The last three days cruised by, issuing not more than the sound of a subway car passing through a station without stop. As if truly embracing the northeast as a new home, I approached the previous 72 hours as a test…one that I believe was successful.
Friday was a day of freedom and enjoyment. Following a hasty walk along York Avenue, a quick head nod toward Rockefeller University was the only gesture needed to bid farewell. We both knew we would meet again.
Like water running towards its new home, my cab rushed me to the beautiful Bryant Park for a rendezvous with a cohort of mine. Our hands met in salutation. We meandered around the park, lighting and flicking cigarettes. We laughed.
Representing prey for the city’s most shallow merchants, my cohort and I thumbed through the poorly printed letters that laid upon cheap fabric…”I (heart) NYC.” Keepsakes in even cheaper plastic bags. However cheap, these items would bring a smile to a loved one’s face and a small perk to their day. Being preyed upon never felt so good.
As the flocks of human workers fled their weekly concrete hideouts, my cohorts and I joined in the river of pedestrians, flowing with and against the current. Within moments the words “Vincent Van Gogh” lay before me on a simple placard. I let my childhood aversion to simplicity leave me and took several minutes to breathe in the beauty…to really absorb it.
In excited appreciation I spun on my heels and was locked into place as the words, “Jackson Pollock” streamed into my pupils, holding them still. Pollock’s splendid and seemingly arbitrary splatters led me to “Andy Warhol” and his botulism-plagued gourmet art. Then the art assembled from off the wall and took 3-dimensional shape as “Pablo Picasso” created art as obscurely sublime as the ones that hung vertically with his name at the bottom.
My phone vibrated. I plucked the pods of plastic from my ears and the sounds of The Flaming Lips become distant echoes. I looked at the phone. One of my cohorts who had forged ahead in the sea of “modern art” to scout for gems among gems had sent me news.
The words seemed to leap off my LCD screen and into my brain, which without warning propelled my legs towards the escalator leading to the upper-most floor in the museum. “Salvador Dali.” An artist who’s dark side refused to be held down was exploited, thankfully and appreciatively, all around the sixth floor. I drank it in. I felt a connection with the odd Spaniard. We shared our pains and smiled at each other.
I left the museum feeling “cultured.” I was.
“Merriment abound,” bubbled up from the deep beer glasses I gulped that night. Playing cards flipped, poker chips clinked and ping-pong balls darted to-and-fro for hours upon hours. I slept.
New York City had welcomed me with open arms. It was kind, yet bold…outspoken, yet truthful. Knowing it was my time, I garnered my belongings and joined the non-residents on the PATH. The faded metal train cars dove into the dirty silt of the Hudson River and breached on native soil.
Within only moments, my free trial subscription to New York City was a memory. I was back in the Garden State.
A long day at work reverted me back into a feeling of “the real world.” However, north New Jersey continues to display a 1940s-1950s feel…a cozy, innocent atmosphere amidst the shouting car horns and crowded street corners you’ll see in any city. Jersey City made me comfortable.
Then, later in the night, my cohort and I took a late-night walk. I wanted to stroll through the city that brought such pleasant thoughts to mind. However, as my now increasingly dirty blue and silver new pair of Pearl Izumi sneakers ventured further and further towards the river…the 1950s turned into the present day. Old corner grocery stores morphed into Starbucks. Three-story brick apartment buildings sprang into 40-story monstrosities.
Then we reached the Hudson River. It flowed as it always had. Not a single ripple was misplaced but only for a second after a fish flailed itself to the top of the water for a midnight snack. The river moved, and remained the same. Thoughts of Siddhartha flowed through my head.
What happened that got me here? What did I do wrong? Did I deserve any of this? Where am I going next? What is the right thing to do? I found a quote about rivers…how apropos:
“Time is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is its current; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away. “
- Marcus Aurelius
With that in mind, I gazed longingly upon the city of New York that I had just departed. My short term there would soon be swept away, as would everything in my past that I’m not desperately clinging to so as to not let it ever slip away.
I’m ready for the river to bring me something new…to bring me my new beginning. I’m ready.
