My Writing Tree

So, this is my writing tree.  I don't sit under it, with my back scratching up against the bark. I sit next to it and, if I opened the window, I could touch the leaves.

In the winter, when it's bare, that space of white you see in the upper left, is the Manhattan skyline, and I can see the crisp edge of lights from the Freedom Tower. I can see the neighbor's terrace across the way and I watch as they move their plants from behind the sliding doors and, another day, back again, in a ritual I can not understand. I wonder, as I watch, if they see me, laptop balanced on my knees, my back propped against a pillow my mother knitted me.

But now my tree is green with a few patches of brick against the spine of each branch. When the sky is crayon blue it looks like someone painted it just for me.

What do you see from where you are?

Progress: The Tallest

It is the building to the left of the flowering purple. (I had to find a way to mark it.)

I live near the waterfront, along the East River, just before Brooklyn hooks and bends. I run this route very often, over and over again, to the Brooklyn Bridge and back.  It is hard to tire of the Manhattan skyline.  There is nothing like it.  When I come home from time away, when I sit in traffic on the Brooklyn Queens Expressway or dip down into Laguardia or Kennedy airport, this is what I see.  It never fails to take my breath away.

This morning, when I ran, I decided to bring my camera and stop for a photograph.  Because it is official.  On Tuesday the Freedom Tower became the tallest building in Manhattan.  It has crept past the Empire State Building and it will grow taller still.

This, I think, is progress.  Slow. Steady. Unseen. And then, one day, a day like any other, chin-yanking, heart-stopping tall.