Dear Ghost,
Nightmares. You were in them. The rain fell hard all morning. I waited around til 1pm to run and so at 1pm I ran.
20 vertical feet of opaque fog sits on the Hudson River like too much waxy icing on a cake. The water is eerily still as if it is keeping a secret, peppered with light rainfall that whispers “I know what you’re hiding and I still love you.”
I am running, running, running out onto Pier 34, which houses the industrious Holland Tunnel ventilation building. It is funneling breathable air into the 96 year old passage to New Jersey and I am shaking at the knees.
Everything is a shade of gray besides the rusted gates at the end of the pier and the periwinkle bill of my hat.
Time warp. Oil tanker. Foghorn…
The ship creeps through the fog like I’ve crept through periods of my life – all stealth until detonation. Its ghastly horn goes off every few minutes. Each blow pushes me further back in time and further into luck. Who am I that this should be where I am and how I am in this moment or in any that have already passed?
Sometimes I imagine you once walked the old wooden piers along the river that have long since been replaced. The dark old timber still juts up from the water, upholding now only what once was and would could have been.