Pittsburgh

My headlight went out today. Lost half my light, apropos of a sick boy with a too-short haircut.

I was leaving the pharmacy. I had antibiotics and something called "magic swizzle." The swizzle goes in my throat, where I make the magic happen. (I should have application forms ready in the next week, for any of you interested).

It was raining, steady thrum that in New York would turn into ice and snow. I was on the melting side. The side where nothing accumulates, everything drains down into the river. Nothing stays long.

How is Pittsburgh, a friend asked. I said dreary. But I wanted to say that Pittsburgh is the only city I know whose beauty is enhanced by rain, by gray skies. It's like a stone stencil filled again with what had been taken from it: the gray returns to the gray. The convergence of gray rivers meets an equally grazy sky. Everything is unified.

You see? Nothing is ever really lost.

I'll replace the light tomorrow. I'll remember to let go a bit more so that something may return.