Dream a Little Dream

In one of my fevered dreams, I rode down the west side of Manhattan in a cab with my mother, watching the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges span the wide, glittering Hudson to Jersey, as we drove through the industrial spaghetti bowl of roads that lay around them. Nevermind the utter lack of geographical reality in the dream, here somewhere lay my West Village, here somewhere was my home. My mother looked at me and said, "This is where you live now, how lucky you are." I looked across the wide bridge and remembered fondly days spent here in this neighborhood of steel beams. I was glad she reminded me. Heading northwards once again, the cab had become a convertible, and next to me in the driver's seat was Miss Regina, her suddenly golden hair blowing giddily in the wind and her bright smile beaming at me as we rode along. We sang some silly song, sped across Manhattan, we were carefree.

Spring grows slowly; at first you cannot see it. But deep in my belly, a little sprout has begun to tickle my nerves. Frozen bodies thaw, too.