Hanna leaves me a present

My first Saturday night in the city in a very long time was cut short by a raging tropical washout called Hanna. Some people have all the luck and I wasn’t feeling like those people, but when I woke up Sunday morning early, it was like a grateful Hanna had left me a couple hundred bucks on my nightstand for my efforts the night before. (“Thanks, sailor. You be sure to remember me the next time you’re in port.”)

The sun was out. The smell was beaten back. The air was bright and cool.

It was a wandering kind of morning in my church. I decided to attend services in the East Village because it was, frankly, the closest pew and I had the itch, bad. … Real bad. (“Thanks again, sailor.”)

I could go on here about the feeling you get when you are in a place as it wakes up. I could continue the tawdry sex analogy about snuggling with a lover before the pressing needs of the day drive a wedge between you. I could …

But I won’t.

Instead, I’ll give you this snapshot.

I was walking on East 4th Street into the sun. As I passed a woman fussing with an infant in a stroller, she looked up at me and said in a thick Germanic accent, “Such beautiful a day. So many people missing it.”

I raised my hand to the crystal sky. “Amen, Sister, amen.”

I’ll be passing the collection plate now. Give what the Lord compels you to give.