THE CITY OF MY LIFE

     Sometimes, sitting in an airplane window seat at night above a brightly lit city, I’ve thought of what almost seems like another shining city -- the city of my own life. Now and then, when I’m able to mentally see my life from a distance, it seems to be lit-up with lights of all kinds. Close up, my days often look blurry and cluttered, but, when I stand way back from them, it looks like there’s serenity and a sort of luster in the minutes and hours. For instance, all the innumerable people who come and go through my life are, in a sense, shining with their own hopes and worries – the shimmering lights of hopefulness as well as the pale blue lights of trouble and sorrow. Also, from a distance, the numerous events in my life seem to be sparkling in countless hues as they pass swiftly along and disappear. Some good, some bad, some just tedious – all the large and small episodes in my days, when I observe them from far off, seem to glisten and shine in their various ways. Somehow they all seem sort of effulgent, much more full of brightness than dullness. I sometimes like to pretend I’m on a mountaintop, looking down at my long life, and then I realize, again, that this life of mine, this grand gift I was given 73 years ago, is indeed a shining city for me, a spectacle of lights like I might see from a night sky over New York.