Walking the walk

The lights on the George Washington Bridge hang like twinkling green Christmas tinsel on the posts of a picket fence. I am standing on the western bank of Manhattan island, leaning on the railing of Riverside Park. The stars above yield to the lights of the cities that line the Jersey shore and illuminate the waters of the Hudson River below. He does not see the tears in my eyes as I first see those green lights dangling from that far-off bridge.

The sight is so beautiful I cry.

We come to a dock where a collection of houseboats and aging yachts rock gently on the current. They look like the birds that live on the backs of rhinos, perched on the spine of the beast that is Manhattan, but not fully immersed in the toil of its life. The people in this little floating trailer park take to their plank sidewalks barefoot, a treacherous prospect in the dog-populated walkways of the city just yards beyond the trees.

The man who walks with me this night is like me, except that his form of brilliance is more evident and bankable than my own. He has an exhaustive interpretive grasp of the energies that flow in the form of television channels. I am a walking, talking, interpretive channel of the energies that flow in the form of human emotion. Most consider him brilliant, and merely eccentric for his proclivity for wearing skirts when he wears anything at all. About three out of 10 people consider me brilliant, while the rest seem to judge my excesses as fodder for psychological correction. Three out of 10 grows lonely at times, so I celebrate every kindred soul I encounter.

This kindred soul has been married for 22 years. I marvel at such love. I presume it's like an old shoe - familiar, comforting, certain. I presume because I don't know. I don't know because I can't seem to keep my shoes on. I've had quite a few shoes over the years. Some were good for dancing, running, leaping or just standing around looking impressive. Some I wish I would have kept. Others I should have never tried on. Mostly, I just seem to wind up barefoot, like the dock people in the Hudson River houseboats.

Old shoes, my friend informs me, require constant care. Laces break, leather splits and souls need mending. Old shoes have to be polished, protected and shined. For old shoes to always feel like they do when you first come to love them, you have to be careful where you walk. If you walk them through too many rain-filled gutters or greasy, tar-soaked streets, you will spend them like a tarnished dime that was really a teardrop of antique silver worth more than money can buy.

Above the the river and the white city lights beyond, a pale green orb floats laconically - the Fuji Film blimp, set free from its duty at the U.S. Open in Flushing Meadows. In the dark waters below, a discarded styrofoam coffee cup dances by on the little wing tips of the gentle tidal current. We watch in silence, drinking in the cool mist of the river air with great heaves of hungry lungs, then we turn to walk back into the giant concrete beehive where we both work and live. He will go to a home he shares and take out his Kiwi wax and polishing cloth. I will return to my one-woman studio, kick off my sandals the second I close my door and leave them lie on the floor wherever they land.

Monday, September 13, 1999

Copyright 2010 by Deborah McAdams. All Rights Reserved. For Reprint Rights, click here.