A Day in the Life

We waited impatiently for the light on Park Avenue to change. I rarely raise my head to look at the buildings around me anymore, but for a second I did. And suddenly I realized that these are my streets now, that this is where I live.

I forget so easily. That my life could just as well be spent on those quaint streets in precious little Gothenburg, Sweden, those streets that I have known for so long and can take for granted. Those streets that created me and carried me, and where I could easily have stayed forever.

I take this city for granted, too. I forget to marvel. I go running along the Hudson River with Lady Liberty beckoning in the distance, I drag my grocery bags past the edges of Central Park to the A train, and I stumble drunkenly along the streets where Bob and Jack and everybody giggled madly in their day.

We should all be in awe of our lives.

The lights changed. I went on with my day. But I think of every brownstone, every highrise, every project brick building, and my heart remembers to marvel. Remembers to be tickled pink.