“Positively 18th Street”

Squibs and Blurbs

by Jerry Zimmerman

TEANECK, NJ—(Weekly Hubris)—5/10/10—How delightful to be shocked silly by Spring every year. Shocked! Every year!

Driving into New York City one clear Thursday morning in early April, anticipating teaching a class at the New York Aikikai (my original martial arts school, where I started my training in Aikido), I round the corner of West 18th Street and disappear into . . . a haze of pure awe.

This urban scene, this street, so well known to me after 25 years of driving it and walking it, now suddenly transformed into a far-away universe of unimaginable beauty and grace; in front of me, a sole and singular cherry tree in full blossom, a pink mist of soft, inviting caresses, reinventing the street like a geisha delicately stepping into a room full of brawny stevedores.

I’m at the beating heart of transformation; the stone and brick have gently softened, lavishly spilling reflected light on cars and hats and machinery and arms suddenly bare in short-sleeves, the sidewalks radiating the heat of warm toast as they cradle each footstep, angular building heights purposefully join in, swaying away, opening onto swaths of creamy, clear skies . . . .

And the people! Their gaits have slowed to a beat that matches the outpouring of the sunlight from above, the slow and luscious beat of endless cascades of goldenrod that muffle sound and speed and worry. They are smiling, and they feel on their skin and hair and thighs why they are smiling, and they are happy to be mixed in with the young, the old, the busy, the lazy, the smokers, the workers, the drivers, the minglers, the loners.

The marching orders of the day were laid on each one’s pillow bright and early, and each arose and, presciently, knowingly, reached for the short skirt, the team T-shirt, the baggy shorts; Uggs became thongs, haute mode sweaters morphed into halter tops and backless everythings; naked skin pulsed and skipped, baring its winter-white teeth to the taming farenheit of soothing, oh so very soothing, warmth. Warmth is our air, our water; wherever we move we are fed and nurtured, our talk is smooth and velvety; even a shout is round and flexible; our legs have no weight, and arms open doors as though friction and trouble have yet to be invented.

There is freedom. Shivering and ice are over, hunky padding not necessary, slipping and chapping and hiding-away dispersed. I can see you and you can see me. Concrete and asphalt and motors and litter and growling and cracked windows and late meetings and grimy doorknobs and sneers and questions and chilly looks and cold hands have all been elevated, annihilated, exalted by a few snowy pink petals floating . . . and floating.

Spring has come again (again!) and we are all ecstatic to have arrived together on this West 18th Street, in this New York City, on this day, and isn’t that the real miracle, that we are all this delighted together?