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The Public Library by Guy Wiggins (1935) He was a master of painting New York City in the snow. This is Fifth Avenue & 42nd Street. |
I went
looking for Po, an Italian restaurant on Cornelia Street in the West
Village. Turns out that it closed more
than a year ago. Like hundreds of the
city’s small shops and stores, it was forced out of business by a greedy
landlord – a 120% increase on the $10,000 monthly rent, the owner told a
reporter.
The
restaurant figures in one of my deepest clearest memories, one in which I can
see all the way to the bottom of a dark primordial lake.
It was a
snowy night in February, 2015, as I sat on a Fifth Avenue bus heading downtown to have dinner with a friend. I looked
forward to the evening with great anticipation.
Traveling by
bus through the snow brought my father to mind.
One of his favorite essays involved a snowstorm in which the writer also
boarded a Fifth Avenue bus that lumbered downtown.
Standing up
and holding on tight, the writer unexpectedly found joy in the ride. Evidently, in the course of most days he felt
slightly mournful, as if time were passing and leaving him behind like a
rock being worn away by the wind and tide.
Now on the
bus, the writer had an epiphany. Time
was passing, but it was taking him with it.
His perspective changed. Perhaps,
he thought, time is a stationary place through which we all move, alone and
together.
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Fountain of Time by Lorado Taft (1920) |
I remembered
from college a large statue called “Time” on the campus of the University of
Chicago. There was a quotation on its long pedestal: Time goes, you say? Ah no! alas,
time stays, we go.
My 20-year
old self had been willing to embrace this maudlin saying by an obscure
nineteenth-century poet. But now, not so
much.
I got off the
bus and started to cross Washington Square Park. There is a song, "Diamonds and Rust," which Joan
Baez wrote for Bob Dylan “light years ago,” she once said, after their love
affair ended.
Now I see you standing with brown leaves all
around and snow in your hair
Now we’re smiling out the window of that crummy
hotel over Washington Square
Our breath comes in white clouds, mingles and
hangs in the air
Speaking strictly for me we both could have died
then and there
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Bob Dylan and Joan Baez (1963) |
How stunning to hear those words as a teenager. Now I feel grateful to have experienced such a moment, but at the age of 16 – not fully comprehending and definitely not ready for it.
Time to pick
up the pace. Around the corner lay dear
delightful Cornelia Street, snowflakes drifting under the streetlamps;
storefronts drawn by Beatrix Potter.
Something
happened when I opened the door and stepped in:
an extraordinary feeling of well-being. The candlelight shimmered and streamed in every direction. And there was my friend sitting at a far
table along the left wall.
I had boarded the bus just an hour earlier.
Yet it felt like a century had passed, on one hand, and just a few
minutes, on the other, during the journey to Po. Gratefully, I sat down in the glow.
https://www.throughthehourglass.com/2019/02/journey-to-po.html
Oh, I so get this. I do have moments of panic about the passage of time, and the increasing proximity of death, but if I concentrate on acceptance - after all, this is the ultimate inevitability about which resistance is futile - I experience moments of incredible serenity. Everything is fine. My life has turned out fine. I have mountains to be grateful for. And sometimes it's raining outside and the coziness alone is heaven.
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