View From Our Window by Peter Crosby
Barcelona time floats on little wispy vitreous planes like lying on your back in summer in the park looking up at your lashes. Days hover and pass, hover and pass. Nobody here but us chickens. One of us, uncharacteristically stolid, comes alive in brambles of buildings, rushing cars, people peddling ideas, as well as on the carapace of a green rolling hill, a group of whispering trees, another green rolling hill. The other of us, also restless, is well suited to a backpack and a compass, lots of leg room for long strides but also with longings to circle back to ties and traditions familiar and grounding. Both of us, eating and drinking, friends and family. More places. More structures. More finished, fully realized products of our imagination.
December 25th, Turkey goes down nicely with brussel sprouts and sausage wrapped in bacon like a heart attack. Double string of lights on the tree. One red. One white. I make Pecan pie for the first time. He cooks the entire meal, ‘salé’ while I do sweet. It’s the three of us. Two newlyweds at the table. One dog underneath. I have a new white watch. He has a new pair of pants. My longtime companion lays a paw on the fuzzy multi-colored new ball she got as a gift, steadying it as she licks it. Peter periodically opens the french doors and points his camera at the empty square with the occasional guardia civil riding by on a moped or group of boys bouncing a ball against the old sinks on the back wall of the market.
There’s an echo that blends into the whir of relative silence.
“Can you close the door? I’m cold.”
The dishwasher is going. We watch Black Swan in the dark as the Christmas lights keep time with the rinse cycle.
“Let’s go somewhere. Rent a place for six months in the woods.”
He thinks again. “Maybe not. I won’t earn any money.”
Our collective nature and our individual nature is to press against the glass. We both want to run and topple the buildings with the wide arc of our footfall.
It’s Sunday now. All the gift wrapping’s been bagged and put by the door. We watch Back to the Future on Blue-ray in the morning light. Pecan Pie and coffee in bed. In the afternoon, we move on to Buried and feel smothered by the premise as we digest Turkey and stuffing self-served on black ceramic platters.
“Do snakes ever live in tunnels?”
“Let me check.”
“Stop the film. Google map Interstate 395 and Route 8.”
The movies end and he stands up, stretches, and yawns.
“I remember your mother has a place in the woods,” he says.
“Yeah it’s the size of our living room with no heat.”
“So. Let’s go there. Hide ourselves away.”
“We’re hidden away here.”
“And work. You write. I’ll take pictures. and we’ll kill each other,” he jokes.
He retreats to the couch and I pick up the computer to type this.
We both want to go there. Inertia is being caught in a waterfall. You need to reach the water and bob along and see what’s what. Catch a limb, float on your back, check to see if there’s roaming, or build a campfire on the shore and scheme again.
-Chauncey Zalkin
Christmas 2010
Photo by Peter Crosby
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