ANDY SAYS… ~ Choose, Part 1

As the planet turned to make morning come to the Eastern Standard time zone today, I stood with my back to the rising sun and face over Hudson River. The Westside Highway and Cabrini Boulevard sandwiched the sidewalk and ledge from where I looked out. Mild gusts turned to flirtatious breezes advancing up my pale, ripped, decade-old hospital scrubs used for pajama pants since high school. The locks of my hair dangled. My t-shirt fluttered. My eyes flickered to bat out little particulates aiming for my irises. Across the water, the George Washington Bridge behaved as usual–stoically bearing the weight of cars I could see but not hear. In homage to the solemnity of this scene, I let a deep breath come and go.

Only the sounds of conversation between the leaves and wind were outstanding. I looked down the near side of the cliff, leaned closer to hear what was happening. As soon as I sighted what was below, my gaze rose with the ascent of one leaf loosed from a dried twig, carried on invisible currents. This leaf, upward bound, moved away from the piles of its near identical kin discarded in helpless tail spinning nose-dives to the driven tarmac below. The leaf I watched seemed to be free and easy-going, passively passing on a spontaneous course determined only by the whim of the wind. In an instant it came close enough to brush my face. Momentarily, I felt connected in knowing it, nor I, had any idea where it would go next.

Excitement. The whirl-winding leaf was caught in a roller-coaster of gusts forward, back, over, sideways, and under itself. More wind kicked the leaf up farther in what proved to be a final pass for review up and to the left, back and to the right over my shoulder. The gently playful invisible magic carpet ride was over. Where did it stop? My flying fancy was interrupted as the leaf made a violent flight-ending collision with a brick mid-rise wall. I’d forgotten how abruptly a joy-ride could end. I was left with my thoughts, a bridge, water.

The thoughts came in a rush. I knew the leaf had meant more than I could possibly care to think of at that moment. Amazing sometimes how many thoughts can occur in an instant and what effort is required to block them when they are felt. What I had wanted to avoid in mental images and visceral memory was a fact: I was the leaf at one point. I had to admit that to my-self again, there, to relieve my neck of the weight of denial of a by-gone me. The truth had set me free of a dismal rumination. My neck loosened, I lifted my head. My field of vision was slightly obscured by the prelude to a three or four tear cry I nearly had. Then, there, to my field of vision came a hovering hawk where the leaf had been.

There is a sign…

(To be continued…)