I Only Pray At Night

We drove out of the city on quiet Saturday night expressways. Little Long Island towns flashed past us with idyllic names, unpronounceable by anyone not from them, until at last the car slowed along a main street of small wooden houses and signs announcing various forms of Shoppes. When we stepped into the snowy driveway, the cold sky was full of stars and the clouds of our breaths. Her house was sprinkled with icicles. Winter is alive and well in the suburbs. We make lewd jokes and refill our glasses too often, giggle into the provencal chicken and expand our waistbands as the courses continue. He reminds me of an old friend; I love him instantly. 

There was a man on the train yesterday, buried in the crowds and invisible, who sang his heart out to a Beach Boys Best Of. It was terrible, and loud, and sharp, the kind of singing that is best kept to the shower, and people shifted uncomfortably around his general direction.

But he continued relentlessly, and little by little, the train cleared and emptied. An old man appeared around his voice, gray hair and newspaper in his hand, bopping along till daddy took the t-bird away. People began to smile and look each other in the eye. We exchanged a few words as the train rocked patiently under Roosevelt Island. I tried to offer my seat to an older man who told us he was 77 and still driving a taxi, he'd be happy to stand. I drove Obama once, in the 80s, you know. I wouldn't forget a face like that, but the rest of us thought that he probably might. The song grew louder, our smiles wider. When I left them at Forest Hills, we exchanged pleasantries about taking care and having a good day. The singing man got off the train as well, quiet now and focused on other things. Coming home, perhaps, or supper, or errands.

In so many ways, this city is sweeter and smaller and softer than anywhere else I know. I leaped up the subway stairs. The smile followed me all night.

Re:Set

The days pass, my computer still silent and cold on the floor, awaiting spare parts and encouragement. I spend the time anxiously pacing, reading books and watching television, trying to remember what's to be done in an analog world. Every day a commute, a job, but at the back of my spine the sense that I long for something. I realize eventually that it is words I miss, the way one misses an old friend or lover. I long for them with that delicious sense that distance creates when you know it is not lost forever. New York dances with ink, and it softens the dreary, wintered city. The computer parts arrive; the laptop lights up again as though we were never apart.

Do you know I wake up every morning happy? That no matter the early hour, I rise smiling because I am here, because outside this courtyard window, New York rises with me and follows my every move? That I sleep every night a heavy luscious sleep full of words and stories and irreverent potential? It is hard to compete with that.

And I no longer wish you had tried.

178th Street

I was tired, too tired probably I kept taking the wrong exits and got us lost in New Jersey for a bit and when we'd crossed the George Washington bridge I relaxed too much over being on home soil and we had to take Riverside Drive halfway down the island but it didn't matter in the end. The point was driving 14th street on cobblestone streets in the Meatpacking, across 8th avenue that is my street wherever I need to go and passing Union Square in its sleepy Sunday night calm and feeling that beautiful sense that no matter the delicious giggle of travel, a homecoming is the sweetest miracle there is. I tripped on tired, light feet across Washington Square park and thought I must be the luckiest girl in the world. 

Because the stars in the sky may glitter alluringly where the night is dark, but I needn't long for them. 

I needn't long for anything. 

(Because New York, my darling,

I have you.)

In The Fall

The day begins like spring, all thawing ground and birdsong in sunlight. We make snowmen out of the last white patches, but by lunch there is none left to be had. It is divine. We drive out to the lighthouse in the river and remark how bleak the winter, still. A storm lurks on the horizon. 

Last night when I went out for a smoke I heard the coyotes howling in the mountains; tonight all there is is wind, but it howls all the same. We stare out the kitchen window and try to conjure up ghosts in the dark, but they need no encouragement. They come out all on their own and follow me to bed, wring the breath right out of me. I stare into the bathroom mirror and say enough, but the old house whispers that I haven't seen the last of this heartache yet. It will run up and down the west side highway until I am a pale comparison of already unsteady grounds. I go losing out of this battle, year after year. This will all end in tears, and I am not yet ready to make it any other way. 

A screen door slams downstairs. The ghosts make themselves at home. They have your face. I don't want them to leave. 

Never Mind

Ten a.m. Friday morning you drive through Manhattan like it's yours and you do not realize until later that it is. A haze spreads over Lego pieced buildings as you span the bridge. The car plays CDs: everything is ten years ago and winter. 

We arrived at the old wooden house at the foot of the mountains much later than we thought, but who cares, we're here on vacation. You get drunk much too early but cannot will yourself to sleep. There are stars in the skies and in your eyes, what is there to do. I go outside to smoke, and it is so quiet that I can hear the cigarette paper crackle as it burns. I would play this violin if it wasn't so damn small. It seems there must be a better alternative. You know what I'm saying so I won't say it out loud; it screams enough in my ear drum as it is. I wonder if it's ringing in yours. 

Tomorrow morning there will be country brunch and child's play. I promise to laugh in the appropriate pauses. I will drive the car wherever you tell me. It's a beautiful bedroom. 

I just don't fill it so well, on my own. 

The Wild Hunt

A giant cockroach lies dead behind the toaster. I can't believe we haven't seen it; perhaps it's been there for weeks. 20 years in this apartment and we've never had roaches, she gasps, but they might just have been here all along. The evening ends in dispute, doors close in silence. I realize one of my bedroom windows is open--all these days of arctic cold and I had no idea. 

It's getting harder and harder to sleep at night. The alarm clock rings regardless. 

Dis:connect

And then one night, it happens. The poor old computer breaks down, gives up. I am lost, confused, roaming the apartment and nervously eyeing my phone. Nothing is as it should be without it. 

But in the radio silence, airplane tickets are booked; they amass in my inbox like scintillating promises. The season spreads out before me in adventure. Did I not just say that I travel too little, that I must make this year different because to travel is to live? Well, I will. 

The days without my electronic lifeline don't seem so painful, then.