December 19, 2021 - Today the cold came back by Elizabeth Lerman
The city has gone quiet again and today the cold came back. It is a good time to be buried in books, I think, as I haul a bag home from the library. A good time to think of a life you aren’t living, a time you do not know, a place you have not been. The year is ending and it seems a little too sudden. I am trying to drag out these days, the few of the month we have left, trying to visit as many places in my mind as possible, trying to learn something new, to hone a sense of calm acceptance if I don’t. But I do. I always do in pages piled between bindings, and so, it is a good time to be buried in books, I think. I crack one open, along with a window, so that winter might listen in, and speak out loud the words spilling from its spine.
December 16, 2021 - She looked for a bench to sit down on for just a little while by Jordan Myers
An invitation to dinner arrived by text last night. She has not replied, though she did jump out of her bed and run over to the other side of the room when she heard her phone vibrate and chime. It was long overdue. Not just the invitation and her intentionally delayed reply, but also the sound of the car horns honking outside her window down below and the on again off again then on again hum of her upstairs neighbor’s a/c unit.
It was June. She was tired; and Saturdays were for sleeping. It was noon and she had already been up since eight in the morning, shuffling around her apartment, wiping down countertops and sorting the clothes in her closest between those she’d keep and those she’d haul over the Salvation Army. At first she thought she’d wait until Sunday to reply, but the deeper into Saturday she made it without responding she thought it might be better to wait even longer ––– Wednesday or Thursday. An hour later when she was walking down Tenth Avenue and hauling a bright green bag filled with clothes that were no longer any use to her, she thought it might be best to text back that night. What’s the use of waiting? She thought.
June’s heat was unlike July’s heat. In July she knew she’d never need a sweatshirt or a light jacket, not even at night. June’s question of sweater or no sweater varied; each day was different so she’d always leave the house with a sweatshirt, just in case. Small pieces of Spring and light memories from Spring were still in the air. The frigid morning in the middle of March when they met on the sidewalk outside of his apartment building wasn’t that long ago.
When she told Diana about it the next day over coffee Diana thought she’d made the whole thing up. It sounds like something out of one of your improve classes, Diana had said. And she knew Diana was right, it did sound like something out of an improve class, but it wasn’t. In real life she was walking across Eighteenth Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenue and was carrying a piping hot cup of coffee, which she did not want to wait until she walked back into the office to take the first sip from.
So she looked for a bench to sit down on for a moment–––– not so long that she’d have the entire cup of coffee, but just for long enough so she could take a few sips and relax for a little while. She saw a place on the north side of the street out front of this semi-fancy boutique building with gold-plated revolving glass doors for an entrance. The place looked inviting enough so she sat down there. She had taken her right glove off, set it in her lap, and then took her first sip of coffee. The coffee was still hot and it warmed her up right away. She felt a wave of energy wash over her from the coffee. She might have sighed as she reached up to take off her hat. And that’s when he walked up to the bench where she was sitting and stood there for a few moments beside her.
December 15, 2021 - Two cups of coffee by Jordan Myers
Two cups of coffee
the autumn window
the sound of a vespa
zipping by fast below
December 13, 2021 by Jordan Myers
At night we found a ledge in Tompkins Square
where we could sit and write and read and talk
December 12, 2021 - Last night I was on a beach by Elizabeth Lerman
Last night I was on a beach, the one I always visit in my dreams, a chaotic combination of all my favorite shores - a scattering of Northeast woods leading down to the water, greenblue ocean surrounded by Railay’s rocks and a crowded strip of sand that screams California coast. Life seems to be speeding up, flashing by faster than usual. More repetition too, more muddled, blended moments. Maybe because it’s winter, more night, more sleep, more dreams, more this has already happened and how many times has this happened. I guess it doesn’t really matter how many times we live a life if we only remember one version. What is more powerful, I wonder - memory or the perception of memory, time or the perception of time?
