It seems people make a big deal out of focusing on the positive, the nice images. So here's one:
Sometime around 4am. The scream-whine of my roommate has knocked me out of sleep again, but I am used to it. The light is climbing, probably already dawn out at Robert Moses Beach on the South Shore. Here the weird new-town buildings across on Roosevelt Island are back-lit by the growing gray white blue. The river is still, changing its mind again before spin-churning either up or down for a tide. No tugs pushing gravel and gas, no cop boats cutting deep Vs with their twin outboards.
And across from me, almost on the windowsill because of the height of the cot they have let her sleep on every night so far, is my wife. Right where I can reach out if I need to. We do that sometimes, in the middle of the night. When night sweats or the roommate pull me out of it, when I have to go measure my pee, when I am just scared and there's nothing to do but be scared. She'll sense it, or I'll move and she'll see me. I reach out from my mechanical bull of a bed. She'll reach out from under our sleeping bag on the cot, and we can just touch hands.
Like that excerpt from Michelangelo. She's the artist, so I guess I'm god. Nice to feel that way as the light grows.
