Off the Island

The trip out was quick, suburbs so well connected in daylight. By the time I was going home, trains were running on midnight schedules and I sat yawning at every missed connection.

There’s so much air out there, such vast views and long sunsets. Well-fed, content with the company, wine glasses in hand, we retired to the living room and spoke of old New York, of the impossible Charles Street door that threatened to fall apart at every turn but wasn’t that neighborhood the best of all? The new arrival anxiously awaits his time to go, and I can’t help but think of the streets he’ll walk, bring up the subject at every turn. That heart beats perpetually; there is always someone ready to gaze at New York with stars in their eyes.

I didn’t know you before New York. I see you here, now, we share the same city again, speak the same language, but it still strikes me as an aside, an oddity. In my mind I still see you on West Village corners, remember how much we missed you when you left and forget to rejoice in proximity.

Things were not easier then. They just look so pretty, in retrospect.