“In one quarter mile, turn left onto Long Island Expressway,” the electronic and concise voice of an outdated GPS instructs as we speed through the unfamiliar city in the early hours of the morning. The bright crimson dawn of a new day crept its way into my tired eyes as we miss another exit and make another U-turn. My silent father, normally the definition of a seasoned traveler and invaluable road trip companion, is now a stranger in a strange land in the absence of support from his equally silent and spent child sitting meekly next to him. He is now an almost unrecognizable Hyde to his regular Jekyll, short on patience and energy with a copious amount of agitation in its place. A paper labyrinth of vein-like roads and squares sprawl before me, E. Meadow, Hempstead, Franklin Square, oh God, oh my, oh God, oh my, help me. The “capital of the world,” the city so nice they named it twice, Gotham? No. New York City, and it would not get the best of us. This is no longer about simply making it to JFK in time to avoid missing our cross-country flight. Now, this is personal between us and the treacherous urban web. The only thing keeping us going is the promise of the California sun on our face to eventually conquer and replace the pungent marriage of nauseating smells that embrace us in the Big Apple.
As we arrive in a flat district just beyond the city limits to regroup our thoughts and take another look at the map, I admit defeat and instead take to staring out the window at the bleak landscape before me. What is there to take notice of? What is there to consider and muse about on this cold, desolate morning in a way that no one has before? Distant skyscrapers dwarfed by perspective, factories with trucks already arriving at their gates, an endless row of chain fence, behind it rests a simple, industrial tank. There is nothing special to immediately take notice of or exhibit its presence. The tank just sits lonely and overgrown amongst a patch of trees. We pull over directly beside it to create a new plan of attack. I listen to the sounds of a city at an hour that in my youth I would be prone to think the entire world was concurrently silent and asleep, take an almost labored deep breath, but this plain hollow tank keeps stealing my gaze, as if I had been specifically told prior not to pay it any mind but cannot help myself. It really is simple, old, rusted, at one point covered in a dark green paint that has now begun to chip. What truly strikes me, however, is the freshly painted letters inscribed crudely with bright yellow spray-paint one its surface labeling it “water.” Unmissable, unmistakable, its sole purpose for existing so simply put and natural that I cannot help but notice and admire it.
I take to considering what it was about this dull, mundane water tank that captured my attention in contrast to several lifetimes’ worth of urban beauty that surely has more meaning and draw than this manufactured piece of hardware. Maybe it is the fact that it had managed to sit undisturbed for long enough to develop its own visual identity, aged but unwavering like a member of a last living generation. Perhaps it is the way it was majestically backlit by the bright, warm sky behind its resident patch of trees, as if the world itself wants me to take notice of its subtle importance. In a primal sort of way, the promise of water subconsciously attracts me in this cold, desolate landscape. The fact that it was encased in an impenetrable frame would suggest that I am naturally prone to desire what I cannot have. All sorts of elementary meditation and introspection seem to be born from this remnant. But what I truly find pleasing, and even beautiful in its own way, is the clear and honest label of what the tank once contained that someone, somewhere, had taken the time to define it in a painted word. Who had written it? I would imagine a worker at a nearby factory assisting his colleagues in the event that they need water. Maybe it was a truck driver marking his favorite liquid depot as his own. A helpful vandal even? They could have been near, far, male, female or even no longer living. It could have at one point belonged to a homeless family or community camping out in this quiet corner of the world. Yes, I can picture it as their water reservoir after it had gone disused by its original owner, once a neglected accessory but now a principle element and a source of life for those who need it most. A perfect symbol of motion and change, not unlike water itself. In the perfect moment I decided that I appreciated it beyond its simple aesthetic value, but for its functionality and clarity of purpose and instruction. It did not matter what the tank was or what it said, but in the midst of being lost like a rat in a maze and pretending to understand the path traced in our map, I could not help but fall in love with the sight of the handsome monument at that point in time. Its five golden letters were telling me something I could understand for a change, but whose history I could likely never learn or comprehend in a lifetime. I appreciated this rare piece of lucid guidance at a time like this, even if it did not even apply to me in the slightest.
My infatuation was broken by the sound of my father grumbling to life once again from a puzzlement-induced half catatonic state. With a newfound drive to press onward to our destination, I parted ways with the water tank and the mark of whoever placed it there. In that brief timeframe of leaving the tumult of an inner city, that one stagnant vestige long undisturbed by busy people paired with its simple message to the world served as source of comfort and solace for a weary traveler. Like at the eye of a hurricane, its effortlessly simple nature almost makes it admirable, even making it appear to look down upon the humans that surround it that often needlessly complicate their lives. Like an ancient monk who has at long last reached true enlightenment, I look upon it knowing that I will never reach such an enviable state, but admire it for doing so in a way that a living creature simply cannot. Much of the days, even weeks following would be spent trying to understand and think of an experience that has replicated the feeling, but the encounter remains unique, mystifying and ultimately inspiring and blossoming of other matters. It has certainly left me with one of the most oddly vivid memories of the trip and thoughts that have only gotten deeper since.
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