Mario had planned for us an adventure in Bryant Park to ice skate and watch the annual tree lighting and afterwards to sit in the grass and sip his homemade hot chocolate and gaze at any stars we might encounter on his sesame street blanket (because his mom is so insistent on keeping everything in his room from his infancy) and I was looking forward to it but when we arrived at the scene and when we were waiting on line, I suddenly began to feel a wobble in my knees and a shiver down my spine, and this is not to say that the situation itself wasn’t great; it is simply to say that sometimes I am tired and don’t always want to take part in the activities that he plans. We did wait on line for a while but we decided that perhaps that wasn’t the best time to go ice skating, also greatly taking into consideration the fact that there were about three hundred people all trying to gather on the little ice area that was designated for skating. We ended up sitting on the side of the rink, front row seats, and saw the performances by some synchronized ice-skating group and also by a young woman who is to be at the upcoming 2010 winter Olympics in Vancouver, although to be honest with you, it all seems better and more extravagant on television.
Eventually. 10. It became time for the lighting ceremony. 9. And as the lights were about to go on, 8, keeping in mind that this, 7, definitely was not the Rockefeller tree, 6, I saw how excited my love was, 5, at his plans, 4, and at how he thought I felt the same, 3. I was happy. So happy. 2. And just like that, the lights went on. 1.
Next, since the hot chocolate didn’t come to pass, I suggested going to Olive Garden and we did and we waited an hour and half for pasta. Just pasta. I will never understand what is the popular notion behind this so called Olive Garden, which should really be called just “Here’s some Pasta that costs 60$ for no particular reason” and after our meal we walked around Times Square.
We came across these red steps, you know the ones? I wasn’t all too excited about it because as I usually tend not to go with the flow of the popular crazes at the moment, like the Twilight phase or The Office contagion, I wasn’t so eager to climb up those steps that were filled with eager people. However, I did and we went to the top and could see the ball that was to drop at the start of the New Year and we could see all these fantastic lights and hear all these filling sounds and feel this chilling air that went away with the warmth of just one kiss. Below, I noticed a couple that was actually more frigid than the air around us, for it seemed that the young man of about 20 was crying his heart out to this young woman of about the same age, yet it seemed as though she was completely embarrassed by his show of emotions. Perhaps he cheated on her, I thought. “She must have cheated on him,” said Mario as soon as he saw me looking at them. I shrugged this masochistic response and refrained myself from approaching the couple and inquiring about their state, and let my gaze flow across the streams of people that were waving through the concrete streets.
Suddenly, you hear this intense and immense and time-halting gasp from the steps and as my eyes removed themselves from the people on the street and resumed themselves to the steps, all you could see was this man down on one knee proposing to this woman, with her heart on her sleeve and her tears down her face. It was the most beautiful thing I had witnessed in such a long time. Cheers and whistles and oohs and aahs emanated from all of us spectators on the steps and I was on the verge of tears myself because I can never hold anything in, and as I looked to the newly engaged couple as they were kissing and smiling and holding hands walking down the steps, I asked Mario “Would you propose to me if that just happened? And he stole your idea?” He smiled and looked at me and said that he would not. That was a good answer… I guess, and I turned my gaze back to the streams of flowing people on the concrete street and as I gazed the sea of people, I could never find the couple that cheated on each other.
*Image provided by: http://www.liminalgroup.org/love-web3.jpg
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