Where you just have to wish to make it so.

Look up sometimes and you see the darnedest things. A cloud that looks like an ice cream cone. The lacy canopy of leaves on a summer day. The northern lights. So many times we fail to look up.

When I was younger I could look up into the girders and cables that held the George Washington Bridge suspended over the Hudson River and marvel at the idea of it. I could look up at the planes flying over the city on the way into Brooklyn. I could look up into the eyes of my father as I danced on his feet.

One of the best up things was Tar Beach. The rooftop of the house on Union Street was Tar Beach, along with every other rooftop in large cities. It is a small refuge at the top of the building. It always was such a cool idea to think of all the people who went up there to relax and get a little sun or look at the skyline or the stars. I only went there a handful of times but it was a bit of an adventure. We started up the stairs, a few flights of climbing, all the way up and through to the ceiling where there was a doorway that took you up on the roof. Just like the song. The view was great, you could see for miles, into other boroughs, into other peoples back yards down below, to the house where the pigeons were kept in their cages and let out to fly around in formation and then return home, where some people could keep a rooftop garden. My mother and her sisters and friends could sunbathe up there. You could dream up there or maybe have a romantic moment or two. I know we watched the fireworks up there once. Up on the tar papered roof.

Right before the old brownstone was sold, on the last day of cleaning it out the roof was visited one more time. The picture of Aunt Lois is beautiful and bitter sweet as she stands up there one last time. The sky is blue and almost cloudless, Manhattan is in the distance and it is serene. "On the roof's,the only place I know, where you just have to wish to make it so...". I think I know what I would wish for. One more time; up on the roof.