She Left Me Roses By The Stairs

Dancing was her passion, more than anything. Her sister played, and she danced, and Graham sometimes sang. The faded black top hat made the rounds of their audience, and when they did well Alis always made sure that she got a bit of a treat.

Sometimes, it was as simple as a coveted bit of sweets, sometimes they would get to go out for a night, the three of them together. Sometimes it was a new skirt of scarf, or even once, a ridiculous hat that she'd wanted.

It sometimes reminded her of their father, and the way they had both always come running to his arms when he had that certain look. He never could keep a secret from his little girls, especially when it was a good one. When they were doing well, when he could still work, when they could still get pennies and sometimes more from the rest of the caravan with their playing.

Meg still misses him, and she is certain that , wherever her sister is, she won't forget about her life here. She's sure that Alis could never forget Papa, of Graham, or herself.

But she's worried that Alis won't find her way back home again, with them always on the move.

Her bow dances across the strings of her fiddle, voice raised to carry, one booted foot tapping out the beat.

""Kalinka, kalinka, kalinka maya," she sings. Words not her native tongue but once taught to her in the form of song. She has sped it up slightly from some of the more traditional versions for the purposes of dancing.

So far the audience is enjoying it, dance and drink, food and merriment carrying for once no resentment of silence and loneliness to come after.

She has found someone, now. Maybe she doesn't love him quite the way she loved Graham, maybe she is trying very hard to still believe she does not love him at all, but one day she will admit it to herself. For now it is enough just to be overly fond of him and enjoy her time in his presence.

Even if he is a fedora.

Boxes, books, moving, packing.

A million times helping a friend move, clean, pack. Always so much fun to play, chat, discover. Momentary lapse, timer that ticks away the seconds moments instead of letting them go by in silence. Impatient little thing, chugging away, tick-tick-tick, the sound of boxes being filled. The smell of dust and books, and occasionally a cat will wander by and gaze distrustfully.

Who am I? Why am I here among their things moving packing being talking?

Scattered things about, waiting. One thing at a time, box by box. It is only three floors down and along a hallway that these objects are being relocated.

Move, shift, travel, work, play.

After we finish for the day perhaps we will go out, have dinner and drinks and walk the two blocks back.

Tomorrow will be short and early, on a ferry in the afternoon to go with family, to enjoy that company.

Structure
Building
Brick building
Post Office

The old red brick post office at the end of the road

Structure
Building
Statue
The Statue of Liberty

Lady Liberty, standing tall and proud; a gift on our shores.

Remember the city, the way it once was. Remember the lights you would use to find your way home in the rapidly cooling desert night. Remember the love in the air, the feeling of belonging. A city of strangers, all of them here for similar reasons. Every single one of you becomes the city, creates the city, lives in the city, and when you all leave it is as though the city never was. All the remains is dust and wind and the feeling of that love soaked into the ground.

Piecemeal, the city grows one person at a time, one beautiful stranger after another.

Dance, there, in the pounding music in the desert night. Surrounded by the city that truly never sleeps, allow yourself to be lulled to dreams on the distant sound of revelry and awake as the morning becomes too warm. Step out into the softness of morning, the heat of daytime sun, the drowsy daylight company. Pass by strangers and friends alike in a haze, in a daze of wonder at all that came before and all that is yet to come.

Remember your dreams of the desert. Remember the city of dreams in the desert.

Remember to go home again.

There is no such thing as a true silence, except within sensory deprivation. There is always some sound, even if it is so commonplace in the background that we now consider it to be among the silence.

The humming of a refrigerator in the middle of the night, the breath of a sleeping lover, the creaks and pops of a settling house, the crackle and snap of a water heater clicking on to heat the water for your morning shower. These all comprise a sort of mundane silence.

The quiet of an early morning (or a very late night) before the sun is even beginning to peek over the horizon, walking in the silence of a sleeping city. The far-off hum of those few cars at such an hour, the barely-audible buzz of streetlamps and a passing neon sign.

These are all the best kinds of not-quite silences, to me.