Our Memory of Streets
What do we do when we are sequestered in a house miles away from the city we love? We walk through our memory of streets. It is a hazy dreamlike scene without real light, much like a cat experiences a room in the dark using the glow of its own retina to find the way. It is an adventure since the laws of physics have suddenly yielded to quirky ever-changing by-laws. The five miles to Washington Heights have become a few feet with the swiftness we can suddenly move and skip the blocks we never cared for, but we can also stop intermittently and dwell in front of the window of our favorite bakery: there is still a crowd inside, of women and men and children chatting and laughing and touching each other as though living in a different century, oblivious to the truth only I seem to know, but there is still the smell of freshly baked bread, or the memory of it coming out of the door, reminding me that I’m not stricken yet, that my olfactory sense is still intact. Next I walk across the grid, on 72nd, past the Dakota with its fence of black gleaming double lions, with highlights so pointed and strong that the sun must be high in the sky, to enter the park, through the narrow path that passes the John Lennon plaque which has just been covered with fresh flowers, Chrysanthemums I imagine. A man dressed in a tie-dye shirt is doing Imagine on his guitar, and another man who sits on the park bench offers to do bad portraits for ten bucks. I’m invisible to him so I keep moving on through the crowd, which is like quicksilver today, yielding to my forceful steps without resistance or ill will. I get ready to cross the wide road that has been shut to automobiles yet is nevertheless dangerous to cross because of fast moving runners and bicycles, and this is a spot where it is worth to stand still and take in the majestic surroundings – trees looking down from their heights in a circle, not believing that I’m way down, still driven forth in my circuitous quest by my memory alone.
