I had wanted to walk the Brooklyn Bridge at sunrise for thirty years. When I moved back to New York City, it went on my list of things I was finally going to do. One morning, I actually did it. I got up at four, left the house at 4:20, took the subway downtown and started walking.
The sunrise was not spectacular. I wish I could tell you that after thirty years of waiting, the sky put on some magnificent show just for me. It didn’t. It was pretty and soft, and the city slowly changed from dark to morning as I walked. I took pictures anyway. Lots of them. The bridge, the river, the buildings, the lights disappearing as the sky got brighter. Some of the photographs were beautiful.
And honestly, it didn’t matter that the sunrise wasn’t spectacular. I was walking across the Brooklyn Bridge at sunrise. After wanting to do it for thirty years, I was finally there.
By the time I reached Brooklyn, it was about 6:30, and I was starving. I had read about a great bagel place in DUMBO, so I walked over. It didn’t open until seven. Apparently, neither did anything else. Who knew?
So I found a stoop across the street and sat down to wait. It was Brooklyn, after all.
I had Taylor in my ears. folklore, to be exact. I sat there listening, watching the street and waiting for someone to unlock the door across from me. The album ended. The next song that randomly came on was “All Too Well (Ten Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version).” Or, for those of us who apparently have no problem remembering that many letters, ATWTMVTV.
I looked at my watch.
6:50.
I had exactly ten minutes until the bagel shop opened.
I laughed.
Ten minutes of Taylor. Ten minutes until bagels.
So I sat there and listened. I wasn’t waiting impatiently anymore. I wasn’t checking the door or wondering whether maybe they would open a few minutes early. I had exactly the right amount of time for exactly the song that had decided to play.
When Taylor finished, I got up, crossed the street and got my everything bagel.
And yes, the bagel was divine.
I went out that morning for the sunrise. I had waited thirty years to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge as the sun came up, so of course I thought that would be the part I remembered. And I do remember it. I have the photographs to prove I was there.
But I also remember those ten minutes on the stoop.
I don’t think they taught me anything. Nothing happened. Nothing changed. The universe didn’t reveal some enormous secret to me. A song happened to be exactly as long as I needed it to be, and for ten minutes on an ordinary Brooklyn morning, that felt absolutely perfect.
There are photographs of the bridge. There are photographs of the sunrise and the city waking up around me. There isn’t a photograph of the stoop.
I couldn’t take one. I was sitting on it.
Maybe that’s why I remember those ten minutes so clearly. For once, I wasn’t standing outside the moment trying to capture it. I was just inside it, hungry, with Taylor in my ears, waiting for a bagel shop to open. Ten minutes of Taylor. Ten minutes until bagels.
And no picture at all.
