The sweet release I hardly believed would occur before Thanksgiving nudges me into a pair of shoes Sunday, having finally finished the project that has kept me inside for over a month, weeks of which I lost track but that were measured dimly by depleting packs of instant oatmeal and the oft-improbable hope that maybe, maybe, the tunnel I’d lost myself in would have an exit. I find myself stumbling outside of my apartment for the first time in days, wincing at the sunlight — it streams through the iron gates that protect the nearby Catholic school courtyard in dizzying fingertips, and for a moment I lose my balance. It’s at once as if I have never been outside before.
"There are no commitments," I say aloud. "Only bargains." A neutered line from Stoppard’s The Real Thing. I stop and stare at a squirrel perched at the merging of two sidewalks; it cocks its head in tune with mine; I've never before glimpsed such a creature. And while making my way to Clark Street, I pass strangers headed to food or people or objects and meet their eyes unselfconsciously — they are the very first human beings on Earth and I —I!— am granted permission to exist in their reality.
That evening, I find myself at a friend’s Thanksgiving dinner, where it takes me over an hour to remember how to properly socialize with people I don’t know. I have forgotten how to converse as if it's as complicated as identifying planetary dust. By the time I get warmed up, I realize I'm exhausted. I go to bed without setting an alarm and when I wake I go for a wonderfully long run and then return to pack my bag for an afternoon at the café; while exiting through the back door I run into my next-door neighbor Ron and we have a convivial chat about nothing. I decide this is all I want: A neighbor whose name I know and a hot mug of coffee at a bakery with pretty lights, and once I get the name of the guy across the street from whom I buy the Sunday Times I will be completely set for a completely contented life. I consider this again as I refill my mug and a warm shudder pulses through me. What is the point beyond all these small things that add up in successive thrusts to equal seeing the world with the uncomplicated eyes of a child, a far-flung visitor, a patient emerging from distress. Hurrah, nuncles — happy feasting.
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