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

Happy Friday

This week has been hard. It seems to have just been one long downward spiral which should've meant I woke up this morning feeling beyond hope.  Especially after the 4am nightmare where I drowned and then woke up in a hot sweat. But I woke up a lot more cheerful than I have been all week.  It's freezing cold and the 2 mile walk to the office from Charing Cross was painful but I got in and have found myself smiling all day.  Smiling when a client meeting was cancelled even though I got here early to do a lot of printing for it.  Still smiling after I can't book any rooms for a few more meetings I've scheduled for my boss this afternoon.  And I'll hopefully still be smiling at 17:28 when something urgent happens as it has a habit of doing last thing on a Friday. This weekend I will be trying hard not to stress out about how many words I've written (0) or how many weeks I have left until the film from hell is to be pitched again (38) or when it has to be compl...
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

Beat Sheets

Yesterday I sat at my Grandma's kitchen table for five hours.  Out of those that time, one hour was spent staring out of her back door at squirrels and wood pigeons in the garden.  Another thirty minutes was spent with the neighbour's cat, Teddy, who decided to investigate the kitchen and my legs and the very warm boiler I was working next to. In the remaining three and a half hours I managed to write about seven pages which translates to roughly seven minutes on screen. That takes me to seventeen pages total and I have to hand in one hundred and ten pages by June.  I ideally want to have completed a first draft by March (yeah right) and then I'd have a few months to edit and wrestle with it. At the moment I'm preoccupied with several beats I need to try and hit or at least aim for in terms of Act I, Act II, Mid point, Act III, climax and a resolution (or not if I want to puzzle an audience). I've got my story laid out and I'm happy with the structure but ...
Post a Comment
Read more