My Blog

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.