Old friend
I used to take snapshots of this riverfront factory when I started
riding the PATH train almosy a year ago. Something about it really
caught my attention. Now I really couldn’t tell you what it was.
Maybe it was the smokestacks. There’s five huge columns coming out of
one building, and two of them are smaller in diameter than the other
three. It’s curious. It’s also strange in the way it sits exactly on
the water’s edge. This is surely a sign that the factory dumped into
the river for sometime.
It’s a dilapidated mystery. I wonder who owns it, if it still operates,
etc. I can see the smokestacks from my office building. They are way
off in the distance, past the Jersey city skyline, but they are there.
I guess I could still tell you what about it caught my attention.
Going through the seasons here reminds me that I’ve been around a
while. I’ve looked at this factory five days a week through fall,
winter, spring, summer, and soon fall again. Somehow, I’m surprised to
be going through the seasons. The seasons are so familiar, but I’ve
become used to adapting to new things so often. The seasons are
juxtaposed with the landscape. I have always known the seasons, but
never known a life like this. The busy daily life, surrounded by some
many people, and the urgency are all new. They too, are becoming
familiar. That is the strangest feeling. It’s like when you catch
yourself calling a new place home without thinking about it. The fact
that you didn’t think twice of calling it home means it’s home, but if
an old friend points it out to you its a shock.