I fell asleep in my chair the day after my walk from the office in midtown to the broad way called Houston Street. The walk was cinematic in its own right—past the library lions, down Fifth Avenue, alongside tourists and tattooed native New Yorkers. The rush of traffic, squealing brakes, and the huff of garbage trucks as they passed by orange cones as Con Ed workers climbed into steaming manholes.

If I’d only had popcorn to snack on along the way.

I marveled at how my eyes wandered, from the needle like skyscrapers down to street level. Catching the beauty of a couple holding hands and the smile of a child awestruck by a Great Dane—taller than she was—led down the street by a pink-haired woman in platform shoes.

I walked past memories—of my bride commuting to the headquarters of B&N at Union Square, where she would opine with fellow booksellers about which new author’s books should be featured.

I paused at One University Place to acknowledge an icon I had worked with for a decade. I had visited her at her home to help with her tech. I had missed her memorial, but I was grateful to stand there, if only for a moment, to send her my love and quiet admiration.

As I was about to cross to the park, a young man on a scooter—one of those skateboards with a handle—darted diagonally into the street, just as an SUV came charging down. He had good instincts. I complimented his timing. He smiled and darted away.

It was a warm, sunny day, and men and women were half dressed, lounging in Washington Square Park. The benches were filled with students and street folks. Music from different spots in the park faded in and out as I walked to the fountain. The Hare Krishnas were clustered at the western corner of the plaza. I have to remember to tell my friend Stacey. Exiting the park at its southern end, I waited beside what must have been a model, perched on a Citi Bike, for the light to change.

I found MacDougal on my way to rest my tired toes at Minetta’s, but a half hour was too long to wait. The street was thick with people, and the smell of grass was so strong I could almost taste it as I passed The Grisly Pear, where she once did an impromptu stand-up set—the one about cancer, and the incredibly stupid things people had said to her in their awkward, well-meaning ways.

Hungry, I passed a bunch of places with people standing in line and found an empty doorway just before Houston. The place was silent—no customers, two waiters, one reading the paper and another sitting, watching a game with the sound turned off. Villa Mosconi, a red sauce Italian place on MacDougal, opened the year we married—1976. The year of America’s bicentennial. Wouldn’t the founders be proud of the country we have become? The restaurant may have gone by another name when I was wandering the Village in 1969, carrying a knapsack full of purple-covered notebooks and used textbooks annotated with wisdom from previous owners.

My brother Andy says they could set me down at a bar in a restaurant anywhere in the country and I would make new friends. It was a gem of a neighborhood restaurant, and people began filtering in as the courses I ordered appeared. By the end of the evening—after artichokes, baked clams, and a fresh pasta marinara to die for—the bartender and waiters shook my hand, patted me on the back, and wished me well as I walked through the red canvas-covered doorway into the evening heat. Too tired to walk, I whistled up transport back to Grand Central, where I was lucky enough to grab the last peak express back home, and the kindly conductor accepted my senior off-peak ticket without an upcharge. All in all, a very successful adventure.