It's not just another workday: I'm feeling energized. I've just stepped off of the park and ride bus into downtown, and just as my foot hits the sidewalk, the iPod starts playing The Heavy's How You Like Me Now.
Very much, thank you. The tempo is perfect. I'm striding as briskly as the snare on 2 and 4, as tight as the horns and the bite of the percussive guitar. I'm catching every light. Five of my longer than usual paces from every intersection, the icon changes to the little white man, leaning forward, intentionally, and he is me.
It's an unusually clear morning. The rain from yesterday and last night left behind that washed clean feeling. I don't remember whether it's an abundance of negative or positive ions, and I don't care, because I feel good. I didn't know that I would. I feel sharp, and alive, strutting along the sidewalk, alert and observant. I have my sunglasses on, the good ones, polarized, fitting snugly. Am I really here?
I am. My eyes are like a hawk's, scanning, checking, appreciating the man in the gray retro suit, replete with the white handkerchief, no peaks, just a thin white line peeking above the breast pocket. The anachronism is delicious. He's standing as erect as a soldier, neat hair, handsome face, one arm angled sharply to hold a Blackberry to his ear, listening, listening, then saying what must be exactly the right words to keep the conversation going, and listening again. He is causing something very important to happen on the other side of the world.
I'm right here, gliding along, leaning back and giving myself to the music, the feeling, the street. My muscles are undulating, relaxed, then tensing in perfect rhythm to support this ten block sashay. I'm aware of my awareness, and yet it just seems to be happening, effortlessly. I am an implement, being used by something, and whatever or whomever it is knows exactly how to work the machine that I live in.
A beautiful woman appears unexpectedly in front of me, to my right, from a doorway. On any other day, we'd have bumped into each other, but I take her left hand without breaking my stride at all, and twirl her gracefully like Gene Kelly or Fred Astaire would. She is shocked at first--I see her mouth open, wordlessly, but she takes my lead and raises her arm to spin. When her face comes back around, she is smiling. My unstoppable momentum causes my hand to relax, and hers slips from mine.
"Th-thank you," she stammers, and for the first time in my life, I mean it when I say,
"It was nothing."
That's it. There is nothing. Nothing at all, nothing but this moment, and the next, and the next. Smooth, continuous, like infinite points on the smoothest of curves. Yet I'm traversing an impossibly straight line, firm and yet somehow flexible. I flex, that this dance may endure. ¡Estoy tan suave!
The sidewalk pushes back, Newton said so, but it's a bouncy, cooperative feeling. I can't help smiling to realize that in this trivial jaunt, I am experiencing oneness. Thought is absent, the voice that's usually handing packaged judgment to me like so much propaganda is wonderfully silent. I simply am.
A homeless man is sitting, back against the wall of whatever building I'm passing, dingy, with dirty dreadlocks, forehead in one palm, the other arm's elbow on a knee, hand aloft. I don't miss a beat. I reach into my pocket, get the dollar bill folded there that I was going to buy a diet soft drink with, and palm it into his hand. He grasps reflexively as our palms smack softly in a low five.
"Never give up," I say. "Never ... give up." And I'm gone, gazing toward the blue morning sky, clear, open, framed by the cold tops of buildings. Then a quick check; yes, that little white man is there for me. Curiously he's going left. I'm heading forward.
Very much, thank you. The tempo is perfect. I'm striding as briskly as the snare on 2 and 4, as tight as the horns and the bite of the percussive guitar. I'm catching every light. Five of my longer than usual paces from every intersection, the icon changes to the little white man, leaning forward, intentionally, and he is me.
It's an unusually clear morning. The rain from yesterday and last night left behind that washed clean feeling. I don't remember whether it's an abundance of negative or positive ions, and I don't care, because I feel good. I didn't know that I would. I feel sharp, and alive, strutting along the sidewalk, alert and observant. I have my sunglasses on, the good ones, polarized, fitting snugly. Am I really here?
