Ode to an Old Love
In a fit of guilty pleasure, Meghan Forbes gets nostalgic.
Spring comes early in Southern California, and with spring comes my longing for you. It is an early day in March, and I feel the sun beat down on my shoulders. This despite the fact I sit inside, a slew of computers staring back at me from my desk. Glaring really, all with a harsh fluorescent light echoed in the looming lamp that hangs on the ceiling above me. But their confrontational glower is not enough to make me forget that outside there is sun, a soft and comforting light that wills me to strip of my blazer and soak in the vitamin D.
Ever-present warmth, though, is a natural part of Los Angeles, and growing up here, you take it for granted. Which is why, when its rays shine down on me after a week of rain, I am nostalgic not for the childhood that was always this, but for you, New York, where I learned to savor the sun. Today, I imagine the snow falling on your streets despite recent promises of good weather to come. You are such a tease. One day it is tank tops and flip flops, the next, back to winter coats and boots. So that by the end of April, when the sun remains steady, your people come out to embrace it. And you.
That is why I miss you. I miss the lingering of many in Washington Square Park, reading their books, resting in the grass. There are college kids kicking around a soccer ball, children running under the fountain, dogs of all shapes and sizes promenading through on leashes. Where I want to be right now, more than anywhere in the world, is on the steps of a brownstone on Jones Street, under the shade of the building, the sun warming my face. I would watch people sip espresso and wine in the café across the street. I would look to the right, down to Bleecker Street, and work my way towards rising and walking along it myself.
Perhaps I miss you most because, to quote a cliché: Absence Makes the Heart Grow Stronger. Living in Queens and taking the subway in with the rush hour traffic, slammed up against people I had never seen before, sweating under my winter layers, I admit I hated you. But you were always most beautiful in the Spring, and that is why I miss you so today. I can forgive you your wrongs, today, with the sun on my back, so far away.
Tags: LA, meghan forbes, morning edition, NY, transportation
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