Orange Water

“Don’t forget to look up.” Ren

By: Gabriela Yareliz

My head was down. I was reading. I missed a train stop earlier this week because my head was down.

I was on the train going over the bridge when I looked up. The sky was orange. It was so orange that the water looked orange. Everything but the silhouette of the bridge was orange. It was impressive. Like the sky was on fire. It was beautiful. I almost looked back down and kept reading. But I didn’t. I watched the sky across the entire bridge. A man who was standing kept watching my face and glancing out of the window. Eventually, the majority of our train car was watching the sunset.

In law school, my good friend Ren and I would walk for miles. He would often run (even in the winters), but he would take the time to wander with me. We were both not from NYC, so walking was a task in exploration. Sometimes, I would happen to look up and see some beautiful part of a building I had passed a million times. I would chat about it with awe. My surprise was often when I looked up.

He gave me a book on walking, and in it, he wrote a reminder that I should always look up.

Today, I did. And it was worth it. The water was orange, and I have never seen anything like it.