Take the A Train

Broadway runs the entire length of an island that doesn’t know how to stop, it passes a million different lives, none like the other. I emerge from the subway as in a whole other world. Everything is quiet, suburban: it makes me uneasy. But a few blocks later, there is the river, this great glorious majestic slow snake at sunset, the George Washington Bridge holding two different planets together across it. A couple in Fort Tryon Park dance to no music other than Sunday afternoon peace at the top of the world. Your father calls and explains it’s not really a mountain, there’s a geological reason for the elevation but all you know is you can see the horizon from here and you breathe a different rhythm.

At 204th street a hydrant is open, generations pile into lawn chairs on the street and curate the soundtrack for an entire block, smoking their cigars and gossiping in languages you don’t understand. Your father ask what you’re doing, you wanted to live in the country, you wanted peace, what happened? He buys a new house and paces it impatiently before even moving in, 65 years of pacing and he still doesn’t know where he belongs. I have peace, I say, I have home. He makes you mute the microphone every time a siren passes by.

I don’t have a map for the life yet, I don’t have the answers. But I keep walking the streets, keep filling in the grid, decorate the corners as I go, eventually I’ll see where they lead. Eventually I’ll know where life lead me, and know where I lead my life.