the future past

i got horrendous cramps yesterday and left work early. i reallllly wanted to just hail a cab home, but decided it was ridiculous to pay $7 to be driven a mile on such a sunny day. even though i did feel like complete ass.

in order to survive my debilitating self-pity and the feeling of being punched in the gut from the inside out, i played an old game i used to play when i was a kid. it was such a beautiful day. 2:30 on a friday afternoon, sun shining bright but without the usual mid-atlantic humidity. people were walking all over the city sidewalks, just doing their thing... having cold beers at the outside table of a curbside restaurant, walking around with tourist guides and sunglasses, playing drums on a couple of overturned buckets for spare change, sleeping off a mid-day hangover on a front stoop... whatever. life, basically.

i imagined myself the way i imagine my old age to end up... me in some nursing home bed, staring out some window at a brick wall or the tops of trees, just remembering. remembering the time i lived in that big city, back when i was in law school and we were just starting out, about to get married, still trying to figure out our careers, excited and in love and young and all that. remembering so hard, its like i'm almost there. and then, suddenly, i AM there. i am back on that street, walking in the hot sun, my knees and legs and eyes and heart all in perfect working order, on my way back to that tiny little apartment, to the dog i used to have, that sweet little E. i look around in wonder, back in a memory. there, the shoe repairman has his rubber soles mounted on a display case. here, Shank & Evelyn's diner is about to open up in its new location downtown, out of the neighborhood. there are little hearts taped up on the window of that store. a little boy waits with his mom for the bus. and it's all so beautiful.

...and voila! life is no longer taken for granted. cramps, forgotten, if only momentarily.