Sometimes, She Smiles
Emily De Palma
New York City is deceiving. It can be a cold and heartless place, like a mother who turns a cheek from her children. She looks down her nose at you disapprovingly. She is a taskmaster, she is a Madonna. If she hears your plea or shriek, she ignores it. Athena on Mount Olympus, a steel magnolia.
In the winter, this is especially true. Rain falls on warm clammy days in January. Other days, frigid wind burns your cheeks. Bodies overheat under puffer jackets on the subway, later to tremor with frozen sweat in cubicles and at desks. Amongst the general overstimulation caused by layers and bags sliding off shoulders and hats and numb fingers, no one holds the door. Senses are limited. You are alone on Mars.
Though sometimes, just sometimes, she smiles. She peaks down from heaven and laughs brightly, warmly. She pats you on the head lovingly and hands you a sweet. Those winter days are my favorite. Snow falling softly on the street out a bar window, surrounded by friends. The park early in the morning on a truly freezing day, warming your hands against a coffee cup, but the sun is the brightest thing you’ve ever seen and it’s perfectly quiet. Shop windows on Madison Avenue adorned in holly and tartan. A warm meal in the Village. Live jazz, fur coats.
New York is deceiving; she doesn’t want you to know she cares. But, oh, how she must. Because every now and again, and more often than you may believe, there is real magic in this city. This island can be the size of a room, of a doorway, filled only with people and things you love, picked out just for you.
Emily De Palma
Emily De Palma writes at the crossroads of memoir and fiction, exploring how memory, love, and community shape the stories we tell about ourselves. Her work is grounded in sensory detail and emotional honesty, drawn to the moments that live quietly beneath the surface. Originally from the East Coast, Emily now lives in New York, where she is completing her first collection of short stories and essays.