Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Walking To Williamsburg

First A Haiku For Today

It is colder now
But I still wear a T-shirt
Spring can be manic


I just thought about something I did a couple months ago. It was chilly and a little rainy. February I think it was. I was with my boyfriend at a starbucks on 45th and 6th eating our Sunday breakfast and listening to whatever music they play at starbucks. It was some really wonderful old, old music. Starbucks is actually a wonderful place to get breakfast because you can get a bagel for 99 cents, and as long as you don't order a drink you're golden.

After breakfast we sat there, not talking. Holding hands. Niether of us looking particularly happy with the other. I always like to think in retrospect in the third person. We must've looked like an old couple, tired. We stood up and walked out. A man on the street asked me for a cigarette, and I gave him one. He paid me a dollar. My boyfriend and I continued walking. We walked down past St. Marks to a little cafe type place. I got some ice cream and he got a grown up soda. I told him he needed to shave because he was beginning to look like an Iranian terrorist, and he told me he didn't care. We got up and walked a few blocks further downtown.

The wind was picking up a bit, and we just kept walking until we got to the Williamsbug Bridge, which we started to cross. I found a key sitting on the railing. I wanted to take it. My boyfriend told me not to take it. I left it. We kept walking. We stopped at the peak of the bridge and stared down at train tracks and dark green water in between. We talked about the bridge collapsing and how many bodies are found in the water a year. The Brooklyn Bridge was beautifully masked in rain and overcast, and the horizon was a forrest of grey and green skyscrapers. It felt like Home. We kissed and kept walking.

My boyfriend wasn't used to seeing so many jews as there are in Williamsburg. They don't have so many in Europe anymore. We spent about ten minutes standing outside a jewish bakery debating whether or not we wanted to buy a loaf of bread. We decided against it. I felt nervous. We started walking farther east and stopped at some kind of a cheap hipster clothes store. There wasn't anything interesting there, but I made us stay for a few minutes because I felt bad for the store attendants. The rain was slowing. It was now just a mist, and Brooklyn looked like Berlin. Then we went home.

I don't want to set the world on fire - The Ink Spots

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