Some people say that you can’t find silence in the city of New York, but I would challenge that. I think that if you’re lucky, you are able to find silence in the chaos and you thrive off of it.
I, personally, love the chaos of New York, but I can find silence in the crowds. I can walk into Central Park and find a seat, weave my way through Grand Central’s crowds to find peace on a staircase, take the ferries anywhere I want to go.
There are just so many places to go. And Dash has Lily go Grand Central before the first train arrives. It’s before the chaos has begun, before people are invading or leaving the city, before everything becomes loud.
Lily takes in the station, listening to the silence, taking it all in. She enjoyed the, “first moments where you can find stillness and enjoy the heart of New York City without it crushing you.”
Hanukkah
According to Dash and something that I can firmly agree with, people ruin everything.
I have to admit that I admire the fact Dash is paying attention to all the rules, cause I woulda shown up where I told her to be if I was him. I would want to know all of the answers. I would want to know why we could or couldn’t be together.
Dash and Lily are opposites. He doesn’t know how to be still, so she challenges him to do just that. She sends Dash to Central Park – he has to be still for 10 minutes, next to a mime. If he can be still he can leave the book. She wants his name, but he says he can’t do that cause it would be too easy to find him. But he will tell her that his name is a connector of words.
SALT AND SWEET
These two are opposites and that makes them perfect. He likes the salty, she likes the sugary. He’s made her eat enough salt on a pretzel to cause death and she makes him eat the devil’s pastry (cannolis – I will stand by the fact that they are nasty). But with each moment it was a way to find out more about each other.
And that is what I was loving.
As he’s stuffing cannoli in his mouth he’s answering her personal question – what was his best Christmas.
With Dash, he has this way of turning the good into the bad, but it’s in a way that I relate to, so I am not even mad about it. He says that it was his best Christmas because his parents told him that he was getting two Christmases, two trees, two sets of presents. He was a kid and thought he was lucking out.
That was until they broke the news to him that it was because they were getting a divorce. That year he wished for his parents to get back together and when it didn’t happen – that’s when he stopped believing in the magic of Christmas and Santa.
He returns the question, but he wants to know the opposite. He wants to know about her worst Christmas. She says it is this Christmas, this year. But as she closes the book you can tell that she likes him, because immediately she reopens it and she says that was a lie.
Her worst Christmas was when she was a kid, and had made friendship bracelets for everyone at the school dance. This boy, we’ll call him E, had never talked to her before. He came up to her and asked if she made him one. Everyone was staring at her, waiting for the response. She gave him one and was so excited he had spoken to her. She was on cloud nine, until she found all the bracelets trashed on the floor and E talking about her – saying she was weird. It was the moment she knew she didn’t fit in.
That’s a hard moment for anyone in life – when you know that you don’t fit in and when it’s all you want to do. My heart breaks for Lily, even though she’s taking it like a champ.
She tells him the next dare will be left in Central Park, at the patron saint of weird girls.
CHIVALRY ISN’T DEAD
Dash is at this new point in his life – where he is confused – I think. He is confused by his feelings and his desire to be there for Lily – even though he’s never met her. And his first response was writing her that he wanted to go back in time and destroy the person that hurt her.
But he can’t do that. So he takes the book and goes to see Boomer. As the good friend that Boomer is – he’s gotta give his friend shit and Boomer calls Lily his girlfriend.
Dash rewrites his entry and leaves the book hidden under the toadstool. After all, Alice is the patron said of weird girls and to be honest, I will never be able to look at that place the same ever. But, that’s not a bad thing.
Weird is cool – he says. But hey, we’re all waiting for the dare and Dash has the perfect one. He’s sending Lily to an underground punk show. Lily has a panic attack, thinking she can’t go, and her brother tells her to go. She looks for assurance wherever she can get it. She’s afraid he’ll stop writing to her and we’re seeing just how much Lily really likes him. But I love this – I love that he walls are coming down and she’s seeing what she’s worth.
I love the support that Lily gets from her brother and Benny. Benny knows everything about clubbing and I’m not surprised. But I love Benny. He’s got like this joy that radiates from him and I can not get enough from him.
But what these two are missing is that Lily is afraid. She’s got anxiety. She has a nightmare that this is going to go badly. And hey – suffering from social anxiety myself, I get it.
A club is the last place I want to be.
Of course the entrance to a club for me has never been a drag queen asking me what my pain is. She doesn’t know what to say, how to act, or how real to be. But what Lily needs to know is that being real is the biggest joy that she can give others.
She blurts out she’s never been kissed. He tells her to get down there and rectify the situation.
Dash has been there and thought of everything. When Lily runs into the bathroom – because some ass has spilled shit all over her – she notices a note on the glass, telling her to get back out there.
What I love about them is that they are the motivation to each other, even without knowing each other. Maybe it’s like a teenage Love is Blind – finding each other without all of the physical things. Really getting to know each other is so important.
And being accepted for who you are is absolutely one of the biggest gifts that a teenager – hell, anyone – can be given.
GET BACK OUT THERE
People have an expectation of who Lily is and stepping outside of who she is – well, it’s not only shocking to her. It’s also shocking to everyone around her. Someone who knows her notices that she was there and seems shocked.
Lily’s standing on the sidelines, as she has for most of her life. It’s where she’s comfortable and that’s okay. But stepping outside of it – well that’s beautiful. The Drag Queen notices her there and says she’s not gonna get kissed on the sideline, dragging her onto dance floor.
Lily is an awkward dancer, but she gets into it. Doesn’t give a fuck what anyone thinks and you can’t help but smile, because Lily deserves to feel so free. The singers notice her and say it’s red notebook girl, which I love. I love people on their side.
The Drag Queen crowns Lily. She’s getting the attention that she deserves and you will find yourself cheering for her and quickly it will change to you crying for her.
The guy from the grade school dance, the one who made fun of her and dropped her bracelets is there. Edgar comes up to talk to her and calls her weird again, laughing at her. She’s mortified and runs out. He follows her, but doesn’t catch her.
Lily can’t help but overthink the whole situations and she thinks that she’s failed Dash by not standing up to Edgar and forgetting to leave the notebook.
She says she’s not just the weird girl – she’s a loser.
Only she’s not. She’s just a girl experiencing life and that’s a beautiful thing. But like every teenager who sneaks out – you’re bound to get caught.
Especially when your Grandpa returns early and grounds you forever.
