As I walked, I realized that my legs had grown very long.
I loved the way the shadows from the tree splayed across the brick sidewalk. If all the billionaires in this country paid their fair share of taxes, I thought, we could implement beautiful sidewalks everywhere.
Carrying my guitar, I walked to Harlem, where an amazing guitar technician I’ve known for many years lives and works out of his apartment. Sometimes, the city is magical in terms of what it provides within walking distance. This part of Harlem is also the site of a ‘pilot project’ in which trash is kept in large bins that are stored on the street instead of on the sidewalk. Many residents were ‘outraged’ by the loss of storage for their privately owned vehicles (aka ‘parking’) but car owners are a (tyrannical) minority and were (miraculously) overruled for once.
Back home, I found that our official garbage bin had been delivered. Starting this summer, anyone who uses an unofficial bin may face a steep fine. Garbage is a full-time job in New York City!
In the garden, I was pleased to welcome (or be welcomed by) the winter aconites, which are always the first to bloom.
There was a new stray cat on the trellis, the latest in a line of tuxedos. I remembered when Elektra appeared on the garden wall and how Stephen and I adopted her and how much we had loved her for the decade in which our lives had intersected, but how she had broken our hearts by not living for thirty or forty years. I looked at the cat and asked, ‘where does the time go?’ and it stared back at me, knowing and unknowing, as cats will do.
Maybe it will be a good spring, I hoped, for us and for the cat.
