Signals

I want to print a retraction. In December, I wrote a post about the passing of my great-grandmother. In it I said: "I know too much about death lately." But that was false; I don't really know about death at all. What I know about is life after someone dies.

I saw three armored trucks today on my way to work. Two of them belonged to the MTA and were servicing different subway stations. The third was parked outside Grey Advertising. The men emptying the back of it were holding guns. There was a sign posted on the swinging doors: "Caution: Wide Right Turns."

Objects can contain people; I have written that before. And I suppose that -- strangely, unfortunately, morbidly -- the armored truck will forever be one thing to me, one thing only.

I have blogged about all the Sade stories, the way the universe (is that you Meg, I always ask?) has given me snippets of one song or another in a cab, on a stranger's iPod. Sometimes I will hear Sade on the dumb generic radio and I know it's not Meg. But sometimes I hear it from somewhere else, and my body gets warm and I feel this unbelieveable pressure all over myself, like she's trying to get me to pay attention. Look over here, it says, and for a moment I feel like a dumbass.

But I never know what she's trying to get me to see. Maybe that's not the point. Maybe she's just trying to tell me: I'm here.