Once recent afternoon I walked the two blocks to my waterfront park for a work break. The Hudson River beckons most days and I strive to never take it for granted. I work from home and try to always step away from the computer after a particularly long stretch of writing, researching or coaching.
It’s autumn in the Northeast and this was one of those gray days where it never rained even though it looked like it might; the sun was trying to peek through the clouds. I grabbed my recently acquired volume of the Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson and set out to spend some time reading on a bench.
When I reached Pier C, a beautifully laid out park that juts into the water, I was drawn to the round, stone seats along the edge. After I settled into my spot, I slowly realized that what I had before me was a cloud show. In every direction.
To the left, over the George Washington Bridge, the sky was mostly light gray mottled with some white. In front of me, as a backdrop to the Empire State Building, it was much lighter. To the right, where the Verrazano Bridge is in the distance, it was charcoal with a blast of light trying to break through the clouds.
I was transfixed.
At times I would turn my entire body in another direction on the round seat just to see if the colors and the light had shifted. I am inclined to enjoy looking at clouds, but I can’t recall ever being this focused on them for an extended period of time. It felt like my own personal show, like I’d rented out a movie theater just to let it take me somewhere for a while.
Even more mesmerizing than all of what was around me was the sight directly above me. Brilliant blue sky with wispy white clouds surrounded by encroaching gray. It was as if there was a circular window into the blue splendor. My thoughts went right to the divine, all the art we see depicting heaven, paradise, an alternate universe. This is how so many of us imagine it, isn’t it?
I started to open the book I’d brought, but couldn’t draw my eyes away from the sky. There was movement and then light rays piercing clouds. Minutes ticked by. Nearly an hour I sat and stared. It did bring to mind a Dickinson poem I had read earlier, though:
I many times thought peace had come,
When peace was far away;
As wrecked men deem they sight the land
At centre of the sea,
And struggle slacker, but to prove,
As hopelessly as I,
How many the fictitious shores
Before the harbor lie.
It is days like this when I know peace has come, whether for an hour or an afternoon. All I need to do is let it in, be with it, let it take me for a little while.
I have a favorite t-shirt that says “Live right now” in big, bold letters. I believe that wholeheartedly. This is how I walk my talk.
By: Nancy Colasurdo
