Usually I get a line in my head, some way to begin. Instead I notice the presence of a feeling; I see a series of representations (memories, images); none of them give me any clarity.

(Standing up to look through the train window on my way to work. Three-thirty, on a Friday, groggy at my desk. Eating blueberries on a humid morning in the summer. The revolving door, the release into the indifferent 5th Avenue crowd, making eye contact with a stranger, wondering if they are a tourist, wondering if they are wondering about us: the people who have jobs in that skyscraper.)

I live in the middle of a long change. (Do I ever not?) It will not be like this forever. (I continue to remind myself.) But these images—memories—representations—are just particles of the past. They offer no springboard, no evidence, no nervous hope, no clarity.

So I remain confused by the presence of a feeling, and I remain confused by my own presence, standing on this corner, gazing down on the street from the window of the express bus. Before I was content to just be here, to accept what might be given, to take all possible fragments of inspiration. To wonder what I might do with it. 

Now it feels like I should not be here unless I can offer something back.

I’m told from disparate sources and not quite directly: the last place to love New York is from above.

A subway ad tells me. Did you know some of the ads are screens now, and they change? The first time I see the screens, I am transfixed, despite myself. I watch a chocolate cake being made in a spotless gray void; four seconds later I find out there are updated bus routes in the Bronx. Then the next ad: this is what I’m talking about: a new attraction. One can now climb the outside of 30 Hudson Yards on a massive staircase, angled 45 degrees, wearing a helmet and harness. Twelve hundred feet above the ground. “City Climb.” Once you reach the top, you lean back, and enjoy the view. A sort of trust-fall into the waiting city. 

All of these recent mid-air entertainments tell me the same thing. At the top of One Vanderbilt, there’s a room full of mirrors, where one can take photos and look out of floor-to-ceiling windows. I know this because I’ve seen the picture on Instagram, with different people in the center, at least five times. Come up here and gaze. Survey the kingdom. (Television, of course, an original purveyor of this story—panning shots, glossing blocks. How beautiful.) 

Though I haven’t been to these attractions, I understand. Looking down and across, the city stretches in every direction, clean and permanent. There is potential in these streets, too far away to touch. Perhaps you too will walk on that one, or that one, or that one. Possibilities are in the windows. So many windows, leading to so many rooms, where anything could happen. 

I thought about this in a cab one night, looking at windows. It was raining. At night especially, I like looking at windows. But down here, through the rain, from a cab, I find that windows are not possibilities (a sagging plant—a collection of stuffed animals—a glimpse of a kitchen sink—a folded piece of cardboard blocking the gap caused by an AC unit). They are realities.