TRANSCRIPT

I’m Maggie Smith, and this is The Slowdown.

There’s a very specific pleasure in doing things alone. Going to the movies by yourself, sitting in the dark with your own drink and popcorn or candy that you don’t have to share, and sitting anywhere you want in the theatre without asking a companion where they want to sit. Or having a meal on your own, party of one, just people watching and enjoying the ambience without the need to make conversation.

I never did either of those when I was young. I’m sure I would have felt uncomfortable being solo in public like that, when everyone else had dates or was in groups. I probably would have worried about appearing friendless. Like, “What’s wrong with her?”

Now that I’m older, though, I care less about what strangers think of me — and besides, I travel solo so often these days! For book events, or to give talks, or to teach. Many times a year, I find myself alone in another city, and if I don’t have friends to share a meal with while I’m in town, I order room service or take myself out.

A book is plenty to keep me occupied at a restaurant when I’m by myself — or, let’s be real: my phone. While I eat, I can half-read and half-eavesdrop on the people around me … dates that don’t seem to be going well, business meetings with a lot of corporate jargon, or friends sharing inside jokes and laughing until they cry. I’m not really alone, after all. I’m in public!

Today’s poem captures the experience of dining alone so beautifully: the tinge of loneliness, but also the cast of characters all around the speaker. It makes me want to take myself out to dinner.

The New City
by Hieu Minh Nguyen

In one motion, as if to not draw too much attention
to my loneliness, the server swiftly clears the extra plate setting
& leaves, in its place, a single menu. I’m not from here,  I confess
to absolve my solitude from the seat it occupies,
to suggest also, regardless if it’s true, that somewhere else
there would be someone else, but here it’s just a book
I use to hide between bites, in which the protagonist discovers 
you can spend your whole life in a little blue suit
& still be wrong about what the world sees 
when it looks at you. By the time I finish my meal,
the office buildings have all emptied into the pubs
around downtown. Sometimes I look up from my life & discover
the world, undeterred by my hiding, has found me.
The lawyers chain smoke on the patio. In a corner booth
the day nurses suck helium from pink balloons.
Someone is sitting alone at a high-top in a pencil skirt.
Someone is making their way through the bar,
coat tucked under an arm, a drink in each hand.

“The New City” by Hieu Minh Nguyen from STAYING STILL © 2026 Hieu Minh Nguyen. Used by permission of Tin House, an imprint of Zando, LLC, and the poet.