Tonight was a restless night. The phrase Indian Summer for me brings to mind a warm October afternoon where you can take your jacket or sweater off, loosen the buttons on your cuffs, roll your sleeves up and bask for a few moments in late afternoon sunshine. Not this. The heat tonight felt like the itchy hot woolen blanket thrown over me as a feverish child. It left me kicking weakly at it trying to shake it off and find some coolness, a breeze to tickle across the bottom of a foot that has managed to free itself from the oppressive heat covering me. In this weather the only cure for this rambly twistiness is a walk.
The freedom in these lone wanderings is amazing. I don't have to do anything, comment, point or entertain. I do not need to remind the person with me how quickly the Empire State Building was built (18 months in 1931), or that the Chrysler building is meant to look as if it were made of shiny car parts (and was the tallest building in the world for one year until the Empire State Building was completed- I always thought that must have rankled.) or the names of the two lions that flank the Public Library (the southern lion is Patience and the north one Fortitude) I can shamelessly pull out my camera without saying "Wait a sec" and not hear that I will never get anything in this light. It is a digital shot and I am wasting nothing but time- which is my own.
And I walk. After a day under the sharp flourescent glare in my office and the insistent flicker of the computer's screen the wash of soft pastels and the gray ashiness of dusk is a blessing to my tired head and aching eyes. I feel my Achille's tendons stretch as I walk along- a bit tight from the day in heels marching across industrial strength carpeting. I realize that unlike California, or Detroit, or Chicago- here I feel more real and more..solid, grounded- or maybe cemented- because I am connected to the ground here. I am reminded of the lady I once heard coming off the Circle Line exclaiming about how good it was to be back on "terra cotta". The memory of that comment never fails to make me smile- and tonight I do not worry about explaining what the smile is all about to a wondering face next to me- it is an old joke I share with myself.
I watch the people- mothers with strollers, business people rushing to catch the Metro North or New Jersey Transit. Lovers holding hands as they gaze up at St. Patrick's Cathedral- I feel a tug at the center of me, wondering for a moment why I am looking at all this alone, wondering who I would be with if I wasn't, and knowing that in the heat- how unbearable touching or being touched might be- and still longing for it just a bit. Perhaps when it is cooler and I am less, wrapped up in this hot itchy wooly restless blanket. When a few more leaves have fallen and I can almost see my breath condense in the cooling air.
But not tonight. It's 6:47.
No comments:
Post a Comment