The Blind Side

Like a beaten puppy, I hesitantly crawled out of the dark, musty room and stared unbelieving into the sun. Here it was, how simple it seemed now. A million people were already lining the pier; how could they have no doubt in their hearts? I followed the throngs, hesitantly, reluctant to share this space which all winter was mine. The Hudson lay like tin foil; I could feel my pale skin sizzle. A short breath to fill my lungs, and I had to go.

But then, against moody Grey Dog brick, I could feel the change. Like little ants of adrenaline, marching through my body, igniting flames so long extinguished. My hands telling a hundred tales, my breath quick, my eyes lit. The first spark of madness, so long awaited, so dearly missed.

Words spring back into my awakening heart. I know there is more, much more, to come, when sticky green buds speckle the view from my bedroom window. But this moment, too, is priceless, when I remember what light is, what life is. Tomorrow, I face the blank sheet of paper, and I remember why I came.

They Build Buildings So Tall These Days

Houston Street Subway stop and never any trains stopping on my track. Express trains rumble past, my heart vibrates in my chest. Too much time to stand still and think; why did I not bring a book? As though I got caught in this brief but unending wait, and I have nowhere left to run.

We are not safe anywhere. We cannot escape ourselves.

Just a few steps upstairs, the spring sun is warming the hearts of New Yorkers and concrete without discrimination. I could feel my back straightening, my steps getting longer as my legs stretched in the mild, still air. Yesterday, I turned on 62nd street and everything was quiet, save the birds. I thought it is here. Today, I remembered how bright sunlight reveals the dust in my kitchen, exposes every last hidden flaw.

In my dream last night, we were hanging off the edge of an impossibly tall building. I said Can you believe some people let go? The height was making my toes tingle, but before I knew it, we were in the subway car. Safe, grounded.

I had forgotten how sad spring can be, just at that moment when it stops being an impossibly bright and beautiful future and becomes the same Reality it always was. We cannot escape ourselves. The local train came, stopped, let me on, took me to Brooklyn. It didn't have the answer, either. But it didn't pretend to.

Aqua Vitae

We needed to meet up on Columbus Circle anyway, how convenient that the little Scandinavian place lay tucked away just at the edge of it. Is Swedish food scary? she said. Who cares? The waiters are hot, we replied, and so the matter was settled.

I haven't been to IKEA in months. I haven't walked past Scandinavia house and sighed longingly or complained about American superficialities. I filled my coffee stores while I was home over Christmas, and I have been satisfied.

But there was something in the light wood of the floors, something in the spaciousness and newspapers hanging for patrons' morning reads. Something in the simple quiet of the room that felt like home. Like pain francais near our therapy supervisor, where we'd go after supervision, share a large pot of coffee and a pastry, and while away many hours of laughter and camaraderie.

The softness of the birch tree, the smell of the pine, will forever sift through the blood that runs in my veins. I would not have it, any other way.

Sutton Place Park

How bright was the sun this morning! How warm, how convincing. I fall head over heels and without reservation, while giant piles of snow reduce to steam on the sidewalks. It's trash day, you're out. Spending my day with that smiling face on 59th street. I tell her it's a new day, a new life. I beam at her; she informs me that she has a mind of her own, but she seems content enough in her convictions.

We take a walk around her new hood and are soon made aware it's a whole other world. Dirty, scraggly Chelsea backalleys wobble in comparison to New York Old Money. People who have nothing to prove do it anyway, simply by pairing their Monday Morning sneakers with opulent fur coats. We sit at a park on Sutton Place. I am grateful that the River is public property, the air, the sun. I look up at the imposing townhouses, and see my worth in money. It doesn't amount to much.

As she sleeps soundly in the fresh, free air, I read about Hunter S. and his romping about in the West Village in the 50s.

I remember money is not what matters. Madness is.

We walk home again, both beaming now. It's a new day, it's a new life. I'm buying the ticket. I am taking the ride.

To Be Reborn

Games come to a close, and February goes with them. Another impossible winter month survived, and water cooler conversation tomorrow will be grim, how could I care. In a quiet moment, it was all revealed. The deadline so neatly handled, the Sunday night schedule suddenly cleared and calm. Reading through old journal entries. You never sing anymore. You never cry. Music seeped back into my soul. Tomorrow is March, no matter the snow clinging stubbornly to the courtyard.

My sister is in India, finding the answer. She tells me I already have the answer in me, and she is right. I have had it in me for years. One dark month does not take my love for New York out of me. Hollywood has nothing on this love story, I think.

Stand Clear of the Closing Doors, Please

Friday afternoon and it never seems to end. The days are getting longer; it is easy to forget to pack up and go home. In the highrise next door, a whole other world unfolds. I see children playing and focused gym-goers running on treadmills that will never take them anywhere. All the hours that I just sit here, desperately chasing a deadline that I seem hopeless to catch, they live on there, behind their display case glass, main characters in their own Real Worlds.

At the very edge of the latest snow storm, a low, red sun fights to shine through. A flurry of white ashes basks in its light and the city seems transported to the industrial revolution, to a world of soot and eternal fog. See us, feeble, small people in our electronic factories, make us warm, remind us that the horizon lies farther away than the next avenue, farther than we can see through this incessant drizzle.

I forgot my umbrella on the E last night. I had put it next to me in the seat, to spend the few minutes on the train reading, my short break where I am unreachable, untouchable, safe. So eager to get home, I simply left it lying there, to ride to the World Trade Center station alone. I am comforted by the thought that it is traveling around Manhattan, maybe even Queens, that is rests on its blue plastic seat, in its quiet, unreachable train car. As though I left a piece of myself in that seat, and it rides the dark, warm underbelly of the city, perpetually.

Not Sure What the Trouble Was

The reasons all have run away
but the feeling never did.

So many days pass, where I am happy-go-lucky, where I think that perhaps I outgrew whatever anxiety used to permeate my being in the past. Perhaps I am beyond that now. And I believe myself to be a new person, a strong person, a capable woman, after all.

But then obstacles come along and demand to be dealt with, and every old ghost of nerves that had been hiding in the corners creep out and hit me upside the head. Even after the explosion, they linger, they worry, they remind me that dealing, alone, was not enough. Now I must fret every word, every twitch of my eyelid and crooked smile. I recognize old reactions and urges to run, and my fingers tremble slightly as I try to roll a cigarette, chase the shivers away. The weather seems more confused than me; giant snowflakes, like sugar cookies, splatter on my umbrella, tear the cigarette paper so I must give up.

Overwhelmed, by the day, by the obstacles, by the stories of moving boxes and separation anxiety from so many dear friends. We are all a mess, we are all distraught, we are all looking to brighter futures and a hopeful spring. How the weather mimics our souls; or vice versa.

I always get lost, when I leave the Village.
Perhaps I'll just not do that, any more.