thispresentsojourn

I pulled tight the skinny, cylindrical black lace, raising each tip vertically towards my chin, and touching the clear plastic pieces at the end of the strings together to ensure they were precisely the same length. Looping the one on the right side of lace over the lace on the left, and a few moments of variation on this theme, my left ankle boot was fully laced and snug. I pulled the hem of my stiff black pants over the knot, repeating steps 1-3 for the right shoe.

When the task was complete, the only thing between me and my exit was the need for the trenchcoat which hung in the closet across the room, still knowing both it wasn’t really cold enough for this heavy a coat but — with priorities in view — that there is no other piece of clothing that would pair so amicably with my demeanor.

I flung the coat off its hanger, swung it around by the collar to my back and slid in carefully each of my arms. I began to fasten the buttons which ran a vertical line down the center of my body, beginning at my chest and descending to a far point below my waist. [It's my preference that the collar button of any jacket must always be fastened despite whatever fashion advice, for I adore the comforting sensation of cloth fastened tightly to the flesh of my neck.]

For good measure, I raised the collar like one might in the misty, indigo streets of a Film Noir, and felt the edges of the cloth play with the bristles on my jaw.

Now fully clothed in my winter true, I set out through the front doors of the house, contemplating how no more than year ago I thought I’ll never last here. I passed down the dark center hallway of the antique building and carried on into the entryway, a place with walls and walls of mailboxes. Unable to recognize most of the names above each one, I’m reminded of the transience of neighbors in the city and resolve — this is okay.

+

In the fall, when I had more nights like this one, I spent the greater majority of my time with Robert Frost or William Carlos Williams (or even Ted Hughes if I’m feeling a bit more stolid and staunch) alongside a Russian Imperial stout, but tonight wouldn’t be one of them. I headed on down the street whose only sound was the bzzzzz of my next-door-neighbor’s front porch insect killer and the clicking of my heels across the pavement.

Daylight Savings Time still has not arrived, though the sun had been staying up later than when deeper in the Winter months. I still much prefer the dark closer to lunch than to bed, especially if it leaves more occasion for these sorts of evenings.

I snapped my bookbag across my chest, not for support but rather for the snug sensation across my chest, and walked on down the block on towards Greenville Avenue. Taking a right in the alleyway just before I reach the famous, elderly street, I curve on the path towards the Dubliner. In late fall, the Dubliner had become my Monday evening office, first because its happy hour extends until closing time and for another it is typically fairly empty the night after the weekend’s death.

+

A split of the Celtic stained-glass doors in in the pub front, a wave at that guy I’d met last summer when the Rangers lost to the Yankees, and a right across the cigarette stained hardwood floors, I carried on down the railroad-car room.

There’s a certain station I call my own. It’s highly likely this spot will always be vacant, mostly because it’s the most dimly lit corner of all and I am drawn to all ilks of dim corners, not least for the way it allows one to observe all the surrounding activity, but also because the space is amenable to thought and to uninterrupted focus, should it be needed [which it usually is].

I unfastened my bookbag from my shoulders and chest, and lay it gently across the the small table which stood proudly in the Eire tradition. Unwrapping my coat is more a task than originally wrapping it, since the newness of the thing has tarnished a bit. But the process must be initiated sometime, especially since it’s no less than 60º out and even warmer in.

Detaching one at a time each of the large, black buttons in a vertical line down my body, I begin again with the chest and descend towards the bottom loop which sits hangs below my waist. And as I always do, I pulled off the coat from first my left arm and last my right, gripping the collar material between my forefinger and thumb. Swinging it around with less imagination or vigor or mystique than before, I lay it over the back of my chair, imagining it to be the fragile shoulders of my delicate wife.

And before the inauguration of a the finest tap-drawn Brooklyn Lager in the city and the text editor on my computer, only three important things were missing outside these two.

“What to type! The world is before me.” I thought it to myself.

I reasoned to let my fingers begin, knowing that my mind would follow [It's another thing to believe it actually works in that order.] I entered a “+” as a title, knowing the content of the thing should precede the naming of the thing.

I began in on my thoughts on this first day after Lent, this third day after the Great Sabbath, and this thirteenth day past my return from planning some future.