This one block in the west village allows me to hold back the sadness of New York’s many changes. I’m tired of them and tired of my own predictable reaction to them. There are still things that make me happy here: a sex party in a friend’s apartment, a little thrift store, a balding man on the train reading what is obviously a library book.

I want to stop feeling turned out and shaken upside down by life. I want to feel connected and in the driver’s seat. I want discovery again. To get that I need to be knocked out of my regular orbits. So much of my week feels like shuttling between predictable pains.