by Lindsay Griffiths
I lay aside my laptop to gaze wistfully out the window for a moment. From the eleventh floor of my building I look down, beyond FDR Drive, upon the East River whose color now reflects the pale violet of the Manhattan sky. From up here the water seems almost still, uncharacteristic of a river. I wish that I too could betray my rushing nature and rest.
I have always been a heavy tide with a predetermined schedule, pushing in and out each day. I’ve been a swift and vicious current, running through life with a constant, deafening woosh, my own onomatopoeia the repeating mantra, be productive, be productive, be productive. How can I be calm in this city where slipping through closing subway doors is a matter of life and death, where in the crosswalk I feel immortal because I’ve escaped death-by-motor vehicle countless times, where I am an anonymous drop in the flowing sea of pedestrians clambering to keep up?
With my heart pounding anxiously out of habit, I sit and admire that river that now hugs the eastern coast of Manhattan. It sighs to me a calm and beautiful white noise, the soundtrack to my contemplations. I sigh back as I slide my laptop onto my lap again, and reassume my place in the urban undertow.
