i got off the A train at 181st street around midnight last night.
from the train platform to the entrance of the street is nine stories. you can choose to take the stairs or long escalator up.
i hurried off the train last night, toward the towering, long escalator, and found myself in step behind a taller man, blond, dressed in an impeccable suit. and walking behind him i thought, this man reminds me of someone.
but i couldn't put my finger on it. couldn't dislodge it from that proverbial tip of a very real tongue.
it started to drive me nutty, who does this person remind me of? it wouldn't come. there were murky images and half-formed thoughts, but still, even now this morning as i sit with my coffee, a lit spiced egg-nog candle just off to my side, i haven't really a clue.
the strongest thought or sense or notion, is more that it's someone i've yet to meet. not the man i followed behind, this really has nothing to do with him, it's that he reminds me of someone i've yet to meet.
nonsense.
and yet.
not.
i don't know.
it's been happening a lot lately. this pervasive feeling that i have exciting news to share and then thinking, well, what is it? and coming up blank.
everything feels so on the cusp. just over the ridge. beyond that next hill. so close--closer than ever before.
but what if it's not?
you know when you've can hear a really great song in your own mind? and it sounds so good rattling around up there that you attempt to sing it aloud. it's clear as a bell to you, perfectly crystallized, but when it comes out, oh dear, hideous. the journey between your mind and the mouth, the surfacing that has to happen, it distorts, mistranslates.
i feel like that's where i am: a song surfacing. coming through water for air. on the way up, so very near to the surface. but what comes out, well, that has yet to be seen.
it could be nothing short of disaster.
or not.
i don't know.
i just feel like i'm nearing the end of this nine-story-long-escalator. and as for my sense of what's waiting at the top when i get off? murky, half-images, at best.