Prospect Park

I'm going to tell you right off that this post is probably something I should have written in my journal, but I'm not keeping one at the moment so this is the next best thing.

I also think, in addition to TMI and lack of guarding my personal space, this experience has a "human interest" underneath that I can't think of an easy google keyword for, so perhaps it is at least a tad of the domain of the not yet trampled upon -yet to form a defined crease in the human brain.

"I spend a lot of my time thinking about_____" is one of OkCupid's open-ended questions. I tried to think of something esoteric enough to compete with other entries, while at the same time not being pretentious enough to turn the likes of me off. I don't remember what I wrote.

But the other day, I finally achieved my nirvana -at least the one I have been attaining to for at least the last couple of months, if not years. A day to myself. A day where I could wake up, and let my mind play, and let my body follow. A day, in other words, where I was just a vessel, an almost unobstructed one, and the life energy could flow through me at will.

Of course I woke up late, ate cereal, and read the paper. Then I made coffee and didn't turn on my music so I could hear the birds in what I realized last night was our own personalized urban forest fortress. (All of the surrounding backyards are overgrown, and our cement-space is oddly lower than the rest, and so the surrounding fence looks monstrous.)

And then I resisted all bait by house mates and friends, tied on my sneakers, and headed out for what, I also realized when my house mate told me to call him when I got back so we could go pick up some food, is adequately termed a Day Run. One where I carry my metrocard, gunnysack, map, and follow the streets.

It was
THE PERFECT DAY. I left a little late, and so the midday sun was one my Senegalese host family would have balked and told me to avoid. People were out for the Cherry Blossom Festival, right down the street. I smelled, and saw every conceivable good memory I have ever had. As I ran through the neighborhoods, Little Italy, Chinatown, the Gowanus canal, the backwards streets where no one lives, Chirilagua, the countryside on the train in Japan...I smelled burning trash and pupusas and the incense Fary lit in the pot while I laid on her bed in a pool of sweat.

And then Prospect Park. I was honestly jittering with life. I was higher than 3 times as high as I've ever been. Every cell of my body was pressing against its walls and making as much surface contact with the green grass, the water fountain with the kid taking too long, the couples sleeping on each others laps. The mom speaking Spanish, and all I could get was she was dishing back her daughter's attitude. The games played, the giant fat families barbecuing, the chubby hipsters with greasy too-long goatees trying to skateboard. I could smile at each one.

And then I realized, "I spend a lot of time thinking about" bombs. Terrorist attacks. Honestly. Every moment, its on the back of my mind. It is a loop that is factored into all of my processing. What if a bomb went off right now? What would I do? Would I survive? How would this situation change? Who would live and who would die? How would we help each other? Who would be helping who? How long would we be trapped in here? I imagine the relationships that would develop between the smelly homeless man with all his bags of recycling, the crazy Wolof woman speaking and singing in tongues to everyone but me, the gangster playing his music so loud I am pissed off for him and how loud it must be in his ears. The woman whose toes I've stepped on five times trying not to lose my balance when I let go of the bar to change the page.

I think of it now, in Prospect Park. Park Therapy, I call it. Just take any disgruntled, disadvantaged single man and plant him in this park on this day and he would be cured. In fact, now I keep my mind out for it. And I see them, all over. Many immigrants. Men. Sitting on park benches alone. Yet here, I don't feel creeped out by them. I could almost go sit with them, but I'm running. And then there's post-park life. But in the park, I decide while waiting for the kid to slurp the giant water bubbles, its heaven. Honestly, if I die, let me carry this image with me on repeat for all eternity.

I get home. I water my flowers. I cook for myself and then have a few beers with Brad and his friend on the roof. And then I go to the garden. But before that, I go to the bathroom.

You might want to stop reading now.

Ok, I warned you. I got my period. For the first time. In over three years. Well, that's almost true. I've gotten some spotting. But all these spottings seemed random. This time, I can almost feel, I know I got it from the park. What does this mean? Am I wedded to the Universal Soul? Perhaps. Its all part of the same thing...my body only comes to life to produce life when its fully alive. I don't know why I have this...but my body is not going to let me produce unless I infuse the life I create with life. All of it.

I lost my period when I went to Peace Corps. Reasons unknown -diet, heat, stress. I think its because I fully relinquished myself -we even talked about it, Jenna and I, in one of the first few weeks, while we biked from Thies to Popenguine. The onion analogy - we peeled back each layer until there was nothing left, and saved the pieces to wrap ourselves back up when we went home. I went further than most others. I've literally been operating my body, even my mind, and my spirit, like a ventriloquist since that time.

But I am coming back. In a way, the powers that be have deemed it. They let me apply for school because they knew there would be no other way I would back off. But now I have been 'condemned' to live here in New York until I hear otherwise. I have been commanded to do nothing but lavish myself and fall in love.

And its working. That's the miracle of my period. I decided to write about it today because its not spotting. It went away the day after, and I was disappointed that, although the park brought on this spark of life, it was soon quelled by the Monday grind. But yesterday something was ruined. And today, I needed to go to Duane Reed. So this period is unlike any that I have had (naturally occurring, not on birth control) in over three years.

Its the miracle of life.