Her idea: a romantic picnic dinner in Central Park for their last night in New York. The field is already packed by the time they arrive, but after ten minutes of searching they finally find an open spot and unpack her basket like treasure: pre-sliced bread (12 pieces), a whole watermelon (cut into perfect, bite-sized cubes), vegetable tray, both red and white wine with accompanying plastic cups. In such a large crowd they are invisible, one wild flower in a field; she will miss being able to kiss or yell or cry among them without notice when they are transplanted to suburbia. As the Philharmonic players raise their instruments and begin, a reedy old man in a straw hat stands up among the seated crowd and begins to dance. His swanlike hand movements attract a sea of imitating children who follow him around the field, and later with glow sticks in their hands they remind her of individual stars. -Kelly Jacobson

I stand near the marble fountain and watch my breath burst through the night air in puffs as I contemplate the emptiness—the space seems eerily calm without the waves of people that swarm here during the day. The circle is a dim island this January night, surrounded by the bright lights of the shops and restaurants, embassies and office buildings that line the streets protruding from the center like nine spokes on a giant wheel, the pulse of the city a constant hum dancing around the rim of my consciousness. The lights of the lampposts scattered around the fountain are cold beacons shimmering through the transparent fog that lingers after the evening’s rain. As I turn toward Massachusetts Avenue, the contrast of light and shadow becomes more discernible, as two of the lamppost lights have burned out, leaving pockets of darkness in the air. The trees reach their bare branches like slender fingers toward the night sky.  -Lisa Lance

The emaciated cow suckling its calf in the middle of the road was perhaps as good a metaphor for this place as I could ever manage to conjure up. Stark, heart breaking beauty, as one chugs along the narrow roads from Bhubaneswar to the sleepy little lagoon village called Satapada. The swarthy figures of children splashing about in the moss colored water and the flash of white and pink lotuses in the middle of the ponds, glowing in other worldly radiance evoke an aching sense of loss for something we all must have known. Once the dust has settled over those once green saplings (scorched and drained of all their tenderness in the cruel sun that shines unabated as the monsoons take their own sweet time to come), you can’t help but find a austere sense of beauty here. This might have been the sacred land that some teary eyed messiah had walked before he found Light under some obscure tree.  –Anindita Deo

We drove the motorcycle past the security guard as he waved us through to the cul-de-sac of lavish villas off the Avenue Foch, into a kind of urban gated community. I was wearing worn corduroys and a T-shirt and Greg had on jeans and a flannel shirt with a hole in the elbow – it was, after all, just a middle-of-the week dinner, arranged to introduce us to our friend Elizabeth’s Paris family. Our hostess opened the door and stood sideways as she greeted us, years of reception lines a hard habit to break for just two guests. After serving us gin and tonics (which she mixed herself), she chatted easily about her childhood in Philadelphia, her stern father who almost prevented her from going to Hollywood, and her fairytale wedding years before, expressing empathy for the recently married Princess Diana. To Liz, she was her father’s sister, her godmother, she was simply Aunt Grace; to the rest of us she was Her Serene Highness the Princess of Monaco. -Laurie Lesser

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