Grand

Gray sleet on gray streets, we roll across the Verrazano-narrows and crawl into Manhattan on a Saturday afternoon to little fanfare. The grand old music hall smells of beer and bleach, the floor is sticky. Early in the set an amp blows, there is minor chaos and major cheer, the audience sings along with reverence. I stand at the back of the room trying to remember every turn, the way the drum vibrates in your chest, the happy spirals in your head. The after party is all giggles and clearing days of unspent riders, I take the L train back to the island with bags full of crackers and beer. Forget my keys (forget to need them to begin with) and have to call my roommates to be let in. My room is as I left it: a cup of coffee sprouts new life, a plant barely hangs on to its old one. Everything is quiet, nothing moves. New York knows you need the space and retreats to ambient noises.

You love it that much more for it.