Aa
by: Billy Collins
At school,
always seen together,
capital and small,
parent and child
holding hands,
about to cross
the street
in Alphabet City.
I remember those days when my kids always stopped at street corners and held out their hands to me. It was a supreme act of trust--them expecting me to protect them from any kind of danger. Of course, as kids grow from "a" to "A," become more independent, they worry less about the danger of busy intersections. There's a certain sense of immortality that all young people, at one point or another, acquire. They simply believe they will live forever.
I see this in my children. I see it in the students I teach at the university. That's why adolescents, teens, and young adults do stupid things like drinking until they black out or jumping off roofs into snowdrifts. (I may have done both of those things in my foolish past.) With youth comes the cloak of invincibility.
Me? I don't recall a time in my life when I wasn't aware of my mortality. Even when I was a young "a," I was kind of . . . melancholic. The summer after I graduated from high school, one of my favorite teachers died unexpectedly of a heart defect. I spent the rest of the year sequestered in my dark bedroom, listening to Leonard Cohen songs.
This morning, snow started falling. After a green Christmas and New Year's Eve, my little portion of the world is now veiled in white. I took my puppy for a walk in the fresh snow, and she attacked it with nose and tongue. We walked through the neighborhood where I grew up, my Alphabet City, and I found myself haunted by ghosts from my childhood--friends and relatives and memories.
You see, when you're an "a," winter is kind of magical. Snow days. Christmas vacations. Tobogganing. Santa Claus. Snow forts. Snowmobiling. Blizzards.
When you become an "A," winter is work and worry. Shoveling. Treacherous commutes. Frozen waterpipes. Furnace problems. More shoveling.
Watching the joy of my puppy on our walk today, I sort of felt like an "a" for a little while, remembering those days when I trooped out the front door, into a snowstorm, looking like Randy from A Christmas Story, all snowsuited and bundled up. Not a worry in the world, except whether or not there would be hot chocolate waiting for me when I returned.
I was invincible, and those long winter days were infinite.
There's more snow in the forecast for the coming days. The "A" that I am now is not excited about that news. But I'm still on vacation. No work. No teaching. Just a good book to read. Old movies to stream. More walks with my snow puppy. And an Alphabet City that looks like a Tirolean ski resort.
Saint Marty may try to catch some flakes on his tongue if it snows tomorrow.
