Je me souviens.
I remember waking up early. My room was tidy and compact – tall ceilings, steam radiators, a flat-screen TV against the opposite wall. The early dawn light outlining a window shade on my left, and bathroom door to my right. I remember laying in bed, savoring the glow of the previous day. Those memories still so fresh, so vivid. I could have laid there for hours, but the new day calls out – seize me, drink me in, make me yours. Life can be beautiful, grab it with both hands and never let go.
I slide out of bed, pull on my running gear and head out of the room, down the steep front staircase, through the lacquered wooden doors and breathe the cool early morning air. It’s sunrise Sunday and this city still sleeps.
Left or right?
Left, I think. I’ll make a loop and come back on the other side. Seems like a good plan. And so, I turn left and begin jogging down the broken sidewalk, past the road construction with its dirt and orange safety cones, past the faded brick mansions and manors to my left and flowering, budding trees in the park on my right. I like the feel of this new place.
The April sun rises behind me. My shadow long and lean leads the way past blocks of rambling Victorians with properly manicured lawns or stores and restaurants with big windows and bright awnings. I recognize some of them. There is the CVS I bought the pack of razors and small can of shaving cream. I talked with the young guy behind the counter about shaving off my beard less than 12 hours ago. He and I practically have a relationship! And there’s the little movie theater we visited for a bathroom break! See, this new place is beginning to feel familiar.
At an triangle intersection I turn right and head back the way I came but at an angle. The sunlight warms my face. A few blocks down the street the architecture shifts. Columned institutional buildings sprawl and dominate. Stately homes give way to two and three-story apartment buildings with no lawns. Mandala tapestries hang over windows in lieu of curtains. Empty beer cans and pizza boxes cram plastic trash bins, or lie strewn about nearby.
I maintain my pace and continue straight back into the heart of the city. It’s still early. A single car passes by occasionally on streets and fewer people at this hour. A prim older woman with sunglasses and a broad brimmed hat marches resolutely in the same direction. Church perhaps? A hollering black man follows a ratty white teenager slouching down the center of the street. The teen turns and yells something back but the pair never change their pace or distance from one another. They look like … well, I don’t know actually. Should I stop? Neither looks like they’d appreciate my intervention. I press on.
Blocks later, I come to the corner of the big park in the center of town – the one we roamed and explored the previous day. I lead my shadow past beautiful brick and brownstone homes. I’ve hours to kill and keep my pace slow and steady until I arrive at the jarring modern plaza – all gleaming white stone, symmetrical towers, straight lines and abstract shapes. How far have I come? Two miles? Three? Three, I think. My face burns from all the shaving last night, and my body aches, but in a good way. For the first time in a long time, I feel good, really good – deep, deep-down good.
I hang another right and walk across that modern plaza past the long reflecting pool, up the flights of concrete steps and back out onto the street that’ll take me back to my room. For the sheer joy of it, I run as fast as I can back to the mansion, my mansion with its many rooms to explore.
Sweaty, exhausted I head to the kitchen – “Help yourself to anything!” my hosts declare. I grab juice and yogurt, muffins, and fruit for two. I don’t need coffee right now, I’ve got energy to spare and butterflies in my belly. Maybe later.
Back in my room, I flop on the big bed and think about the future – the soon and the distant. And I wonder if I’ve clogged the sink with all the hair I removed from my face the previous evening. No matter. I’ll work it out somehow.
Down the hall, behind a closed door a woman begins to softly, rhythmically moan.
La vie n’est-elle pas belle?