My Blog

A blabberfest of run-on emotions and exaggerations whispers of doubt and shouts of twentysomethings angst of thanks of unrequited regrets dreams and more, more dharma more spazz more jazz more of the stark ugly thoughts of the half truths and starry wide wants, of feeling and touch, of nothing at all. Of me.

Sunday, July 20, 2003

She has a funny way of living. It’s four pm, Sunday afternoon in Central Park. A hazy bright afternoon of roving pigeons and silent rowboats on the soupy pond, a lazy summertime afternoon of couples in embrace and children in play; a yellow New York afternoon of people doing anything anywhere anyhow because they wanted to—to explore, to dream, to procrastinate, to create. I’m walking with Nine and it’s her last weekend in New York. “If only you didn’t go on that stupid Australia trip,” she said. “You’re the one who’s leaving,” I said. “If you came earlier,” she retorted. “You’re the one who’s leaving,” I replied. And it’s true. I suppose I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time with this girl in the past couple of weeks, for reasons still uncertain, except for the fact that her company is pleasant. And I suppose that in this city of steel and grit and life, companionship is a novel scarcity. Her circle of friends and acquaintances seems so different from mine, like a sitcom that I’ve watched for some time but haven’t understood completely; and yet, her views on the characters and the plot are completely at odds with the ways that I think she would see those situations and circumstances. And so we talk this afternoon, of girls and their guys, of girls and their quarrels, of girls and their wants. We talked of nothing, of course. Of cheerio contests and women body-builders, of traveling and men and Adam’s apples and blubber. But also of possibilities and whys, the whys that exists in relationships, those questions of how and when that play with each other whenever boys and girls talk about each other, like electrons swirling around an unseen and unresolved nucleus. We walked across a jazz ensemble jazzing away on 67th street. It was a mellow tune in contrast with the breezy playful summer day, but there was mischievousness about it, a lack of seriousness in the way the trio made fun of themselves. And I suppose that’s why Nine made good company, because it was in contrast with my life, my inner fascination with the weighty concerns of a twentysomething. She pokes fun, she mocks, she reduces the complexities of the structural problems of my quarter-life while exaggerating and enlarging them so. There’s an irreverent spirit that tugs Nine along; a sense of self-deprecation among her complaints, but it is through her complaints that I see my own complaints for what they are (oddly important only to me), and in that way, her ministrations jolts my sensibilities and gives me that glorious creative destruction/ordered chaos that moves me to act. I know. The sun continued his descent, arching slowly so over the tiny people below. The park seems emptier now, lighter, and even a little slower. I wonder what next week will be like. I’ll be in the park on Sunday again, but the differences of the days ahead when matched with the days of now are stunning. I’ll be in the same park, the same patch of worn lawn—I’ll pass the same people groups of rollerbladers and families and couples, the baseball games and the hot dog stands, and I’ll be writing again, hopefully. But today, with all of its similarities to past days and future days, is singular because of minutiae, of the events and people leading up to this moment, because of expectations about the hours ahead, and because of the realizations of now. Deep stuff, huh?