Time and time again

The Cross County Expressway is a parking lot.  Traffic stands still, and wrenching my neck to see beyond the lineup of cars and SUV's ahead, I see no flashing lights, hear no sirens.  I wonder, is it the rain, flooding, that slowed me down?  We all inch closer and closer, advancing a foot or two at a time, till slowly, steadily, I start to move a little faster, the space between cars widening with every minute.  Suddenly the two lanes on my right, taking the Hutchinson Parkway south, are stopped, and I'm flying.  So it is the merging highway, I'm good.

But I've lost some time sitting on that mess of a roadway.  Count it up, once a week, twenty minutes each time, sitting, listening to the news, traffic and weather on the radio repeated over and over.  Even with the same sound bites, so that after a few times, I can recite the news like dialogue in a play or an old Seinfeld episode.

Then the tables turn...... tonight I leash up my dog, Toby, and head out the front walk with her It is around 9:30, and I am expecting the cold damp windy air we've had for the last two or three days. Instead, it is calm, warm, bright.  Almost a full moon, and  gigantic puffy white clouds reflect like street lights on the grass.  I can even still see blue sky even though it is nighttime.  We saunter towards the river -- I live on the Hudson -- and the water is like a lake.  I've gotten into the habit of calling the Hudson River the Hudson Lake or the Hudson Ocean, based on the calmness or white caps it takes on.  Tonight definitely the Hudson Lake.   A lone tug is pushing a barge north.  It is close to my side of the river, where the shipping channel lies, and it is all lit up with golden lights.  The engine is not very loud, but I still hear its chug chug chug.  I am cemented to my spot on the grass near the fence looking out at the river and the Palisades cliffs on the other side.  The moon, the sky, the river, the tug surround me in a peaceful hug.  I could stand here forever letting time go by and never miss an instant of it.  I want to understand why there are times when every second standing still feels like a second lost and other times when the stillness is perfect, wonderful and sadly fleeting.

Toby poops so it is time to pick up and go to the trash.  We take the long way back though, to pass again by the river in time to see the tug way has made its way north -- just a speck of light in the dark water.   What a remarkable way to spend twenty minutes.

“Time keeps on slippin, slippin, slippin
Into the future …”
- Fly Like an Eagle, Steve Miller Band