Riverside Park was now my backyard and it was spring, all the mornings just like this one, green and fresh, and I had a new place to live and it all felt as free as wearing sneakers to work, moving down Broadway at the speed of light, my long skirt flowing behind me like a sail, speeding me on.
And on a particular morning in May as I sped down Broadway I was clear as a bell that I was going to quit my job and I was going to stay in my Upper West Side apartment, which I shared with Scott whom I'd met through his "Room for Rent" notice pinned up in a spiritual bookstore, and I was going to write every day and be a writer in New York City like Susan Sontag.
"But why?" asked Patrick, my boss, sitting on the other side of his boss's desk.
I hadn't expected any questions, but Patrick was not your ordinary boss. He was the best boss ever: unpious, casual, gay, Irish, chubby, funny, and full of stories of his father crushing his desire to be a ballet dancer. "But why?" he asked, with a look of concern and confusion. I was an editor. They'd brought me back from L.A. The world was my oyster.
"Because I need to have a life with meaning," I said, tears in my voice, the ones that creep up without invitation just when you don't want them.
I love the skirt flowing behind me like a sail, the ease of this life, with Riverside Park her backyard, her sneakers speeding her down Broadway...indeed, why? but she wants to take off, from this high place...Lovely, just lovely. However, the last sentence, the tears you don't want, was like hitting a speed bump
ReplyDeleteLove the absolute clarity of this scene...the lithness of the writer speeding along dress unfurling...joyous moment of abandon and freedom...knowing fully what she wants to be and heading toward that freedom...yet there's always a price to pay...something precious given up for something even more desired that causes a moment of almost unbearable grief.
ReplyDeleteThe above at 3:53 was me! Weird - I always put my name in
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