The Upper East side is so quiet on this Yom Kippur morning. The people I do see are well dressed, happy, and crooning over their pumpkin colored strollers. An old couple eat bananas outside the Jewish Museum...casually talking and peeling away with content. I smell leaves for the first time...one would never think that the smell of decaying plants and the taste of warm pumpkin spice would mix so well...But here I am...enjoying every sensation around and within me. I have my orange knit hat on and i'm ready for fall. On the nice days, all of New York comes through the park. Homeless men remove their shirts and take their annual bath in the sun's rays, yogis take their mats to grass, and everyone shoves their feet into sneakers and tries to keep their summer body for a bit longer. A woman bounces and dances on the latest fitness trend in New York. Why people feel the need to attach 8-inch springs to the bottom of their sneakers still baffles me...but the heavily tanned man in the purple shorts and red hat, doing squats next to her, doesn't seem phased.
My body is humming with the warm caffeine but my breath is calm as I breath in sun-dappled leaves and exhale the pale green sunlight onto these pages. The Shakespeare garden is like a little hovel of history and subtle romance. I thank Alice Greenhauff Gross for gracing the world in some positive way so I could sit on "her" bench. Of course, maybe she was just very rich...I'll look her up. :)
