Midsummer Festival: New York

We'd just climbed out of the underground train station when a gaggle of blue-eyed, flower-wreathed girls rushed past us, giggling and excitedly chatting in some foreign tongue. They wore richly adorned pinafore dresses that skirted their slim bodies and billowed out at the shoulders. Some wore clogs, some sneakers. One girl, who looked to be the oldest of the group, wore red stilettos. They were the picture of summer, carefree and young. I eyed the girls serenely as they passed. The scent of fresh flowers lingered and all I wanted was to be with them, free, happy, beautiful, and...

And Scandinavian.

We followed. Tracing zig-zag sidewalks and tree-lined paths we followed until there, in the grassy meadow of Battery Park, with a clear view of the Statue of Liberty and the the waves, we saw hundreds of picnicking Swedes, children and adults merrily laughing and catching up with old friends. It was like the most beautiful people in Scandinavia were hand-picked and plucked from Europe, tossed on the East Coast, and they had somehow snuggled together on the the tip of Manhattan, oblivious that they were the picture of communal perfection. We were frumpy Americans who had haphazardly happened upon Swedish Zion(Swion?) with a true, but simple desire to absorb and emulate what these svelte Swedes were effortlessly exuding.

And what was it?

We started with the food. We got in line. We ordered crisp waffles smothered in lingonberry jam, crowned with a sweetened cloud of cream. We begged for meatballs, salmon, gravy, hot dogs, and potatoes and basked in their tantalizing flavor, all the while gazing at the beautiful people around us. How were they so beautiful? What was this etheral peace? They moved like Rosaline and Edward, but truth told us they ate and some were old.

We watched the yachts' rhythm at the dock.

The night filled itself with laughter, fiddling, and lapping waves. We settled into our own small circle as the night progressed, awed but rather relaxed. The sun we'd felt was the first in three weeks and the cheese we nibbled not cheap. There was magic.