Sunshine, glorious sun streams over the front yard. It’s only 53 degrees but it feels like a slice of Heaven. We curl up in jeans and hoodies on the porch…the wind chimes bang wildly, madly in the sunny wind.
He’s listening to Salsa Vieja…a song about having fun in New York in the summer. I close my eyes in the sun and think about New York…those blistering sidewalks in August, the surging life steam rising off the walls. Eating an early dinner at The Heights on Broadway or feeling the energy at the dreadful time of 4am as we watch workers hustle to load supplies into a diner…they disappear through a rectangular hole in the sidewalk…up and down stairs at a 90 degree angle. Moving, lifting, swinging, shouting, sweating heavily, so fast, so fast…slamming the heavy metal doors…boom.
In a flash, they climb in and the large white truck lurches out fast at an angle. They’re gone. It’s 4:45am.
I wonder when we will go back.
I open my eyes and look out from the porch to the street. A few neighbors walk by, walking dogs, waving cautiously…people we don’t know, but we sense we are all in this together. ‘The ghosts are coming out’ he states simply. ‘The ghosts?’ I ask. He responds, ‘All the people we have never seen’.
The wind picks up again, slamming the chimes against the painted posts. It’s so fierce.
Blowing ghosts and viruses around…
690 Saint Paul 