Soft Walking.

I tell Philip I’ll be back soon, as I do every night when I leave. We both know I’m lying.

I trudge off, as if it’s my job, wearing the sneaker-boots that kept popping into my feed, billed as “boots so comfortable you can walk in them all day.” They are. And I could.

I walk west toward the elephants.

The Herd of Elephants in the Meatpacking District, is my favorite exhibit in ages, because it’s outside and takes no effort. Each elephant is made by an artisan from reeds that were endangering India’s real elephants. I don’t think that’s a proper explanation, but suffice it to say that the reeds were bad and they turned them good.

I visit the elephants so often, and with such a proprietary nature, it’s almost weird. Maybe it’s because I happened to be walking by on the night they were delivered.

The elephants on the evening of their arrival.

I make my way to the High Line, and find it amazing, as I do each night, that just going up a flight of stairs can change everything. People lounge on the chaises near the 14th Street entrance and a sense of sweetness seems to overcome them as they look toward the river. Sometimes I plop down and join the loungers, but I usually walk, always to music.

God, I love my earbuds.

They enable me to create my own little music videos - ones that will never be seen by anyone but me.

I play Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky” watching two guys embrace. One takes the other’s face in his hands and they gaze lovingly at each other, the way you do when you’re newly in love. A 5-year-old stands on a bench, shooting her arms into the air in a victory pose as her father takes a picture.

I walk on, stopping so a stranger can take a shot of a family that poses in front of the wild purple flowers that line the walkway. The parents lean their heads toward each other as one of the kids makes a peace sign and the other tries to look cool, but breaks into a smile.

I bop my head as Pharell sings and don’t even remotely care that I look goofy. It’s different up here - as if we all signed an agreement to leave our snark downstairs, the way people toss their flip flops off before walking onto the beach.

I fiddle with my phone and find a new song. Mick and Keith sing “Salt of the Earth,” and I think of my friend Danny because it’s his favorite. Keith warbles “Let’s drink to the hard-working people,” and I’m forced to slow my pace for the same reason I always am at this point in the walk. The Empire State Building stops people in their tracks. And tonight, it deserves it. I can’t resist taking a shot.

I overhear a woman behind me say “Yeah, there’s this site you go to and vote on what color they should light it up with every night.”

I don’t know what she’s talking about.

I smile when her date says, “Really? So people voted on that golden color tonight?” and she says, “I honestly have no idea. I just heard someone say it and thought it would be a good thing to talk about if we ran out of conversation.” He asks if she thinks they’ve gotten to that point and she laughs, saying that actually, she doesn’t.

Clearly a first date, and I think it won’t be their last.

Everyone should have first dates along the High Line. It has a softening effect - especially at this time of day.

Dinnertime is approaching. I should turn around. But these walks won’t last forever - the sun has been setting earlier, and it won’t be long before we turn the clocks back. I keep going. I promise myself I’ll turn around at the Bowing Girl (who I think of as Fearless Girl’s humble cousin.) I’m dying to walk on, but picture Philip at the counter, chopping shallots. With a sigh, I turn back.

I love this walk. It washes away the meetings and “next steps” and the lists of script revisions, leaving them to fall off of me, like the muddled-together watercolors that drip from the tip of a paintbrush in need of a rinse. Drip, drip, drip, step, step, step - and I’m clean.

Here, in my baseball cap and earbuds, I’m anonymous. I can smile and clap my hands against my hips as I listen to Bruno Mars’ Uptown Funk, not sure, and not caring if that makes me uncool.

A new song starts, and I swoon over Mick’s sexy longing for Angie.

Then I play “She Smiled Sweetly.”

And do what I’ve come here to do.

I’ve come to let my heartache out. It’s been almost nine months since I lost my mother. Nine months without the person who carried me for that amount of time.

Actually, she carried me forever. She carried me with the strength and skill of her gentle knitter’s hands. And with the sweet, steady gaze of her hazel eyes. And with the reassuring sound of her voice. She carried me through the Pandemic, when I was supposed to carry her.

Back then, when I called to ask what she was doing, she’d say, “I’m sitting like a lump, what are you doing?” and I’d say that I, too, was sitting like a lump.

“We’re nice lumps, though, aren’t we,” she’d say and I’d answer that we were exceptional lumps. She’d conclude by telling me that everything was going to work out and that we’d be able to see each other soon and I’d hang up feeling like I always did after hearing her voice. Better.

I walk the High Line at the end of the day because I can’t call her any more.

I walk the High Line to feel her softness.

I walk the High Line to allow myself to break a little.

Michael Stipe sings Nightswimming and I let his voice wash over me. It has nothing to do with my mother, this song. And yet, it surrounds me with her.

Nightswimming deserves a quiet night.

I walk down a bit further and stop in front of the mural I never really thought about. But there it is. Thank you Darling. I let tears stream as I silently thank her for being soft in a world where hardness is valued way too much.

I keep walking. Stepping my way into my own heart. Letting all the “Really, I’m fine’s” fall away.

Because really, I’m not fine. I’m aching.

Aching for the “good night” phone calls I no longer make. Aching for stability. Aching for someone who thinks I’m brilliant because I can operate the TV remote. Aching for her whispered “thank you’s” as I stand at her chair, wishing I could do more than bring lunch and hold her hand. Aching for her.

My cheeks are awash in the salt of her sweetness.

I’m swimming in it.

On this very soft night, in this not-so-soft city, that to me, right now, is pure velvet.

I get close to the 14th Street exit.

Nightswimming finishes up.

And so does the sun.

But first, it takes a bow and I don’t blame it for showing off. I would too, if I’d given the world a day like this one. God, I’d be prancing about, waiting for a standing ovation.

I stand with the other iphone-holders and snap away.

I look at the river that separates New York from the state where I grew up - the state where F spent her long, sweet life.

I let the evening’s pink and orange gratitude wash over me.

And head down the steps, toward home.

I wrote this a couple of weeks ago but wanted to work on it before posting.

And then I didn’t.

And then last night happened. I walked along the High Line this morning, once again, wishing for softness in a world that values hardness all too much.

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