December 11, 2021 - Skyways seen from a distance by Jordan Myers
Those whispers from the city lights remind me
of skyways seen from a distance over that trip
out west we took in the spring: the year we spoke
every other day after the sunsets for the first time
December 10, 2021 - Time could always stretch across the seasons in that way by Jordan Myers
“You go to Chinatown for tea,” she said, “not coffee.” As though anyone who went to Chinatown in search of a macchiato would make an unforgivable assault against the neighborhood, as well as the entire island of Manhattan. Two weeks later, a miracle happened: I was alone and walking on a Saturday afternoon down Essex Street toward the F Train. It was October –––– one of those days where if you could just close your eyes for a while; and just notice the wind against your face for long enough; you could convince yourself that it was a quiet and bright morning in May. Time could always stretch across the seasons in that way. She’d always say that tea was one thing and espresso was something else entirely. Not a caffeinated beverage, but an outright cultural betrayal. She enjoyed the drama. I enjoyed my cappuccino.
December 9, 2021 - I think the Raptors were in town but it could have been Milwaukee by Jordan Myers
There is a coffee shop on Mercer Street a few blocks south of Washington Square Park. I remember writing letters to you from there several years ago. Each one of the letters I kept to myself, though once I stopped by the post office on Eighth Avenue ––– the one across the street from Madison Square Garden. It was December and freezing. I remember how night fell and everywhere around me, left and right, people would walk by in Knicks jerseys and t-shirts that they’d keep in sight –––– blue and orange on display within the lines between their unzipped coats. I think the Raptors were in town but it could have been Milwaukee. I remember taking off my gloves so that I could pull the key from the front pocket of my bag, so that I could lock my bike around a green metal pole that held up a no parking sign. It took a little while to unlock the chain because of the cold and the rust, but eventually, I got it. After that I walked up the giant steps and went through the revolving doors. It felt good to be inside again, the warmth. There was no line at all so I didn’t have to wait. I just walked right up to the window, and bought a book of stamps.
December 7, 2021 by Jordan Myers
We were meant to meet on west 54th Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenue on the last Friday of October at 7:30pm. The holidays lights were glowing, and I was running thirty minutes late; the F train’s signal had malfunctioned, that was all. You were waiting for a while beneath the awning between west 54th and west 55th, reading the letter that I wrote four weeks before and sent to you two weeks ago ––– something about parallel imaginations shared between two people who live in two different cities ten years apart from each other though still at the same time. The whole evening was crazy, and once I got to the awning and saw you and saw the holiday lights strung around the plastic trees, it started raining. Rain happens. We got over it. 8:00pm and everything still remained possible. October’s last light would flicker a few more times here and there, but that would be all ––– and that would be more than enough. We didn’t need anything else.
December 6, 2021 - The sun west 53rd by Jordan Myers
Fast forward
the city bright
with spring
the sun
west 53rd /
sunglasses
& iced coffee
December 5, 2021 by Elizabeth Lerman
I heard an old song tonight - one I used to love, one I still love, apparently. I play it again and again, so warm in the memory that when I step outside the rain is unexpected. Not heavy, not threatening, but still falling and still a surprise to me. It’s even more quiet than usual out here and I’m not sure if it’s the late hour or the rain or both but it’s just me and the music, a song I haven’t thought of in so long suddenly filling up the night, giving it new depth, new dimension. Words from fifteen years ago remind me of who I was then, who I am now, and the surreality that they are one person, singing along to the same tune. Another circle that has completed its course, its rounds resolved. I smile when I hear the heavy cord strokes I had long forgotten and all the softness thereafter.
December 2, 2021 - Henry Street sounded like an alarm clock by Jordan Myers
The whole world beneath the Manhattan Bridge was washed out and imaginary. We felt this every Saturday when you’d wake up early and start pacing around the kitchen looking for the green tea. Check the pantry beside the refrigerator, I’d say. Henry Street sounded like an alarm clock, the rumble of the train more steady and often as the sun took its time, rising higher and higher above the city and toward the sky.
December 1, 2021 - A marathon of emotions by Jordan Myers
The city is inexhaustible, but those who live there can be exhausted. And that’s what makes someone a New Yorker: their level of inexhaustibility –––– how many more just one more things they can bear. New York is easy to fall in love with because it promises so much, and because it delivers on those promises so faithfully ––– but only after so long. And by long, I do not mean a great amount of time.
Even when one finds all that she hoped to find from living in the city very early on –––- say within the first few months –––– still, it will have been a long road to get there, a marathon of emotions. You cannot run the whole race in one breath. Try, and the city will leave you, hands on your knees and panting heavily at the edge of the Jersey side of the Holland Tunnel, waiting for a light within your soul to heal and turn green. Just rest, so that you may go at it again.
