adam clayton powell jr. blvd / frederick douglass blvd / central park west

8.49 miles

good morning.

i admit that this entry is a bit belated— i am home for christmas and have been caught up in the joys of home. sleeping for longer than i have the entire semester, finishing finals and non-stop baking cookies ever since, napping and waking up to a full fridge of kimchijigeh and leftovers and cheese.

new york is far away and i don’t miss it,

yet.

the weekend before i left feels worlds away now. a weekend of calling friends, reflective conversations, staying up too late working, staying up too late not working, crying when i realized it was the anniversary of tess majors’ death, in shock over a shooting at st. john the divine, struggling to focus on the smallest thing even while in the library (a blessing to even be in a library), reading each caption and staring at each picture in nyt’s 2020 in photos, and crying in butler ref room.

i cried a lot this semester. i’d like to think of myself as sensitive rather than emotionally unstable, but i am probably lying to myself. there are no tears at home, except for my brother ‘i almost cried but i held it in’ after a particularly tense moment playing cities and knights.

i walked through harlem last saturday, forgetting that i would pass by morningside park to get there, or did i forget? flowers, candles, photographs, more tears… from what i remember, adam clayton powell jr. and frederick douglass boulevards were quite residential. churches and temples of all varieties lined both avenues (a smattering of houses of worship seen above). it was a grey day, but as i walked down central park west, someone streaked a couple of pink smudges across the foggy sky. warm gold glowed from apartment windows.

here are the sights from that foggy walk: flip flops; a man doing a wheelie; white hair not an old person; a woman on the phone with her mom, ‘oh my gosh i didn’t tell you?’; a mailman singing a tune; a drunk man staggering on the sidewalk; lone asian street vendors selling masks of all designs; a protest or a rally; a vibrantly colored hair salon; a father teaching his son how to play basketball; an empty art gallery; langston hughes playground; a young couple hugging tenderly on a street corner; a man and his dog sitting on a hill in central park; a baby in a teddy onesie; the most elegant man dressed in a white fedora and white suit; instagram modelling outside the natural history museum; a really magnificent black velvet dress; street lights flickering on one by one down the street, enchanting; doormen with their gold-embellished uniforms and signature caps; pine leaves and pinecones tucked into the little tree boxes, invisible workers bringing christmas cheer; abe and fred (below); sweet blushing baby cheeks.

it was dark when i got off the subway, as it always is during this season. for the past few months living in this apartment, construction on the building next to ours has on many occasions made me want to scream out the window. i wasn’t trying to find silver linings, but this moment, this photograph, left me standing on the sidewalk for a full minute. a lighthouse in the city. one other person walking, then gone. the scaffolding splitting the amber beam. the primary colors! red, blue, and yellow illuminating the thick mist.