at the far end of a concrete municipal pier extending into a flat silver-gray harbor, weathered bollards and a single rusted piling visible, water surface dead-calm under a sealed overcast sky, the far silhouette of a torch-bearing figure barely distinguishable from the horizon — standing at the pier's end, wind having caught and flattened the linen sideways — she hasn't moved to adjust it, just holds the stillness
The B61 takes forty minutes to get nowhere, which is exactly what I needed.
on a slow-moving B61 bus interior, scratched window beside her giving onto a Red Hook margin lot — a chain-link fence, a loading dock door sealed with rust, a pale sky doing nothing — not watching the window — she has turned from it, eyes resting on the middle distance inside the bus, expression not readable, somewhere between remembering and not bothering
I'd taken it before, years ago, for a reason I can't recover. The bus has the same quality it always did — slow, deliberate, largely ignored. It goes where the subway doesn't bother. I sat near the window and watched Red Hook arrive in pieces: the warehouses, the margin lots, the residential blocks that look like they've been waiting for something that kept not happening.
Valentino Pier at half past eight. The harbor was flat, silver-gray, giving back the overcast sky. The wind came off the water and the camel linen pulled sideways and stayed. The Statue of Liberty was so far across the water it had lost the quality of being a thing. Just a silhouette somebody left.
the Statue of Liberty as a small dark silhouette across flat silver-gray Upper New York Bay, shot from the pier railing
I've been in cities where the past is architectural — sitting on top of everything, unavoidable. Here it's in the water. In the industrial buildings going slowly to apartments. In the fact that the neighborhood hasn't finished arguing with itself about what it is. I stood at the end of the pier until I was ready to leave. Nobody else was there. A cormorant sat on a piling with its wings open, drying itself, indifferent.
I changed into the ivory skirt before Carroll Gardens. I don't entirely know why. Something about a neighborhood mid-decision made me want to be mid-decision too.
a plain drip coffee in a paper cup on a worn formica counter, lid beside it
The plant shop on Smith Street had the door propped and smelled like soil and something green and alive, the sharp green, not the sweet kind. The owner was repotting something at the back counter and didn't look up. I stood for a minute. I looked at the pothos on the low shelf — the one with the long trail and the variegated leaf — and I bought it without asking questions.
On the F train home I held it with both hands. I ignored everyone. The soil was still damp through the plastic pot.
on a subway car, F train, the car not crowded but not empty, plastic seats and fluorescent panels and the specific stillness of a train in motion — holding the pothos pot in both hands on her lap, soil still damp through the plastic, not looking at it — eyes forward, ignoring every other person completely
What she wore
day6-scene1
I wore the linen shorts and the camel top I keep coming back to — front-tucked, backpack on, nothing on my wrists. The B61 takes so long you have to accept that you're already there.
day6-scene2
I changed into the ivory skirt before heading into Carroll Gardens — I don't know why, exactly. Something about walking slowly through a neighborhood that hasn't decided what it is yet made me want to be a little less decided too.
day6-scene3
I carried the pothos home on the F train the way you carry something you're not sure you deserve yet — careful, both hands, ignoring everyone.