The air this morning was heavy and damp — hard to breathe — but it captured the light of the rising sun in a way that I tried to remind myself, because I was sure that I was about to die of heat/humidity, was very beautiful. It was especially striking down by the river (not pictured), where threads of mist hovered above the water and sun turned the ugly New Jersey high rises into plinths of gold or gigantic flatscreen televisions. Or something prettier than how they appear for the other twenty-three and a half hours of the day. It made me feel a little more beautiful too, just to see it from across the river.
In some ways, these early morning runs are torture: I wake up at 4:30 or 4:45 and ask myself if I’m really that interested in going out for an hour in my least favorite weather. The answer is obvious: no, I’m not interested at all. I could do it later, or skip a day or a week or a year. Who cares? But somehow I usually manage to crawl out of bed and stagger out into the street, where city life is both tranquil and disturbing; tranquil because the light is perfect and the streets are depopulated; disturbing because the city at this hour is relatively naked, so it’s easy to see the increasing numbers of homeless sleeping on park benches and on the concrete ledges of the West Side Highway. I don’t really understand the mechanics of agency budgeting, but based on the garbage and litter piling up on the corners and in the parks, it seems like the cuts are already having a bad impact on the kind of maintenance and care the city needs to take care of itself and — of course — its most vulnerable residents. (I haven’t noticed a decrease in the number of NYPD-branded SUVs idling menacingly on the sidewalks, however.)
The city seems unusually manic right now. The sirens of a few months ago — and the fireworks of a few weeks ago — have been replaced by the periodic roars of a motorcycle or souped-up car on what sounds like a speed test on the desert flats. More understandable to me are the people on my block, a group of whom each night spill out into the street and drink and yell and laugh until three or four in the morning; sometimes when I go out for my run, I’ll see a straggler from the night before and we’ll nod hello to each other, each of us bleary-eyed but for different reasons. Washington Heights, unlike the Upper West Side (where everyone seems to have fled to their country homes), is still densely populated, demographically poor, and crowded. Hanging out in front of apartment buildings is a summer tradition here, but this year, the vibe is more raucous than usual. The city is struggling: thousands (millions?) are out of work and the government, after offering a little help, is once again on the verge of returning to its status quo of punishment and austerity (and violence). The mayor is feckless. The governor is decisive but arrogant and untrustworthy. Let’s not talk about anyone in the federal government, or at least not anyone with power. There’s a lot of steam that needs to be let off; it’s not surprising that the kettle is blowing. Having lived here for a good chunk of my life, I believe the answer to urban (and probably non-urban) violence is not more policing, but ‘economic opportunity,’ which is a term I find hard to use because it’s become a cliche but is nevertheless obvious and true, and has predictably by and large been ignored by the leadership of both political parties for the past fifty (four hundred?) years. (Is there any problem we have that couldn’t be solved by taxing the rich? And breaking up some corporate monopolies?) Will a Biden administration fundamentally change things? (Will Biden win? Will there be an election?) It’s a hard question to ask, knowing what history tells us the answer will be.
This is my favorite path in the world at my favorite time of the day.
It’s also been a good year for echinacea.
Part of being gay for me has been my unabashed love of 1970s soft rock: The Carpenters (obv) but also some of the hits by Bread and — relevant here — the Hollies. ‘The Air That I Breathe’ was released in 1974 and is a cover of a song written by Albert Hammond, whose son, Albert Hammond Jr., is in the Strokes. Rock history! Anyway, I heard ‘The Air that I Breathe’ — the more popular Hollies version — a few years ago on the softies station they play 24/7 at the pool house of my parents’ condominium development in Florida; after learning how to play it, I recorded my own version 🙂
Here’s a link.
Sleep, silent angel, go to sleep.
