Skip to main content

New York Thought

The city lies dormant below the 86th floor observatory deck. 
Laid out, split open and ready for inspection.  Crowds jostle over centimetres of camera space.  Winds tear up the building, round the tourists and back down to the street happy to escape the madness of the crush. 

The quietest spot is where the wind dances in a corner by itself.  My hands only just grip my camera steady and teeth start to chatter from the harsh chill.  Mini yellow cabs jostle on the street far below me and ant people parade up and down pavement after pavement.  The city lies dormant and is peaceful from this rooftop scene.

I could reach out and touch Central Park.  Pluck a squirrel right out of its tree.  I could reach out and poke the Statue of Liberty.  Create my own mini snow globe by shaking it all about. 

Tourists track me down in my quiet corner and brave the violent wind to take shaky photos to show loved ones back home.  A helicopter circles the deck slowly and I must be an ant person for them far above me.  The sun dazzles my eyes by bouncing back and forth of the steel cage keeping me up here safe.

I blink to take in the view one last time. 


(Photo by me, 2008)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Disconnect

There is a feeling of being lost which has been creeping up on me more and more over the past few weeks. It makes me feel as though I am a different person to the one I was a month ago. Different thoughts, different priorities. Even so far as saying different voice, different body, different face I see in the mirror. I do not feel like I am me and the more I try to reach myself or sift back over old conversations and emotions to find myself the less graspable 'I' am. I can hear my voice talking at people. Sense me ears listening and my brain nodding along happily inside my skull. But there is a disconnect. And in that gap I do not like the situation. I don't feel comfortable and I don't know how to get up and be even remotely okay about where I might end up. It may simply be a bad Monday or a bad week about to start. When the disconnected fog descends, as it certainly will again and again and tomorrow and the next day again and again, I will try to be ready to ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Pleasantness

Sitting on the train is something I spend the majority of my week doing.  Some days I hate it and count the stations off with frustration and rage that I've chosen this way to travel to work.  Other days I'm indifferent and the countryside slips away infront of me until I'm at Charing Cross without realising I even boarded.  But days like this morning I actually enjoy it and relish every second spent before arriving in London.  Leaning my head against a finger print heavy window staring at fields and terrace houses listening to music and drifting off to sleep between stations.  Dropping in on loud conversations between giddy (there is no other word to sum them up) fifteen year olds heading for school.  Drowning out a business man angrily whispering into his mobile by turning my iPod up a fraction.  Noting that the woman sitting next to me is trying desperately hard not to lean on me though the Southeastern train carriages aren't design...
Post a Comment
Read more

Starting Fresh

It's been a while. And I definitely feel rusty. But hopefully it won't take long for my brain to catch up with my fingers and type something more interesting than the weekly shopping list for Ocado. Or Lidl depending on how much money is in the bank that week. With two little boys running round calling me mummy (artistic license at work here ~ my youngest is 7 months and not running or calling me anything) life has certainly changed from when I last wrote. But after 5 years of almost constant change I suddenly find myself back sitting in the same spot at work where I always used to sit doing the same tasks I always did just as though the last few years never actually happened. Except they definitely did. I have the scars to prove it and also as soon as I get home I don't throw myself on the sofa and exclaim dramatically that I'm so glad the week is over and isn't it wonderful to have nothing to do. I run upstairs to give lots of hugs and cuddles ...
Post a Comment
Read more