Quiet

The city is gonna get quiet soon. My apartment already is. Before i opened the door, i had to remind myself that my roommate's dog wouldn't be running out to greet me like a rock star. My roommate took her with her on the 30-hour drive to Texas. I think i miss them.

My friends seemed to have all slipped out of town. Somehow, December 22nd came more quickly than we expected and all of a sudden it's back home, even though by now, most of my friends consider NYC to be home. Back to old home.

There are still 8 million people in the city, but on this night, made shiny and wet and dark and cinematic by an easy-no-need-for-an-umbrella rain, there is space and silence all around me. I'm not getting a vacation, yet i have a sense that i'm on retreat. What am i retreating from? I have this idea that while my roommate is gone, the apartment will be dimly light and warm. Soft music will whisper from my I-tunes. I'll shuffle around in my white socks, sit in my rocking chair and scribble in my various notebooks. Monks will make a procession, humming and carrying candles. They look me in the eye. The moon will always hang low and big and white. Time won't count; somehow, my apartment will have slipped out of temporality. There's plenty of time for all of it. Time for staying in bed and smoking pot. Time for paying rent. Time for cleaning the apartment. Time for pissing off strangers on the internet. For not knowing what to say. For victims and Buddhism. For knowing what to say and not saying it. And for much more than this.

If i ever stop smoking weed, i hope i manage to continue believing in magic. Not like David Blaine or Copperfield magic. I'm on the brink of something and that is the best kind of magic, like before a kiss or before you come. Magic that feels like that.