Four Years Later

I rode the J train over the bridge into Manhattan yesterday. It was so clear and bright and gorgeous outside...one of those rare and perfect late summer days that make the city seem newer and cleaner somehow. People seem friendlier, further from their troubles...it's hard not to revel in everything about New York on days like that. In the middle of winter's life-sucking, miserable cold, it's the thought of those types of days that keep us Northeasters from packing up and moving to Florida once and for all.

As I was looking out over the water and the apartment houses and offices and billboards and washlines and cars and scads of wandering people, a thought that's hit me too many times in the past three years entered my mind once again:

I still can't believe that I'm here and they're not.