The Mirrors

On the other side of the mirror the sky is made of water and the rivers are made of air. You can walk through the dry sand at the bottom of the East River and look up at the watery sky floating over your head. The towers of the Brooklyn Bridge rise out of the sand like eternity's doorstop; I carved my initials on one of the granite blocks right where it passed below the sand. It made me sad to think of all the tons of stonework down there under the sand, that never get to see the light of day.

I walked across the harbor bottom to the ferry terminal at the Battery and looked up at the ferry boats floating above my head in the sky. Somewhere in the sand under the ferry slip there's a souvenir badge from the Bronx Zoo. I dropped it there when I was about seven years old. In the real world it rusted away to nothing years ago, but on the other side of the mirror it's dry and warm, and just as shiny as the day I dropped it.

I decided to walk out to Brighton Beach. About a million years ago on a winter Sunday afternoon when the sun shone yellow and the wind smelled like Thanksgiving I walked this beach with a brown eyed girl with her hair in a pony tail. Her daughter, age six, was playing with the dogs people brought to run on the beach. We took a stick of driftwood and wrote, "I will love you forever." in the sand and signed our names underneath. She told me that when the tide came in and the waves washed this off the beach they would carry it forever through all the oceans of the world. Well, now it's thirty years later and I wondered if she was right.

Sure enough, there was our love letter, lying on the sand, our names on the bottom. The waves broke over my head, air and water rolling together in some hopelessly upside down surf. Her daughter is older today than we were when we wrote that letter in the sand. I hope her mom is happy, 'cos I am.

Somewhere North Of Montreal

Will I climb the mast, just because she asks me? Up the rope ladders one after another, sail, topsail, topgallant, royal, skysail, moonraker? Just to taste the night wind, feel the canvas rough in my hands? Will the wind blow the stars out of the sky, their light dripping from my fingers? Will I taste the salt spray on my tongue, and wonder if it's really her tears? Will she love me too, when Polaris is floating over the white line in the middle of the highway? God, I hope so!

Summer's Almost Gone

The sky was a little different yesterday, the light a little more white, a little more blue. It was still summer, warm and humid, but the color of the air was September. Most people won't see it for a while but it's there. When I saw it I thought of a day in 1982, swimming with Mindy at Brighton Beach. It was a week after Labor Day and the lifeguards were gone for the year, but we were out in the deep water, the water so warm and buoyant. It must have been around six when we headed for shore. As soon as my feet hit the bottom and I stood upright I could feel it, that little chill in the breeze that raised gooosebumps on my skin. As I walked out of the ocean I said goodbye for now, because I knew I wouldn't wade back there again until Columbus Day had passed, and Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Years and Valentines Day and Easter and so many chapters of life lived on dry land. It made me sad but it made me grateful.

Pickled

Today was my father's 89th birthday, except that he drank himself to death at 72. So I guess it doesn't count for much, does it? Two days ago my sister turned 61, I wonder if she was sober enough to remember. I have no idea since I haven't spoken to her in about two years. My other sister will turn 55 in October, but she won't be celebrating because she drank herself to death at 51. Is it just me, or is this totally stupid?