Sunset, Morningside

Au Revoir Simone - Shadows (Tanlines Remix)

I was here before, one late summer evening. On the roof of Teachers College, I looked south quizzically at the setting sun. To my right was Grant's Tomb, which I tried to find but it was too cold. In front of me were a lot of trees. I never found out how that tomb looked like. There were a lot of places in this city that I didn't care much about. Being here before made me impatient, obtuse, dull and boring. What was this river, these pacing students, those hallways and passageways. All toward places outside my scope of concern.

If I had made the right connections, I could have seen the windows of rooms where I'd sleep, where I'd meet people who changed me, other places where I would never show up. These places could have haunted me from a different time. I sat in a lawn chair on that roof, looking up at the skies and away from the architecture below me. I had convinced myself that three helicopters above midtown were stationary spaceships, waiting to descend. I was as absent then as I am now, sleeping days and fretting nights.

I walked along 116th, turned on Amsterdam, and smelled winter the way I did when I was fourteen. I can hear songs that make my heart beat the same way. When I close my eyes, I can see the spaces and moods I will inhabit in years that have yet to arrive. The details change, but the feelings will play themselves out exactly as I see them now. I know this, better than I know people now in their transient humors, their idle talk and their material projections. Better than I can see shapes whose contours will change. I can travel years and not move.