PopcornJackTerry

My first bartending job was at a Pizzeria Uno’s on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, directly behind the Museum of Natural History. My apartment at that time was on the Lower East Side, sitting in the shadow of the Williamsburg Bridge. This necessitated taking two different subways to get home. Usually, this wasn’t too big of an issue, but late at night was an entirely different world.

As a restaurant as well as a bar, we closed earlier than other bars in the neighborhood, giving us time to go out for drinks after work. The problem was that even though we closed early, it wasn’t early enough by the standards of the MTA. When it was time to go home, we were on their night owl schedule. That’s a poetic way to say “You about shit outta luck, my friend.”

Last call was 4:00am, and we usually were out until that time. In my case, it made sense because the C train I would pick up at 81st and Central Park West wouldn’t arrive until 4:20ish, so I had time to kill. (This was the first time I learned subways actually had a schedule they were supposed to follow and didn’t just drive willy-nilly up and down the tracks.) It would take me around ten minutes to get to West 4th Street, where I would exit that train, walk down two flights of stairs, and wait for the F train.

And wait.

And wait.

And about thirty-five minutes later, one would appear. I would board that train, ride it for another ten minutes or so, before disembarking somewhere near my apartment. As best as I can remember, it was about 5 or 6 blocks to my apartment. When all of this was added up, it would be around 5:30 in the morning when I would get home.

I’m not a morning person, never have been, so for me to think that sunrise could happen as early as that is something I wouldn’t believe unless I were to actually see it. And since I’m not a morning person, well, you get where this infinity loop is headed. So it caught me off guard that one Sunday I was coming home late enough in the year that it started to coincide with sunrise happening so early.

Think about it. A week earlier, the sunrise is at least seven minutes later. If there was even a glow on the edge of the horizon, whatever I could see of it beyond the bridge and through the buildings of Brooklyn, my Guinness and Powers-addled brain wasn’t picking up on. A month earlier, and the only way I knew it wasn’t the absolute middle of the night was the fact I’d left work at that time before spending a couple hours at a bar and nearly a couple more in transit.

This one Sunday, though, there it was. The gradients of pinks and purples stretching into the sky before fading into deeping shades of blue somewhere over my head. I’m sure if I thought to turn around, behind me I might be able to still see figments of stars somewhere above the streetlights. But I never did because I was too caught up in the beauty in front of me. Without thinking, something I’ve never done a lot of, I went upstairs to grab a camera and walked out to the middle of the bridge.

(I know what you’re thinking: why did I have to grab a camera? Well, some of you might not believe this, but once upon a time, not only did we not have cameras on our phones, we didn’t even have phones. I think back then I was rocking a pager, and my first cell phone was still a year away.)

I walked to the middle of the bridge and turned around. What had been beautiful over Brooklyn was now stunning in Manhattan. All the buildings that lined the East River were bathed in those same colors and reflected back over the water. I tried my best to capture this beauty, but my camera was as cheap as I was, and when the pictures were developed I ended up with several lovely shots of the chain link fence I had to shoot through in glorious detail with ambiguous shadows in the background. But at the time I didn’t know enough to be disappointed. Instead, I was charged up with the energy of this beautiful morning (and residual Guinness and Powers,) and took that energy with me when I got home.

By now, it was 7:30 on a Sunday, and I knew my mom was getting up for work, so I called her. That’s what I did whenever I felt like life was treating me more fairly than I had a right to. And it was more than just this one particular moment. It was the thrill of living back in the city for the first time in a few years, it was the excitement of catching up with old friends and meeting new ones, forging friendships that would last for years. Most importantly, it was the confidence of pursuing my dreams again after I put them on hiatus while back in Connecticut, burying my father and processing that grief.

It’s hard to describe the differences between when I feel lost or rambling or stuck in a low gear slogging through life, and when my cylinders are firing so effortlessly I can’t keep up with all that I’m accomplishing, mostly because I feel it is indescribable. There’s a lot of “it’s kind of like” this, or “did you ever feel like” that, phrases and experiences that hint at what’s going on, but even as I say them out loud, in my head, they sound empty and incomplete, because it is something deeper than just being in a good mood or feeling happy. The best thing I’ve learned about it, though, is to just stay the hell out of my own way when it’s happening.

After all these years, I can’t remember what we talked about that morning. Obviously, I blathered on about the sunrise and how beautiful I thought it was. The job was still very new, so I’m sure I talked a lot about that. There was probably some talk about my old college friends and any auditions I might have gone on. But what I do remember was, about ten minutes into the conversation, she stopped and asked me a very specific question:

“What are you doing up so early?”

“It’s not what am I doing up so early,” I responded, “but what am I doing up so late.”

She immediately slipped into mom mode, told me to hang up the phone, go to bed, and call her later that afternoon. I told her I would, and right before I said goodbye, I said one more thing:

“Happy Mother’s Day.”

I don’t know how many of you listen to the songs I include on these blogs. I know I rarely have the volume on when I’m on my computer. But for those of you who do, I struggled with what to include. Whenever I hear “Famous Blue Raincoat” by Leonard Cohen, I’m reminded of that apartment, around the corner from Clinton Street. And even though the title is “True Dreams of Wichita,” Soul Coughing includes a line about standing on the arms of the Williamsburg Bridge. But I think the one that makes the most sense for Mom and Mother’s Day, is this one, an apology for not turning out right, even though she tried.