Sin Zapato

I’ve always been a little afraid of thunderstorms. But my City’s Sentinels have always made me feel safe in them. Untouchable.

So a little over 22 years ago, as I float over to the floor-to-ceiling windows on our 26^th floor perch on Liberty Street, all I feel is that curious pull. I want to see the downpour. The flashing skies. (That’s what I thought then. But what I know now is that what I really wanted to see was the Sentinel in the storm. Keeping watch. Never flinching. Like the Guard over the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.)

How I wish I had a camera to capture this in more than just my future memory of it, I think in that moment. His solid, steel chest and broad, concrete shoulders. His soulful, crystalline eyes, Windows on a World inside and outside.  The rain battering, the lightening flashing, and yet, inside, the life-bearing oxygen, the heart and lungs and flesh and bone at their desks, answering phones, checking off boxes, flowing smoothly. As if nothing.

A friend walks over. A fellow romantic.

“This weather,” he says.

“I know,” I say.

And at the same exact time, the opening riff of Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On” goes off in our heads. We start to sing a little. Sway a little. Separately. One hand on the stomach. The other in the air. Eyelids lowered. Fantasy partners embraced. A pair of ridiculous idiots. And we go back to our desks. Cracking up.

I thought myself a Sentinel as strong. A fearless guard over my wards. I’ve tried. To lean into the deluge and conquer my need to run and just…wait…trust…have faith in the Sun’s next rise. But I think I’ve been running for 22 years. And only just stopped. Or maybe just slowed down. Because my body feels so weary. No longer capable of standing guard. Only of laying down and surrendering to the storm.

To my City. Our City.

Image reference: WTC 1986 of Gui Von Schmidt