PART FOUR ~ Number Five:

(And so, the pride was all mine. Lord knows, I was full of myself. I didn’t care. I needed to be back in the world. At this shining moment I couldn’t have felt better--such pride, was this!)

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Yes: The invitation broke the spell, and chased the impetus which had consumed me aside. I picked up the invitation, from where I’d dropped it, and placed it upon the bare shelves.
Obviously, both Rodgers and Cee-Cee were worried about me. (Was I “All right??.”) In Rodgers’ short note of invitation, I could read all the care he’d taken in broaching whatever apprehension he might’ve had about my welfare. In my detachment towards the world I’d given little thought to my friendship with Rodgers and Cee-Cee; their concern was now entering, finding a place. [There were, no matter what, people in this City, my adopted home, who truly did care about me.]

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Even though he didn’t mention it, Rodgers knew Beauty would be at the party. He wrote: I should come to the party. I wouldn’t regret it.

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Snow began to fall. All of New York State was bracing itself for a white Christmas. The cold could not stop the cheer, the holiday. Watching the snow falling upon the skylight overhead, I felt immense joy; I felt drained, and at the same time peaceful; prepped for anything; [ready for life, love, and celebration.]
I stood back now, very much free in my soul. In some strange way, I felt that the universe was looking out for me; that a conjunction of the stars were in my favor. Without any warning, my life had seemingly taken a turn for the better. Beginning again.

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I was ready to face the world. It was time to take a breather, relax, with all my brushes laid to rest.

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I remember:
The snowfall. Christmas. The end of a Decade.
I recall Rodgers’ words: You won’t regret it.
[At the time, he was right.]
He always was.

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That day:
The Twenty-Third day of December, Nineteen-Hundred and Eighty-Nine, returns to me in dreams. [Like everything else inescapable, that day and night returns in bits and pieces:
Shredded clothes are blown about the, unforgiving, Winter streets; night music, as clear and tonal as Handel's “Messiah”; a green flask, topped with red wine; snow-drifts, blown against brownstones, clinging to the brickwork, as a second skin; scurrying, last-minute Christmas shoppers, barreling along a sidewalk, clutching bundles beneath each arm. Gloved hands. Heavy coats. Scarfs. Every breath, meeting the air, a huffed patch of fog.]

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Impressed upon my memory are fleeting images; key elements, and objects, appear, as luminous, as if life itself could be summed up by an unknown skein of random events. Everything pertaining to this December day is affixed to time and space within the watery contours of my brain.
Imperishable, now:
As night returns, the clock lies, mute and knowing. My subconscious awakens, all color and sound; my brain, restful and active, is as pearl-grey as a stretch of concrete, peeking through the snow. Many shadows cling to this slit of night. Memory pulls me back towards an unpredictable beginning--that night, and every night since.

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[Many a night since has passed, and none of them in Beauty’s arms. So many times, again, and gone: A reinforced repetition, and rumination, becomes the catalyst for dredging up that long-ago December night.]

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