I have found simply the greatest spot in NYC.

You get off from the L at Bedford Ave, and walk due west on N. 7th Street, until you hit the water, basically. There is a big gray block of a building, which we decided is a fan station for the subway, which runs underneath the water at that point. The land in front of and north of it is owned as state park land, and its just the nicest spot. Theres lots of big rocks to sit on, along with broke-down old piers and big blocks of concrete, and great stuff like that. And its windy and sweet and wonderful, and I decided last night that I would do my best to come down there every day for the rest of the summer. It’s whats going to get me through it. It’s like some missing piece of the puzzle. You go down there and sit by the water, and the waves and the wind and the sunlight or the sunset or the night air, and everything just sloooooooooows down, and your perspective is all realigned, and you realize what’s really important and what’s not. It’s just perfect. Last night we all went down there and threw rocks into the water (kerplunk!) and skipped stones and joked about pushing each other off into the East River, and I don’t know, I just remember laying there with the setting sun turning the clouds orange, and thinking, “this is the happiest day of my life.” Yeah, it’s that kinda spot. After everybody went home today (finally!) I went back down there in my flip-flops (which I have also decided that I’m gonna try and wear out every day now), and I found a nice big section of concrete, and laid on my back in the sun, and just everything that I was worried about, or not sure of, it all melted away. And the sun charged my body up like a solar cell. You know, I think there are chemicals in your body activated by sunlight, that, unless they are regularly exposed to it, you get all whacked out and messed up. Or else it’s just really really really good to lay out there, and have everything slow back down to this pulsing magnificent hum.

Whenever I go down there, too, I can’t help but think about leaving New York, and going out and finding some place to live where I’m more in tune with all that, and I don’t have to be part of this frantic race here. And I don’t have to spend all my time underground inside huge blind metal snakes to get to some other place, and then feel all frantic and quick. It makes me wonder a lot, about how my mind and body would work differently in a different environment, and wonder, would I feel clearer, more at peace? In one way, I think being in the city sharpens you. Sharpens you in a way that makes you capable of a lot of things. Maybe they aren’t all good things though. Maybe they just seem like good things, because you get so caught up in them and that way of thinking.

It makes me think back to the summer after freshman year of college, where I spent those three weeks working at a summer camp, before it opened, helping with groundswork and stuff. And we would just wake up with the sun, and eat, and then work all day outside, just heavy hard work, and then when the sun was setting, we would come back up to the house, grab some beers and fishing poles, and sit down there, and boy, it was really something. I’m not even ready right now to get into talking about driving tractors, and how that was just this sublime religious ecstasy for me…. ahhhh… boy.

Not long for this world

I’m not long for New York, I know that. I knew that before I came here. Really, in some strange way, that’s why I came here, because some part of me didn’t want to, was afraid, and that part needed to be overcome. That old, fearful part, that wants to cling to useless patterns and structures.

And that guy, that night in Baltimore, walking back from the light rail, groceries in hand. That guy who came out of nowhere, tapped on the shoulder by the universe, filling him with some strange random message to give to me, about how I should go to New York, because I would get “rich” there. But I knew that’s not what the universe meant literally, cause I don’t care about all that stuff. He meant spiritually, or something. Like, inner riches. So I took this stranger’s promptings to heart, and here I am now. Sent off on some blind mission, to solve some secret purpose. I think it’s starting to unfold around me… I think I just had to become open to it, and I know that I have to stay open to it, while it burns away any remaining impurities, and I “become what I already am,” (like it said on that tattoo site).

Every day, I look all around me, and I think, “Is this why I was sent here? Are you my secret mission?” And if you are, what do we need to do to transcend this place? I would ask for a sign, but they are all around me, and there is usually no mistaking them. I wonder if it will be like that show Quantum Leap, where, once I satisfy certain terms, once I “set right, what once went wrong,” will I disappear, like a cup of light poured back into the sky?

It’s been a long week. Everything is different now. Let’s get started and see what this next one’s made of.