I was heading back. One never likes to leave certain places, but the time comes, the ticket says so and your bag is packed. The clothes have all been wrinkled with wearing. The little line of different bottles of wine have all been finished, even the glass recycled. All gone. You would rather just do some laundry and make sure there is juice and bread on hand. Moments twine themselves between memories and now must become them again. The taxi is called and you are returned to the airport like a sack of mail which must be delivered somewhere else. The driver is kind enough to leave the radio on and engage in the slightest conversation as if to remind himself that his passenger is actually there. Her self seems to be somewhere else as though she never completely came in when the door was shut. One is brought to wait and the time seems interminable. No queue at the check in counter. No earlier flight available. A little auxillary gate off past anywhere to buy a magazine or get a bite to eat. But empty places let your thoughts unfold and sit on all of the straight lined sets of chairs. They don’t have to be interrupted. So you glance about at them, like little sets of characters having different conversations. They fill the place and even have to sit on the floor. You focus on one and then another and their discussions don’t pause as your head turns. Then the flight is late. An hour. Another hour to be between where you were and where you want to go, neither of which is exactly correlated to the checked tag that is around your suitcase. Where you wish to be is not a place that you can go to by plane or foot, it is a time which arrives like the tide does everywhere. One that can’t be built with hammers or promises. One that simply is- and then it spills into everywhere you happen to be. A wave. Except my tag says EWR. Again. Newark’s not that bad of an airport. I like it. I know terminal C quite well. That’s where the Continental flights come and go to Tokyo. And other places I choose to make a point of edging into my remberances like a knife on the whetting stone. Those experiences are both instances- sharp and dull and they wear each other in a necessary way. They are good. I eschew Kennedy. JFK is too big and worried with nine terminals and people scuttling shuffling and endlessly talking into their earclips. Newark is Jersey and dirty yellow cabs. Policemen chasing idling cars for curbside pick up. Sloppy Starbucks customers leaving venti size creations in places other than bins. Black gum on the sidewalk. Hurried New Yorkers hollering at slow elevators. Luggage bumping in hard slams down the stairs. Aggressive parkers and rear-end denting arguments. Crossing against the light and nowhere near the zebra lines. I know this. I grew up here. I can be invisible here. But I haven’t gotten on the plane yet. It was one of those little planes. They only have about 18 rows of seats and walking in it’s like a tight little tunnel. The overhead compartments are only on one side and there is a line of single seats and then deuces. You get to walk out on the tarmac. It makes me feel humbled to the Embraer jet. It reminds me how large the world is and how small and slow we each are. The tarmac is wide and sunny. Full of wind and a few workers in orange with no-noise earmuffs. I stood there in the sun and thought of the day. The weather was lovely. The sort that makes you not want to leave. After all it was a beautiful Saturday and people were just starting to go and stroll about by the lake. The street was quiet as it always is and the sky seemed very blue. A tiny bit cloud–ly, but in a honest sort of way. To me it had that determined, “anything could be” blue to it. Like the azure days of September when you hope for fall and cold and leaves because you know your arms are strong and your stomach full. When changes make you stronger. When you look forward to wearing your old boots with new soles. The people behind me started to walk away hoping they would get on a larger plane then was there. We were all asked to walk up the steps and wave no one goodbye. One must board and the sooner in doing so the sooner we would be able to go. We shared a glance of consensual disagreement on this point. Most bags are gate checked. I had my wallet, phone and Joan Didion. I decided to continue writing in her Magical Year in lieu of my notebook. Except I couldn’t read or write much just then. I thought about the hot dog vendor on the harbour. I never asked him his name. He was kind and sold me orange juice while we shared a few minutes of conversation. Waved even when I didn’t buy anything. He’d told me the tourists up for the weekend had made a mess. Spilled relish and stomped on ketchup. For what reason neither of us knew. But some people are selfish and disappointing. We’d best beware of them and smile anyway. He knows the people who sell the tickets for all the little boat rides. I’d listened to the girl trying to hawk an hour to no one in particular. She says the same thing with no interest over and over, like a bird calling for the sake of its own voice. I watched the seniors come with tour badges and everyone stand around looking for something. Reading the map of where else they will go. Snapping pictures. Taking too many pickles. I think of the harbour. The preset recordings are a terrible but necessary interruption to the ten o’clock sunlight by the coffee shop. The birds are as permanent as the tourists. The weather was hot, the weather was cool. The rain might come at night. Some days you need a sweater, even though it’s warm. The sunshine through the windows. The smell of the wind in the afternoon. The boardwalk was a