I may never find them again, but there was a day when people were able to live with that--a time where if you only caught the tail end of a catchy melody on the radio there wasn't much you could do about it but archive the fragment deep in your mind and hope you would serendipitously stumble upon it again. If I consume myself with inculcating lyrics I'll miss everything that's happening right now. So instead of words and phrases I take in my surroundings. Sure, I may not know their name, but I know how their music makes me feel. If all I can take from here are memories, then I'll take with me the way the lead singer's voice soars through the city, the way a man stealthily crawls beneath the scaffolding just to be closer, the way a young daughter notices her hips dancing as if for the first time, and the way faces of awe and thrill stitch together a joyous multitude.

There is art that endures into vintage, and there is art that's a bang. Concerts cannot be recorded, and theater cannot be replayed.