Empty Bench

This morning I am taking a walk on the Upper West Side. The air is warm and heavy, and I stroll slowly through the quiet streets with no particular destination in mind; something I have so often done in the past in repeated attempts to gain the clarity or understanding that always seems so ephemeral. I find myself outside the Museum of Natural History, watching the people and dogs in the little park outside.

I see a young girl of about fifteen or sixteen sitting on a bench with her mother under the trees, whose branches are outstretched like bony arms reaching toward something elusive just beyond reach. The two are eating lunch - sandwiches, probably from the small deli with the fading red awning across the street. The girl looks restless, slightly embarassed even. Her eyes are downcast, as if trying to avoid eye contact. Maybe it's her silent declaration of autonomy. Maybe she's painfully self-conscious, in the sheepish and slightly perplexed way teenagers often are. She's bored - or feigning boredom, perhaps. Maybe it's because the girl feels a need to convey to her mother that she doesn't need the security and protection of a parent anymore, lest her mother mistakenly think that the girl is still the same child who had clung to her and cried when the sleepaway camp bus was about to pull away. And maybe it's even necessary for the girl to try to maintain this type of distance in order to form her own sense of identity or self.

But I want to call out to the girl. I want to warn her. I want to plead with her, to tell her that one day she'll regret this elaborate act she's putting on - that these moments will be forever beyond her grasp, that her arms will reach out in desperation, in yearning, in futility, like the trees.

But it's an empty bench. And there I stand, silently watching ghosts.