whole different sort of place. There I could sit for hours. Always the same bench to observe. I’d hear the water watch the waves and wait for the smell of salt to tickle inside my nose. But a lake doesn’t have that. Its just the wet smell of water. There are willows. The boats have to sound their horns every bunch of minutes. The ferries trudge, heavy with people, back and forth. Every now and then a hired tour boat comes by and blasts music across to the shore. The ones that have that over worn look of rust and too many guests. Where the music is loud to apologize for not being new or live. Where no one dances and everyone holds glasses. I shut my eyes. I see the little patio restaurants with urgent eaters enjoying their wine. It must be extra lovely for seven dollars. Sip slow. When will the sun set? The waitresses wear sunglasses to highlight their v-necks and the sign tells us this is a recommended best place to be. Even pigeons try to make their way between the umbrellas. The wooden Adirondack chairs which are chained in tight lines. The square brick tiles. The skating rink that is a pond for the summer with kayak and canoe lessons. The occasional roller blader. The great sails of the clipper ships like fine old dresses taken around in little circles. Finished glasses of beer. But these are only the fringes of memory, like a velvet piping on the hemline of skirt. These are the outer fringes. I remember everything else in a way past words. And how that filled my days and nights. Like touching the bottom of the lake where it is cold and deep and finding the sand is only a thin little shelf before there is a whole other place far, far beneath it. The water is cold in an alive way. My seat belt is buckled and I think of the take off. It’s like a fierce run into nowhere, we are number one in line with ground control. On the way out we were number twenty seven after the gate push off, but we still got there. I think of this, we still got there. The sky is still light the air is still warm. The day has more to give. I know the way back. The plane makes a half circle and heads out. A circle back over the places I was. I look out the window but it is not eagerly. I watch the buildings and blink the wet from my eyes. All I can do is touch the glass. Mumble things that can’t be heard and schooch my cap down a little bit. The lake, the buildings, all these little places I can focus in on are so far below and away. The wing hides them. I twist at the pen in my hands. I flip my book. The pilot has said it will be bumpy. I wonder if the plane will fall out of the sky. I have wondered this each time I set foot on one. I don’t like planes at all. They shake and make me nervous, the seats ruin my back and I contort in odd tangles trying to seem asleep even though my eyes are only shut. It will be over in 58 minutes. I have no watch, but I know the path well enough to predict the initial descent message. Soon enough Newark. Now it is dark and we come from the other way, over all the nice houses that want to be gentry but are uptight with their in-ground pools. To the city. To all the buildings that look like cardboard boxes. Almost home. We land with that rush that makes me feel like you were in the middle of a good pace of skipping rope and just mid phrase paused and stopped. Your whole body lurches forward a bit and your breath goes faster. There is applause. This irritates me. Now the slow crawl like a car in a lot looking for an empty space. We have to wait for a tow in. And wait. “Please remain seated”. This irritates everyone else, even the clappers. Ding and it’s done. The door opens, we burst out like extra carbonation from the soda pop bottle. I make my way over to the luggage carousels. It’s a long walk in the other direction. Past all the lines. Free like a senior getting out at fourth period instead of eighth. Nothing to be inspected or removed. I see my father standing by the arrivals televisions. He’s looking intently to see when I would have landed. I tap him on the shoulder and he is thoroughly surprised I’ve found him, just like that. “But how’d you know it was me?” “By the way you’re standing.” We head to the car and I reiterate I could have taken a cab back home. He reiterates he does not mind and this is not up for discussion. I appreciate this. But I am much the same and don’t mind to bring a friend home, regardless of the hour or distance. Such things are never inconvenient. He tells me about the week. All New York again. My street’s been repaved, but my house is special. Unfinished. The only one. There is tar- like blackberry jam spread all over the front two spaces by the house. There are cones blocking it off and all the leaves from the sycamore trees are mired in this tacky stuff. Maybe the city has forgotten me? I will have to call and remind them to pave there. The cat has been fine and slept on my bed. Have I missed him? It’s a cat. I have not missed him enough. The basement has not had any new difficulties. A phone bill has arrived. Dad’s bought me a book. A New York book. “Since you’ll be in town for a while.” Manhattan is like a separate continent to Dad. My house has the smell of being shut, so I open the windows even though it is late. I leave them all open all night. I hate the smell of closed houses. I put records on and the cat comes serpentining for attention. Vinyl wins, the feline glares. The light is low and I sip some anisette. There is a cool breeze and lots of quiet. I try to find rest but it’s missing, like I forgot to take it out from the overhead compartment. Sometime past midnight I find it in a pile of papers. My bed is full of books again, the only way to sleep.