New York missive no 87 - Out of the ordinary

The white of snow brings out dark lines that in other weather go ignored.



I knew early on that my journey to work last Thursday would be different than usual. Walking along 30th Drive towards the 30th Ave subway station, first I saw a tiny dead mouse on the sidewalk. It was smaller than my thumb and looked like it had been frozen by the cold.

Then I saw a dog doing an orange poop. (The dog had positioned itself on the grassy verge in such a way that you couldn’t help but see what it was up to). The poop wasn’t orange in a normal way. It had swirls of fluorescent plasticy-orange like the jackets of track maintenance people. I got to the station, and learned that there were no trains running from 30th Ave to Manhattan because of an “incident” at Queensboro Plaza.

So I walked down to Queensboro Bridge and over the river. Walking across that bridge is always a bit thrilling. It’s thrilling because the bridge soars high above East River, its thick steel girders reaching to Manhattan which is, of course, center of the universe. But the thrill is qualified by a “bit”, because the thick steel girders and a mesh fence stop you from seeing much of the river below except in glimpses. And your walk is accompanied by the roar of traffic.

For me, the bridge now always makes me think of being driven across it in a taxi, in labour with JNH. I was being whisked towards an experience I knew would change my life, change “me”, for ever. It was good to revive that vivid memory unexpectedly on a diverted Thursday morning journey to work.