i love you, i love this music you will never listen to

this morning as i was walking through the crunch of the elm leaves--too early for them to be soggy and limp--i made the decision that there would just be space between us for a while. yes, i thought, there needs to be a complete revision before autumn drifts quickly away and is replaced by an unending slate sky. i stopped at the junction and bought a morning paper and lamented this unfortunate yet inevitable revelation.

how will she take it, i wondered as i waited on the platform for the stratford train. well, regardless, it must be done. things can't go on like this, i considered, acknowledging a bright and breezy sunday afternoon spent sitting by the phone. you never called.

in the crowded carriage passing the backs of houses, a compromise. alright, well, maybe not complete separation. but these plans we've discussed, those will have to wait. something for the future. at the present we'll just have to take things as they come. no more investing ideas into next weekend or the following evening, or any of that.

crowding to the point that i tuck the newspaper under my arm. an african woman shuttles her two children--quiet and staring--to the sliver of space between me and the doorway. the train lurches forward, blue sky disappears as we go underground.

ok, fine, i say. we'll still have all these plans. some of them will happen, many of them won't. i'll be disappointed, then elated, then disappointed again. i'll spend nights across from you just so sure i've done the right thing with my life. i'll spend other evenings wishing we'd just passed when introduced so many years ago.

how many more years will this go on? small child looks up at me with wide eyes from under his wool cap. i force a knowing smile.

secaucus junction

if there is a rule for 2009 it is that when i ride back on the train from newark airport it is the dawn of some enormous chapter in my life. in spring it was the same as fall, high white clouds dotting the robin's egg sky, a slowly dwindling afternoon, sun just high enough that you won't get that sunday melancholy; those thoughts of being at your desk at work the next morning.

at least in spring i had no idea what was ahead. she was like a storm far off the coast, with a path leading directly to me but no one could forecast it. i didn't even know she existed.

in fall i knew everything i had to. i knew where i was going. i stood in the breezy space between cars and stared at the passing tall grass, fingering my mobile phone in my pocket restlessly.

she calls as the train sits in newark penn and we speak briefly. she never sounds emotional on the telephone (maybe even in person) when she speaks. there's no lilt, no sweet goodbye. i mean she's not like a telephone operator or anything... i just don't hear the sounds i'm used to.

i know in an hour i'll be at her house, with my bags and my jacket. sitting on her porch in the nascent autumn cool. it's still warm enough to pretend it's summer, but the sunlight is different.

i remember one evening we stood in some darkened corner, close. we wondered why the sunlight in autumn looked a certain way.

the train pulls off and again we're sprinting across the industrial wasteland of north jersey. first sun i've seen in three days.

it's going to be beautiful when we go for a walk, i think.