It did occur to me, yes, that adulthood is the season for demanding boundless grace— not as reward, but as necessity, because the city withholds it as a matter of design.
This was Flatbush and Bergen, right after someone yelled “Move!” because I lingered too long at the crosswalk, watching a pigeon limp across the white lines, its urgency stitched into the pavement.
I was on foot, trying to regrow what I’d once shed— a version of myself unstartled by sirens, unmoved by sudden weather. Daylight pressed against me, and I braced.
Did you know hermit crabs line up by size to exchange shelter— a ritual of risk and restraint? I saw it on a screen in a laundromat, waiting for my socks to dry. David Attenborough’s voice threaded through the hum of machines.
In the video, one crab broke rank, took a shell that didn’t fit, left the smallest one exposed. I felt that ache on the Q train when someone shoved past and I said nothing.
Do you know the color the light has worn in my life? Mostly yellow— caution, wait, not quite go.
You already know I didn’t turn around to speak to the man in the Range Rover who honked. I let the silence hold.
You don’t need to be told how little happened. Only that I stood there, watching the pigeon disappear into a deli’s shadow, and felt, briefly— I understood the shape of my own shell.
Leave a Reply