Hot Times, Summer in the City
It really has been hotter than a match head here as of late. Snow cone peddlers sneak their way into every crowd, and the tinkling of the ice cream trucks haunts you throughout the day. I feel like they circle like buzzards around the stench of the garbage piled in mountains, rotting on the curb. Normally, the trucks play "Pop Goes The Weasel", but the one in our neighborhood likes to blast out "Silent Night", much to the dismay of all.
The metros are a good fifteen degrees hotter than the streets, and on the rare occasion a cooling rain falls, the water flows along the rails in rivers of sludge and trash. I wake up and shower just to be soaked in sweat by the time the air-conditioned E train rolls down the track.
And then, out of nowhere, a perfectly gorgeous coastal summer breeze comes rolling through, tricking Mr. Mersy and I into thinking that it's not so bad here after all. That's what happened on the Fourth, and we spent an evening watching the fireworks in Brooklyn.
The park around the Brooklyn Bridge was sectioned off into sitting areas fiercely guarded by about a billion anti-terrorist police officers. We brought a blanket, some blueberry fizzy water, and sushi and found a little patch of grass amongst the fifteen million other spectators. But once we had our spot, it didn't feel so crowded any more. That was our patch of grass, our riverbank breeze, our fading evening light.
And then Brooklyn lit up. I cannot do justice to the overwhelming sense of the surrounding metropolis that I felt as we watched the lights come on as dusk fell. Talk about one's sense of "self" disappearing when confronted with such a massive canvas of "other".
And then, bam!
I will never forget it.
~Mersydotes
The metros are a good fifteen degrees hotter than the streets, and on the rare occasion a cooling rain falls, the water flows along the rails in rivers of sludge and trash. I wake up and shower just to be soaked in sweat by the time the air-conditioned E train rolls down the track.
And then, out of nowhere, a perfectly gorgeous coastal summer breeze comes rolling through, tricking Mr. Mersy and I into thinking that it's not so bad here after all. That's what happened on the Fourth, and we spent an evening watching the fireworks in Brooklyn.
The park around the Brooklyn Bridge was sectioned off into sitting areas fiercely guarded by about a billion anti-terrorist police officers. We brought a blanket, some blueberry fizzy water, and sushi and found a little patch of grass amongst the fifteen million other spectators. But once we had our spot, it didn't feel so crowded any more. That was our patch of grass, our riverbank breeze, our fading evening light.
And then Brooklyn lit up. I cannot do justice to the overwhelming sense of the surrounding metropolis that I felt as we watched the lights come on as dusk fell. Talk about one's sense of "self" disappearing when confronted with such a massive canvas of "other".
And then, bam!
I will never forget it.
~Mersydotes
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