Ticker Tape

New York City remains.
Except for a new bicycle lane along Hudson Street, not much has changed. I step out in jet lagged vacation airs to find people hurrying to work with iced coffees and clothes a precise mix of heat proof and professional. Walk along the river where a few late morning joggers weave past nannies and their babies. My skin smells of sunshine and just a hint of salt. The absurdity of change twists through my synapses. It is at once like I was never gone, and like I haven't been here for years. My body has grown new edges, and I shift to make them fit again.

An old typewriter has made its home on a desk in the corner of my cramped room on Morton Street. I while away hazy hours clack-clack-clacking silly nonsense and fragile honesties onto its rolls. Something tangible about creating words straight to paper that means you cannot hide from them. Rules for Living a Life.

1. Do things that scare you. 

Ache

Let's make this one quick and painless, I can't cry anymore. It isn't true, of course, I have oceans of tears left and I'll wring myself dry before this is over. We stand in the courtyard hugging, but I look away when they walk out. Remind myself of the west village streets that await me. He says, I want the kids and the family and the home, you know, but the airport radio says tramps like us, baby we were born to run, and you're not sure if he believes his own words. You see travel in his eyes, and it stirs the nerve endings in your spine so you can't sleep. A huge storm passed through the city, storms are always stirring when you prepare to go, perhaps it is your wake up call. My brown skin and pink feet arrange themselves properly, pack their bags like a thousand times before. I want to settle down.

But you don't know what it means. 

And baby,

You were born to run. 

I dos

At last the sweltering heat began to calm. Wedding guests tossed their suit jackets and high heels into the soft grass and ran into the lake. We passed cold beer cans and swam into the sunset, laughing. 

I sat later on a rock in at the edge, after everyone had left, and thought how these were my last moments of quiet, of calm light evenings and friendship the kind that lasts for ever. The bride and groom were so nervous in the car, but they laughed more than they cried. I thought whatever I'm choosing instead of this had better be worth it. 

All I have now are words. I will them to fill the void that follows me back home. 

Enough

The streets look the same. You know every dimple in the concrete, every curve in the road. You borrow her bike and ride up to the old neighborhood; the left side of the street that used to be thick forest is all houses now, and the hill isn't as overwhelming as when you were a child, but here it is. The house looks smaller. We were happy here, weren't we? You ask yourself but the simple answers are hard to come by. The days are all hot, beautiful, and we go swimming at every chance. You haven't the time to consider what anything means. They don't ask questions, so neither do you. 

It is too easy to walk around here and pretend I didn't live my life in a whole other world than this one. But departure approaches. We wake up from our dreams, eventually. 

Stroked

There is only 

Sun

And sand

And sea,

Only those short moments underneath the surface in the cool, still waters when my mind is washed clean and my heart can beat without stumbling. 

There is only

Right here

Right now. 

Some times, there is a quick jab at my gut that says the real world quickly approaches, but they are few, and short, and I can mostly ignore them until they pass. My suitcase is scuffed at the edges, its contents a mess of crumpled clothes and discarded ambitions. 

I forget 

it is not all I have. 

The Good Land

I'm nervous now, she said, her billowing white skirt filling the entire front seat of the car. The a/c was turned up to maximum capacity, the July sun beating down outside. He turned to her, quiet first. I am, too.

I walked ahead of them into the glade, a hundred of their dearests gathered around the flowered bow in anticipation. When her oldest friend sang, and the sunlight glittered through the hazel leaves, and everyone held their breaths, she cried. It was perfect. 

The party began to peter out as peach-colored dawn spread quietly over the misty fields beyond the glade. I saw them softly swaying at the edge of the dance floor, leaning on each other with quiet smiles on their lips. The world around them looked no different than before. 

And still, somehow, how everything was New. 

Your Wall

Days pass, weeks, in idyllic summer days, all lush green grass and unwavering sunshine. My skin grows brown, my breaths deep. I forget to write, not for lack of words but for lack of minutes spent in solitude. We share the same bed; it's been this way for years and you never consider it. She plays records at the downtown club and you tip the velvet rope with ease. Walk home past the old apartment--another home lost and it doesn't make you feel a thing. Your grandmother giggles that same way even when she can't remember your name. It doesn't matter: you never forget the way she has loved you. 

Brooklyn picked you up at the train station. Leaving the city has gashed a hole in their hearts they do not yet know how to repair. You owe them words, you owe them everything. We go for a swim under the full moon. 

Everything burns

To the ground. 

At Last

You walk around the sunny city with a sense of foreboding. Saying to yourself this is your last swim, this is the last drink, now is the last time you'll see this view of Stockholm glittering in the water, and you don't know why you do it. It's like a drug you refuse to give up. You imagine your trip is over though it's just begun; you ride the train through picturesque countrysides and see summer grow dark and dry in its old age.

But it is not true. You have weeks yet left to revel. Countless dives in ever-warming waters. Dear friends and sweet embraces, you fit so easily back into the space they've held for you in their hearts and on those streets. Home eludes you yet again, as a mischievous specter forever out of your grasp but it grazes your cheeks often enough and softly enough to keep you chasing it. I walked past the old apartment one day and felt nothing. 

