El

The bright new building sidles up to the park avenue wall. Street level it’s all masonry, but on the 15th floor you can hear the northbound commuter trains rumble by. I sit in the window and watch them race out of the tunnel and into the fresh air, look in through the window at late night passengers, wonder where they get off and what life looks like there. How quiet the train cars look. Midtown Manhattan sparkles like so many gemstones at the bottom of a dark lake: do you know this city is actually a hundred, each one a world away from the other. The 6 train winds through twenty at least before I reach those blocks of low buildings where I am home. People filter in and out, and I don’t know how to tell them what a miracle it is that they are alive, that all this magic coursing through our veins truly belongs to us, did they remember to look this gift in the eye and did they whisper thank you to the universe? We ride past the ghost stop on 18th street that you have to know about to see, spirits of old New Yorkers long gone lingering by the graffiti, waiting for their ride. I whisper thank you and it sounds just like breathing.

I breathe, and the universe nods like it knows what I mean.