Flight Down Memory Lane

I stopped.

I stopped because I was procrastinating. Procrastinating to prepare myself for what the day held in store. It was in that moment of stillness that I turned to look out the bedroom window.

From across the alleyway I saw a pigeon sitting in the neighbor's flower pot, just beneath their windowsill. The bird shook its feathers, cooing and cawing. It was an insanely mundane sight. But I was flashed immediately back to my old apartment on Spring Street.

There I stood, an innocent at 23 years old, in the window of my former home, staring slack-jawed at my fire escape as a bird's nest appeared, twig by twig, another branch each day.

Perplexed, amazed, I'd become it's daily watchman. I hadn't yet seen an actual bird touch down. But the proof of her work was incontrovertible. A home was beginning to form.

It was truly a magic day when finally, finally... three tiny eggs arrived.

Over that sparkling summer a million things changed. Only one of which was witnessing the mother bird at last. Some time later, her babies hatched. That was just around the time that Matt arrived. But by Autumn both he and they were gone.

Only Matt returned that next summer, a Graduate from College, for what seemed to be forever... The birds, on the other hand, I never saw again.

It is now 2008 and summer arrives once more. As usual, it's gonna be a scorcher. I say, give me spring for eight months straight if possible. I could wander the streets of Manhattan in these temperate breezes until the end of time.

But as The Byrds themselves sang. "To everything- turn, turn, turn. There is a season- turn, turn, turn."

We all turn. We're turning as a culture. As a country. As a people. Each of us adapts to life's obstacles and barriers in our own way. In essence, each adapts to life itself.

I miss and don't miss that old bird's nest. I miss and don't miss my apartment on Spring Street. I miss and don't miss that time of ultimate innocence.

I'll always miss Matt. But I'm getting to the point where I no longer miss what we had. The destructiveness of being in love with an addict is bafflingly painful. And by the end, he seemed more in love with his addictions than with me.

There is no turning back the clock on life. We can return to streets and cities, but it will never be the same. It's because of this, I think, that we're so lucky for those little reminders, however fleeting or obscure.

A bird. Well, a pigeon I suppose, perching in a neighbor's flower pot. A vast expanse of memories. All mine. Washing in and out on the shore of consciousness, as impermanent as sand, a nest, the flap of a wing, sunlight, memories and life itself.