It occurs to me that home is not a place with four walls, 

a door to open and close. 

Could See Me Now

If you had come last week, oh it was so cold, it's been cold for weeks. They've all said it, but since I arrived has not the city been all kinds of summer peak? Warm and gentle, people dotting the shoreline and spreading out on any available grass? Summer in Sweden is magic, you fall for it every time without fail. We go out for breakfast in the mild morning sunlight on the square, look at the tan Scandinavians and try to catch up on too many loose threads. I walk along the water's edge to find a spot in the never-setting sun, but the people are everywhere: quiet, calm, anxiously absorbing the few weeks of summer that must carry them through the dark misery to follow. 

But it is too beautiful, too overwhelming, too serene. You stumble in finding your place; they've held that nook for you, kept it soft and warm for your return but you are too crooked to get comfortable. Remember those first trembling days of June, years ago now, when Stockholm was new: filled with potential but sullied by being the place that wasn't New York. 

I don't think I ever gave you a chance. 

I still don't know if we deserved one. 

At Your Side

Stockholm is so quiet this time of year, the whole city on vacation in the country and anyway the weather is too nice for concrete. I sit on their balcony, in their enormous apartment, it boggles the mind to remember the size of Morton Street and I can't remember what it feels like. Have just one moment to myself before the social merry-go-round begins again and all I can think is how sad it all is, after all. How many days we must spend with the futility of loneliness, how beautiful these streets are at the very end of the night, when you are too drunk not to be overwhelmed. I hear your words, all at once, they haunt me. People say you have left town. I should be relieved, but I miss you, instead. 

There was a time when this was all new

and we had all the time in the world. 

I wrap the winter coat tight around my bleeding heart,

pray for thicker skin 

in the fallout.

Skånegatan

The trees look like they used to, the rolling fields. The people are so fair, so tall, they're beautiful but sour-faced. You transfer at the central station because you always do. Take the green line. Barely need to think about it. Cross the water to the South Island and see the sun glitter in it. It's a lovely day. 

Their faces are the same, their laughs trip around your shoulders and ease you in. Only the children have grown. Stockholm is peaceful, holiday mode and everyone is so tan. I don't remember ever having been anywhere else. 

I saw your ghost in the street today. The back of your head, the whisper of your smile. Your scent is all over this town. There's too much written on the wind. 

I am tired of poetry. 

Yours Truly.

It was a week of such great elation and such terrible sadness. How she called to say she can finally take the babies and come home. How he quit the soul-sucking job ten years after he first knew he should. How we stood sweating at the playground saying our teary goodbyes. In the street saying more goodbyes. The impossibility of knowing what lies ahead, both fearful and tickled at the prospect. 

And then when I had dragged my bags through sweltering manhattan, dripping salty steam on the West 4th Street platform, run towards the gate and crossed my fingers for departure, there it was. The airplane lifted, swiveled the edge of the island and passed right over its middle. Over stacked skyscrapers and minuscule bridges, over lush rolling parks and spires in the clouds. There was an immense rolling thunder in my chest that said this is the only place, the only thing that has ever truly mattered. That this, despite my fears of commitment and my inability to say Yes, is what love is. That though it took me many years and several breakups, this is it. One-of-a-kind. Can't-live-without-you. Love. 

So I am in, New York. 

Let us make this work. 

Let us live our lives 

Together. 

And not part

until it is over. 

Seldom Told

Ninety-five degrees and about as much humidity. The air runs like treacle down Hudson Street as you make your way to the corner for another goodbye. There's too many of them now, you feel weak at the knees, your stomach in knots but you try deal with it like you were strong, infallible. Reluctant to pack your own bags, you wait until it's late and there's no telling what will be there when you arrive on the other side. A violent thunder storm runs across the town, the airports crumble in its wake and you nervously check the forecast, pray you will make it out.

But I walked in the rain to the drugstore, later. The edge of the storm had set the sunset on fire over the river, bathing the Village in a surreal, orange glow. The streets were quiet, hesitant, the Freedom tower lingering in the distance. I thought how grateful I am that this city is mine. That when those dearest to me leave, it does not. That even though I go, however reluctantly, the city will remain and await my return.

That knowing this city will be here waiting,
makes the pain in your chest
just a little lighter
to bear.

Opt Out

Everybody's leaving; you are not used to being the one left behind. Spend your days explaining to the little child why the boxes are building mountains in his apartment, why the cupboards are emptying out. He asks if you will come with him to California, but you will not. Nights are spent drunk on the stoop, rehashing the years of New York that you shared, the ones you did not. We'll give it a year, she says, we can always come back. You know these last deals with the devil are part of the dance. They leave you their typewriter and you refuse to understand it is over.

Still, every airplane that rolls across the Brooklyn sky reminds you that it is almost time to travel. That you get all the perks of roaming airports, of being in transit, of sating your relentless need to go, without all the heartache that comes with leaving. This luxury is not lost on you.

The moving dust settles on your sticky skin. We laugh, but it is sad as hell.