also i made cheese today

After dropping Lee off at Penn Station last Sunday, I stepped outside of the 32th street entrance into blinding sunlight. I was surprised- had I expected rain clouds to spread after Noah and Lee left the city? Not entirely, but it was February, and a balmy fifty degrees. I walked the five miles home. And on my Sunday morning Adventure, I encountered many a magical thing.

W. 34th street. There's a small park with a cafe on my left, and I look up to see the knobbly, budded branches of the trees reflecting sunlight with a slippery morning gleam. The sun is still coming up slowly, the light still has that precious golden hue. The delis are opening and warm smells of coffee and bagels spill out into the street. I am walking through clouds of smells and light and under my feet are plaques with quotations by Thoreau, by Kundera, by Twain. I am passing the New York Public Library's literary walk. My feet and eyes wander from one bronze square to the next, tracing a line through some of the most beautiful sentences ever written, straight to 42nd street. And then I look up the hill to the East and all that I can see is the ground reaching up to touch the sky and the clouds and the brilliant sun.

Shit. It's

Beautiful

i want to drown

in this sunlight

quiet, persistent,

all unfurled again.

I walk along the East River. There is a sagging, dilapidated smallpox hospital on the island between Manhattan and Queens. There are actually a lot of ruins on Roosevelt Island, and I wish that I had explored them when I walked there with Rachel a few weeks ago. I walk underneath the tramway station to a group of young, bare maple trees. They are solid, as trees tend to be, and elegantly so. I press my forehead to the nearest and breathe deeply. So solid. The river rushes onward, in all directions. It's actually a tidal strait, which is why it smells so deliciously salty, like the ocean.

Wow. I love water passionately. I love water. The wind coming off the river is full and bracing. The sun is behind me now, lighting up the holly bushes and concrete chess tables. Two corgis and a scottish terrier bark exuberantly at each other in the dog park on 51st street. I cross the pedestrian bridge and say goodbye to the water.

Passing a small cafe near 72nd street, I see a young woman sitting alone at a table, drinking tea and reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. To set things straight, I normally don't approach strangers. But, what can I say, it was the Kingsolver Connection. She was from North Carolina, from true Appalachia, and spending a few months in New York. She once worked on a farm for a week. Her eyes caught the light fantastic. We never exchanged names.

I followed the light up 1st avenue for the final half-mile. A cold breeze shook water from my eyes, and I wiped the drops away with the sleeve of my flannel. When I entered my bright apartment, I had my first proper bowl of oatmeal with granola since December 17th. I curled up inside of an armchair and, watching a sunbeam crawl across the floorboards, fell asleep.