I am. My eyes are like a hawk's, scanning, checking, appreciating the man in the gray retro suit, replete with the white handkerchief, no peaks, just a thin white line peeking above the breast pocket. The anachronism is delicious. He's standing as erect as a soldier, neat hair, handsome face, one arm angled sharply to hold a Blackberry to his ear, listening, listening, then saying what must be exactly the right words to keep the conversation going, and listening again. He is causing something very important to happen on the other side of the world.
I'm right here, gliding along, leaning back and giving myself to the music, the feeling, the street. My muscles are undulating, relaxed, then tensing in perfect rhythm to support this ten block sashay. I'm aware of my awareness, and yet it just seems to be happening, effortlessly. I am an implement, being used by something, and whatever or whomever it is knows exactly how to work the machine that I live in.
A beautiful woman appears unexpectedly in front of me, to my right, from a doorway. On any other day, we'd have bumped into each other, but I take her left hand without breaking my stride at all, and twirl her gracefully like Gene Kelly or Fred Astaire would. She is shocked at first--I see her mouth open, wordlessly, but she takes my lead and raises her arm to spin. When her face comes back around, she is smiling. My unstoppable momentum causes my hand to relax, and hers slips from mine.
"Th-thank you," she stammers, and for the first time in my life, I mean it when I say,
"It was nothing."
That's it. There is nothing. Nothing at all, nothing but this moment, and the next, and the next. Smooth, continuous, like infinite points on the smoothest of curves. Yet I'm traversing an impossibly straight line, firm and yet somehow flexible. I flex, that this dance may endure. ¡Estoy tan suave!
The sidewalk pushes back, Newton said so, but it's a bouncy, cooperative feeling. I can't help smiling to realize that in this trivial jaunt, I am experiencing oneness. Thought is absent, the voice that's usually handing packaged judgment to me like so much propaganda is wonderfully silent. I simply am.
A homeless man is sitting, back against the wall of whatever building I'm passing, dingy, with dirty dreadlocks, forehead in one palm, the other arm's elbow on a knee, hand aloft. I don't miss a beat. I reach into my pocket, get the dollar bill folded there that I was going to buy a diet soft drink with, and palm it into his hand. He grasps reflexively as our palms smack softly in a low five.
"Never give up," I say. "Never ... give up." And I'm gone, gazing toward the blue morning sky, clear, open, framed by the cold tops of buildings. Then a quick check; yes, that little white man is there for me. Curiously he's going left. I'm heading forward.
Then I've crossed the last street. It's time to turn right toward the entrance to the building. I do not turn. I keep moving, one more block, to the next corner, where I turn right, sharply, sharply, ever sharply, on the ball of my left foot, on the beat. The horns, the drums, the guitar, the singer, everything is on at once. The song is climaxing, and it's about to end. I walk that block in the same way, past the parking garage exit. I see a black car, a small dart of a sports car in the parabolic mirror, and a tiny hitch of doubt stands suddenly at the door of my consciousness. I trust in the canter, and of course--of course!--the car pulls out into a gap in the traffic just before I swagger on past where it was a moment ago. We are part of the same machine, synchronized. Inevitable.
The next corner comes and I turn again. The music has ended, and now I hear and feel my heels engaging with the sidewalk, neither hard nor soft, just there. And there. And there, and there, and now, and now, and now. I roll my shoulders back, relaxed and lively, smooth, lithe, effortless.
It's almost over. A breeze comes up, the sun is at my back, and I turn one more corner and walk into the building, just as a dejected-looking man exits. He stops and holds the door. I smile, and he smiles, too.
One step into the building, and the feeling is gone. It's not a bad feeling; it's the absence of a feeling. Missing. Turning to look at the man, I see him stand up straight and start walking briskly to catch that little white icon on the other side of the intersection, intentional and with purpose. He's riding the strut, owning it, being it, having it.
And I get on with my day. I'm ready.
Copyright © 2010 by Brad Morrison
