I can't sleep…
The light wavers;
perhaps the person holding it is tired.
The steps slow.
The rush seems to be over.
– Ann Napolitano, Dear Edward: A Novel (The Dial Press, January 6, 2020)
Notes:
I pause to check the milkweed, and a caterpillar halts midbite, its face still lowered to the leaf.
I walk down my driveway at dusk, and the cottontail under the pine tree freezes, not a single twitch of ear or nose.
On the roadside, the doe stands immobile, as still as the trees that rise above her. My car passes; her soft nose doesn’t quiver. Her soft flanks don’t rise or fall. A current of air stirs only the hairs at the very tip of her tail.
I peek between the branches of the holly bush, and the redbird nestling looks straight at me, motionless, unblinking.
Every day the world is teaching me what I need to know to be in the world.
In the stir of too much motion:
Hold still.
Be quiet.
Listen.
~ Margaret Renkl, “Still” in Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss
Photo Credit
August, 2006.
Barcelona.
Family vacation, using accumulated points for airfare and hotel.
Complimentary breakfasts included chocolate croissants. Buttery flakes melting on tongue, chased by the Sweet, ever-so-smooth, French chocolate.
Our late morning destination was Old Town Barcelona, the Gothic Quarter.
Large blocks of cobblestone line the narrow passages, buildings overhead offering shade, a cool respite from the summer heat bearing down at mid-day.
Cobblers. Cheese shops. A bookstore with Bibles in the window. Small cafes. Shops selling beads, necklaces and over-priced souvenirs, Tourists lingering.
Our pace, My pace, was quick. Rush, to see, to get to, to do. Next. Next. Next.
19 years later, I’m flipping through images on the internet, trying to retrace those steps and replay that one hour of Life in Old Town. I’m frustrated, not finding the right images. Memories fray on the edges and now at the center, old photographs left out in the mid-day sun.
And regrets, always hauling the weight of Regrets, why I had not savored those steps (and let my Family do so), rather than greedily gulping them to get to the Next.
It was yet another Meg Rosoff awakening: “I can tell you that you will awake someday to find that your life has rushed by at a speed at once impossible and cruel. The most intense moments will seem to have occurred only yesterday and nothing will have erased the pain and pleasure, the impossible intensity of love and its dog-leaping happiness…”
I often awaken to this same moment in Barcelona, on quiet Sunday mornings like this one. I’m walking Old Town. Slowly. I can hear my footsteps. Hear my breath. Feel the slight autumn breeze on my forearms. And I’m swamped with a yearning to replay the moment, and regain that intensity of that feeling.
I need to go back.
And do it right this time.
Photo: epepa.eu
Thursday. Metro North train pulls into Grand Central. The morning calendar is light. I’m in no rush to get across town to the office.
I sit on the train reading Ocean Vuong’s new book: On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. Justin Torres’ book review: “the book is brilliant in the way it pays attention not to what our thoughts make us feel, but to what our feelings make us think.” And he’s got it exactly right.
I sip it page by page.
The train clears, and I sit alone. Train engines shut down. Air conditioning rests. I sit in silence.
I finish the chapter, with eyes skimming Vuong: “We sidestep ourselves in order to move forward.”
I tuck the iPad into my bag. I pause for another moment to enjoy the quiet.
‘Our feelings make us think…” and I feel just below the surface of the skin, the pull, it tugs, whispering: It’s time, it’s time you get back after it. You had your moment.
‘We sidesteps ourselves…’
I resist the pull for another moment, noting its strength, bordering on a Tsunami. Please, give me another moment. Just one.
I grab my bag and walk.
Instead of 47th, I walk up one block and take 48th street. Mixin’ it up a bit.
Silver Star Spa. Small door for an entrance. Chipped paint. Sketchy. “Best Asian massage in NYC.” I bet. Continue reading “Walking Cross Town. Solvitur ambulando, as they say”
