ORANGE BLISS

No, Jeanne-Claude, it's not saffron. Saffron is yellow. The Gates are orange. Orange like tangerines. Like school guard vests. Like the Baltimore Orioles. The San Francisco Giants. The Mets. Halloween. Orange. Like the ripe, sweet, juice all over your hands orange. Wonderful, loud, brassy, ORANGE.

I was probably the only resident of Manhattan who had not gone to see Christo and Jeanne-Claude's The Gates, and I was feeling pretty damned guilty, as it was supposedly over yesterday. But this morning I had a doctor's appointment on Park Ave., and all of New York City was blanketed by the most beautiful white snow you have ever seen, and I said, "#$%^ it! I can take an hour off!" Instead of hailing a cab to go back to the office, I took a walk into Central Park.

There they were, all still standing, bright orange bursting through the beautiful monochrome of snow-encrusted trees. I walked from 83rd and Fifth all the way up to past 100th, and it was lovely, and quiet, and uncrowded, and the big bright orange just sang through the snow. New York City is never more gorgeous than when it's iced with sweet white powder, sticking to everything, your shoes, your hair, your fingers, and it was just lovely. And it was about 35 degrees, on a glorious Tuesday, and I could just sneak an hour and just walk, and walk, and celebrate orange, and being alive, and being able to actually LIVE in this amazingly wonderful city that I have adopted after thinking I could never, ever leave San Francisco.

And then I looked across the street, and saw the orange construction tape on a renovation in progress on 5th Avenue, and looked up across Central Park South and saw a tall skyscraper with orange safety sheets flying in the wind, and noticed the orange ad on a bus, and just enjoyed, for an entire hour, orange.

Thank you, Christo, for bringing two weeks of whimsy, for your wisdom in picking just the right fortnight, when the park is wearing nothing but nuanced shades of beige, and when we were all getting just the slightest bit weary and in need of spring and color again and you brought us orange and remind us of e.e. cummings and James Joyce and just spring and daffodilsandtulips and hope and orange and thank you.

Photo by Juliet Moore (taken on sunny Sunday.)