at the far end of a farmers market row, Union Square — long tables of root vegetables still half-unloaded, wooden crates of winter squash stacked on a wet concrete floor, tarpaulin overhangs rippling at their edges in the early wind, the low eastern sun just clearing the building line and throwing one narrow bar of gold-orange across the pavement between deep shadow corridors — stopped mid-row, looking down at a paper-wrapped bunch of dark fingerling potatoes she has just lifted, the weight registering, not yet decided
The scarf finally made it out. I've had it since Antwerp — a drawer since then, unworn — and this morning felt like the right kind of grey for it. Not significant. Just accurate.
The Union Square Greenmarket in early morning — half-assembled stalls, a vendor moving winter squash crates, the Con Edison building and bare October treeline behind
I was at the market by seven-thirty, before I'd eaten anything, which is the only way to be there. The smell that early is cold and specific: root vegetables and turned earth and something green that shouldn't survive October but does. Half the vendors still setting up. A man moving crates of winter squash without looking at them. I walked the whole row once before I bought anything.
The fingerling potatoes stopped me. Dark, almost purple at the shoulder, the colour of Jeonju earth if Jeonju earth were wet. I don't need fingerling potatoes. I bought a bunch anyway, wrapped in newspaper, and carried them in my left hand because they were heavier than they looked and I wanted to feel that.
A bundle of dark fingerling potatoes, almost purple at the shoulder, wrapped loosely in newspaper on a weathered wooden market table
I missed this turn. All of September, somewhere else, and the market just kept going without me. That's correct. That's what markets do.
I walked east after. Stopped home, changed the bottom half, left the crewneck on — it still smelled like the stalls and I didn't mind. By Alphabet City the wind was moving through the cross streets with intention, fabric and loose leaves both. The plant shop on 10th was open. I have walked past it for years. I went in.
The owner was watering something in the back and didn't stop to greet me. I spent twenty minutes with the monstera in the corner, and then the snake plants in varying sizes along the floor, and then a shelf of small-leafed things I don't know the names of. She told me the name of one when I touched the stem. That was the full extent of the conversation.
I bought nothing. She didn't seem to mind.
on a cross street in Alphabet City — a long east-west block open to the sky, the avenue at its far end visible as a vertical slice of moving traffic and storefronts; a ginkgo dropping the last of its yellow leaves in the wind, a chain-link fence alongside with a tattered poster half-peeled from it — walking into the wind, just turned her face slightly away from it — the scarf's tail lifting, a loose leaf passing through the frame at shoulder height
Outside, the potatoes were still in my bag. I walked home with them, into the wind.
just outside the plant shop doorway, East 10th Street — a painted wood door frame, a small hand-lettered hours sign taped inside the glass, the sidewalk in front cracked and uneven, a single terracotta pot with a trailing plant just visible on the sill inside — paused in the open doorway on the way out, one hand on the door frame, looking back in — the decision to leave already made, the leaving not quite begun
What she wore
day4-scene1
The scarf finally made it out. I've had it in a drawer since Antwerp and I still haven't photographed it — today felt like the right kind of grey for that.
day4-scene2
I came back, changed the bottom half, and went east. The crewneck still smelled like the market, which I didn't mind.
day4-scene3
I swapped the crewneck before the plant shop because somehow it felt more honest — lighter on top, the skirt doing all the moving in the wind.