My Blog

Its fascinating how close together the tracks run.  If you sit still and just stare, you can see the people in the neighboring train as it runs alongside yours.  Each of those a life, each a soul, each with their own story to tell.

It interesting how you can question a life, you can question morals and question your own intentions.  Each day you are asked to make certain choices, decisions - whether big or small, that will, in one way or another, influence you and create who you are.

She longs to break out of routine.  It has all become too much.  The lists, the responsibilities, the feeling of being tied down.  When I am free, a new life stirs within me.  When the mundane circumstances of the outside do not cloud my sense of purpose, I feel alive.  But I have to strive to feel that alive.  I have to work hard at creating this balance between what the soul’s muffled voice and the loud noises that bombard outwardly.  It almost too much to be surrounded by so much activity, sound, pleasure, noise, hurt, speeding moments.  Its too much, and your heart recedes far back to a moment when that didn’t exist and in that very recession comes a longing to escape. 

Sometimes you want to ‘feel’ so badly you can taste it.  And that taste is inspired by a song, a simple melody, a strum of the guitar. 

Perhaps this is all nonsense.  Perhaps the reader reads and finds therein a chaotic mess, or, on the contrary, perhaps the reader reads and in it finds a point of connection.

In five months I do not know where this life will have lead me.  In five months I enter unknown territory and there is a certain sense of freedom that comes with the uncertainty.  It is the freedom of letting go and trusting that you will be taken care of, that it will and has already been all sorted out, without your constant worry.  In that trust is a freedom that no one understands but you.

You don’t realize how much your heart is attached to a place until you are forced to leave it. 

Spending one entire week in your version of paradise, separating from it feels like nothing will ever be the same again.  There are major differences between waking up only to go swimming in the backyard for hours, and being smashed up against the 15 person Australian tour group on the subway.  They crammed onto the train, piercing the quiet, stale air of our particular car with their pronunciation of how disgustingly hot it was outside.  We are, after all, not only on a heat advisory, but a BREATHING advisory.  Don’t breathe in the City - the pollution will clog your lungs and the heat is thick enough to stop your heart, if even for a few moments. 

The air is hot, the atmosphere is sticky, and people are everywhere.  You are, inevitably drawn into every person’s conversation around you, not because they are particularly interesting, but because you left your iPod at home and they are too close for you not to a rude eavesdropper.  It is not a good morning.  Heart aching, body sweaty, mind tired, are ears attune to the Aussie girl go on and on about all the tourists traps she has laid eyes on throughout the last week in the great big city of New York.

Suddenly the elderly gentleman next to me pipes up, feeling the need to join the conversation hovering above him…"You know,” he says out of no where, “I met my wife of 30 years on the subway.  I just happened to make it on the train that day - jumped on there and there she was…You know, you never know when things are going to happen and change your life."  Suddenly, our entire section of the subway was smiling.  At his sweetness, at his excitement, at the sense of hope he instilled in each one of us by relating his simple story. 

Walking away, things don’t feel half as bad anymore.  In fact, it even feels cooler outside…

There are certain blessings that we as women receive, just based upon the mere fact that we are, biologically, women.   One such blessing is none other than the gracious pain ferry that visits once a month, usually unannounced and uninvited.  Now I know what you are thinking – disgusting, WHY talk about this on a blog?  

An honest answer?  The pain is so excrutiating as my fingers hit these keys, that I have no choice but to record it for fear that when the moment passes, I will forget the misery and take normality for granted.  

She sits comfortably, reading; so engrossed in the words on the page that the outside world seems of no importance whatsoever.   Right there, in that absolutely content moment, is when it hits.  A pain so devastatingly grotesque that it takes over the entire body, shooting from neck to thigh. She is afraid to straighten her body for fear that if she does the movement itself will disturb the new force that is occupying her, creating another angry turbulence.   She can cry, but no one wants to soothe her; she can scream, but they will all look at her as a crazed lunatic; she can lie down, but there is no space adequate, no external area created to cater to those momentary needs.  

So she endures silently.  As many before her have and as many will for generations to come.   Quietly she hushes her insides and forces nature itself to subside. 

All without a word.

