Pale fires

this didn’t bother me at first, but going earlier in the day to hartford, connecticut to see the newly renovated morgan wing of the wadsworth atheneum, i thought a lot about manila. hartford is so old money and although there were a smattering of vagrants in the streets, it sure is a universe away from the capital of the old country. maybe it’s the way the great hall is rehanged cheek-to-jowl with mostly baroque paintings or the way the new renovations now include labyrinthine exits and alice-in-wonderland crannies. maybe. but i also thought a lot about the met, which opened its doors some decades later than this museum, although my thoughts went back again to manila during the generally smooth ride back home interrupted only by negligible traffic chokeholds by new haven, stamford, and that usual bend along the bronx river parkway before our exit. my friend, somewhere near new britain, said he won’t mind me dozing off while he drove. i did without compunction and when i woke up to the bright lights of coop city, i felt this earnest pining for my life back in manila, one that was simultaneously simpler and much, much more complicated at the same time. by the time my friend dropped me off in front of my building, the lights in my street seemed so slight to me like pale fires i sometimes witnessed as a child watching a thunderstorm raking through the bay.