At the Corner of the Future

On First Avenue in New York city, on a cold and rainy day just before Thanksgiving, I could feel destiny just around the corner. Among the coffee shops and delis, the Christmas tree lots and stores, I sensed a phenomenon, intangible and everywhere, like the floating and twisting fog that darted among the sea of yellow cabs in Manhattan.

I remember standing at the corner, waiting. Waiting for someone. Something, anything. To share an experience; to discover a destiny.  A destiny already written by a a higher hand; one that knows the path of my soul.

Looking up at the soaring buildings and their intersecting fire-escape ladders, they seemed to stretch into the clouds. They reminded me of Lhasa, grand and glorious, its cliff-walls stretching into the mystery and the mist of the Tibetan steppes. Around me, I sensed the city as an incense, its sounds like the soothing and rhythmic chanting of monks.  

For the first time in years, I didn't feel scared. I didn't feel afraid that someone I loved was struggling to stay here - fighting to remain on our conjoined timeline. That they were alone in a hospital bed, trying to stay alive.

I no longer felt that awful shared pain. The pain of desperation and hopelessness.

Walking down First Avenue, my world went from black and white to Kodachrome. To color and clearness. I started to feel the pain and fear fade. Freedom washed over me like the Thanksgiving rain.

It was an inexplicable knowing. As if I had opened The Book of Secrets in a clairvoyant dream.

The secret was that these soul loves don't leave us. They don't. They just shift; like a sideways step. They become a reflective presence - like the mirrored street lights puddled in the intersection of 71st and First. A comforting inverse of the original. A comforting release.

At last, I knew.  As if God had whispered, "It's time, John. Now you know. Be comforted." And then He gently pushed me in the back and said, "It's time to move on, I've got stuff planned for you."

On this First Avenue journey, I didn't feel lonely. There was a presence, announced by the warm and slanting sunlight on my face. A connection. To something, everything, everyone. I wanted to linger at the deli and talk to the cashier. To sit at someone else's table at Starbucks. To step into every store and look for someone I knew.

As I walked along, a felt a hopefulness. A certainty of expectation; that this was the time. That this was a wonderful life.

And that something would happen. I just didn't know when.