(until the Advil kicks in)

Sometimes you just miss it so much your heart hurts.  You close your eyes and concentrate hard enough and you are back there.  Feeling that love, encompassed by that overpowering sense of humility and wonder.  You miss being inspired.  Everything around you reminds you of how it once was. 

Life continues, its mundane processes taking away the excitement that once was.  And for the most part, you continue, unphased, on auto-pilot. 

But it could happen anywhere.  On the walk from the subway to your house, just as you are turning onto 121st; as you ride up the elevator, or back down; in the middle of your friends’ story of her day; as you go to pick up your phone; the first moment you open your email in the morning - anywhere.  It sneaks up on you…a pain so acute it threatens to suffocate you. 

You let it run its course and finish what it started.  Those sweet memories all swirling together to create one common sense of deep sadness.

Then the moment passes, you breathe, and continue on your way.

After a while there are certain parts of the City that you love and certain parts you absolutely detest.  You love walking in central park, browsing through SoHo or the East Village, strolling down the Upper East Side, and enjoying brunch on the Upper West. 

The walk of death for me is getting from the 34^th street’s 1 train stop to 36^th and 8^th.  That 7.5 minute walk is a nightmare in and of itself, particularly when it is hot and humid, which, on this particular day, it is.  I climbed the 48 stairs from the bottom pit of the subway towards the small opening leading to “air”.  Already sweating and uncomfortable, only to be enveloped in the sauna-esque atmosphere that makes you feel like you are breathing in the sun for breakfast.  But, nay, on 34^th, just as you turn to walk away from the Macy’s super store, you are breathing in exhaust; pure and uncontaminated exhaust.  It fills your lungs as if you have been a chained smoker your whole life.  Pass every fast-food shop, every discount store and jewelry stand, quickly, swerving left and right so as to not lose momentum by the strolling people, or those lost in conversation on their over-priced cell phones.  Holding your breathe, for fear that the stench coming from the chicken shop frying food at 9 am and the urine beds at the corner of each building, will be fighting with the exhaust for a safe place in your lungs.

You pass by every type of person…all uniquely different than you, but same in the fact that they also have a film of wetness on their foreheads.  Once in a while you might pass a young chap who has overloaded on cologne, in hopes that the smell will detract from the fact that his body yearns to break out in an uncontrollable sweat, but for the most part, the majority of the hundreds that crowd that smelly, stifling, and polluted stretch of land have given in to the sweat; allowing the smell to become one of the 63 distinct scents that one encounters during that short span of time. 

And there you have it. 7.5 minutes there and 7.5 minutes back…bane of my existence.

What I love most about this new plan is that it does not exclude anyone…You all have the ability and the responsibility to be involved…does not matter if you are a scholar, a student, a junior youth, a senior citizen…everyone works at his or her own capacity, because you are working with people in your realm.  No one is "beyond" it.  It just takes your own commitment, your own level of sacrifice, and you arising on your own terms…Makes sense?  Too many words, a simple concept.  Individual action.

Its a funny thing about rain…at least here…it comes when you least expect it.  Washes everything away - destroys what it wants - and refreshes others.  Getting caught in it…with no umbrella and no ’shelter’ can be an interesting experience - and it is up to you to decide how you want to handle it.  I usually shy away…I freeze up and seek shelter…letting it run its course without me involved. 

Last week, I let it wash over me.  In a way I had no choice…but, I was also craving it.  I stepped off the subway, trecking my usual way back from the 116 stop to home…and it just came.  I had nothing…nothing but an Insight song playing and the freedom in me to look upwards as it ran its course along my face.  It came down hard…but it was so sweet and so pure, and the song so refreshing that I could not stop it…if even I tried. 

So I joined the rain instead.  I cried sweet tears of happiness and utter gratitude.  Perhaps thats the lesson He needed me to learn that day.

I never thought I’d be in THIS place in the summer time.  The first thing I wanted to do when I got here was leave..and yet, somehow, the energy of the place has intoxicated me.  Instead of wanting to avoid the subway at all costs, I look forward to my daily sojourns to and from the office…iPod and good book in hand.  These are my moments of tranquility….amidst the masses, pushed up against stangers of all backgrounds, makes and models, this is where I find peace.