“My dear, have you ever truly looked at the way the light settles in Rittenhouse Square at this hour? Not merely shining—heavens, no, that would be far too straightforward—but resting, as though it too has grown weary of America’s prolonged nervous breakdown and decided to lie down quietly on the gravel path, like a governess who’s simply had enough.
Now, do look—just there. That bee, pitiful little thing, entombed in the bloom of a Tibouchina. Exotic, unnecessarily so. Quite ridiculous, really, given Philadelphia’s climate. One imagines it shipped in from California—or perhaps some forgotten botanical tantrum—to add a splash of drama to this otherwise beige collection of states they once dared to call "The New World." New, perhaps—but not necessarily improved. My dear, even Eden was new once. We know how that turned out. And America is rather like Eden, if the serpent had a hand in the planning committee.
And that woman—yes, the one in rose-coloured silk—drifting past like one of Botticelli's tarts. She doesn’t walk; she glides, as though auditioning for an allegory. Honestly, after all we’ve endured—the headlines, the hearings, the moral hemorrhaging—can a well-cut hemline still stir a soul? I rather doubt it. Though I'm sure someone at the New Yorker will try to argue otherwise in 6,000 words.
Listen to the brickwork beneath our shoes. Go on, listen. You can almost hear the ghosts muttering. Who laid them? Who’s laid on them? Ghosts, my dear. Ghosts and patriots with poor impulse control. Perhaps Benjamin Franklin himself, storming off in a huff, tripping over his principles. Or some lesser founding son skulking home after a scandal, pockets full of half-finished manifestos.
And look there—that girl with the seashell pressed to her ear like it’s whispering stock advice from Poseidon himself. Look there, a woman sways, not to any music we can hear, but to something primal, something private, as if joy were cellular and not quite sanctioned. She sways—not with decorum but with desire, as if her body recalled something her mind had yet to understand. The others look on, appalled. As if delight were indecent. As if she’d walked into one of those American yoga classes wearing makeup and good news. "Yoga,’ they call it — sounds less like a bit of exercise and more like something you catch from a mosquito in the colonies. Honestly, this country, my dear. Joy in this country is treated with the same enthusiasm as a bad case of the measles—best avoided, spoken of in whispers, and generally blamed on everyone else.
Is it the news cycle? The endless grief scroll? Or simply the long shadow of history sprawling across these streets like a houseguest who refuses to leave?
And the black clothing—why? The sun is out, but they are all dressed as though headed to the sort of funeral where no one cries, and everyone silently hopes the will was thorough. Even here, in Rittenhouse, in the sun, these people are suspicious of anything soft, or sincere.They are a nation that mistrusts its own laughter.
Look— bankers with the expressions of well-fed but emotionally stunted bulldogs, clerks who stare as though time itself has become impolite, and students clutching books they’ve never opened, but display like relics. And I—I sit beneath this tree. I’ve taken to calling Hamilton. He looks the part: noble, unbothered, clearly disappointed in everyone. He has witnessed riots, parades, renovations, and revolutions—and yet he endures. Judging, of course, but enduring.
I’ve read everything worth reading, I believe—Shakespeare, Milton, Tennyson, the Greeks . Their voices built the scaffolding of my better thoughts. But now—now I suspect I’ve had quite enough of other people’s conclusions. Perhaps it’s time I write some of my own. Not for fame, nor posterity, but simply to capture this peculiar moment, this city, and this version of myself.
So tell me, shall we write it all down? Before it changes again, and pretends it never happened?”