last+time+i+was+here

Tina Saienni- At the Light

Last time I was here, there were no black sneakers. What the hell could have happened that would possess someone to say goodbye to their shoes, right here. My younger cousin (second possibly) had a severe attachment to this torso sized plush Winnie the Pooh bear. He was the classic, and in all seriousness she loved him the most. Even as a backseat passenger she was never alone. Her grandmother seated shotgun in her daughter’s vehicle would occasionally take a peak at her through the open window and the rearview mirror. My cousin smiled at Pooh and heaved him from her lap and tossed him out the window. Her grandmothers gasp nearly made her daughter send the car spinning. “Oh Elizabeth! Why did you throw Pooh out the window!?” and through those teeth she uttered, “I didn’t like the way he was looking at me.” It could have been that the previous owner of these shoes had the same thoughts before they tossed them out of the window right in my path. If I really wanted to I could have taken the light from route 27 which runs parallel to route 1. No, of course I wouldn’t do that because of black shoes. The only problem I really had with them was their lack of personality and sneakers lately have been on a first name basis with personality. These aren’t just black sneakers, every square inch was black not one accent speaking truth. I figured they were classics as well. Two very generous people, giving the classics back to the streets. Now I sit at the light, frost still speckles the windshield; I don’t mind anything but my frozen fingers. I am proud, being raised to drive a car without a functioning heater will really benefit me in the long run. Even my gloves are cold and I don’t sing this morning. I am wide awake it’s just that I can see my breath when I sing and the humidity coats my windshield. If this didn’t happen I would sing, make the morning grumpies wonder why I seem so happy to be a part of this wintry morning. Similar to rush hour, when I am forced to leave my house at four to make it to work just before the five o’clock shadows. I want it to be eight hours forward, just as the sun sets across this patch of Monmouth Junction. I can’t wait for the sunlight to seep through those spaces in the divider. If you don’t know I can’t even explain to you beyond this, just see for yourself. Well my favorite part is the most mesmerizing. As each car passes over this patch headed north they block the rays from reaching these spaces in the dividers. It’s the most surreal moment and best light show, way more organic than Disney. One black shoe is no longer here. Frankly I am not the least bit upset. It was the most accurate notion of pay it forward I have seen yet since I discovered that movie a couple years ago. I suppose the other shoe would soon be gone, I am not too bad at goodbyes I think I am ready. It took a good 3 months for that shoe to relocate itself. I didn’t even have to prep myself for the goodbye, I was very over it. How could you spend so much time in that one area and not go crazy? Well today there are two salt mounds like footprints from the snowstorm. I matched my tires up and rolled gently over them, I did this today and only today and will probably never do it again. It went well, I just wasn’t a fan of the idea of looking too naïve to be on the road. It’s not like these mounds were right here on the trodden path, you must go out of the way to roll each wheel simultaneously over and onto solid pavement again. 92% of the time this light is red and the new stop sign right before it should be a yield sign unless they rooted trees alongside Northumberland Way. Just for that I treat it as a yield sign and so do all the cops who use it before me.