An era has ended as I now say goodbye to my old leather journal and welcome in a new time of my life, hopefully a little wiser, a little brighter. I was sent this new journal, one that I now call my youthful travels. Fitting, I think. This first entry is about the welcoming of spring in New York.
When I think of New York, I think of my future. Phoenix renders me in riddled dreams of the past, mine and those forlorn ages cradled in green. Thursday morning, the darkness pulled back until eyes wept in a golden glaze. The clouds frothed back and forth, rolling waves of a calm sea. The storm of a heavy night of restless talks and thoughts of the heavy autumn rush, a falling kind seemed to heave its final cry. And all that was left was the morning dream, waves like blankets. They seemed so close you wished you could roll the thick, double paned windows down and let your fingers swim in the clouds. Do what you knew as a kid. I turned to my side as we descended into a communal fog of neither the heavy or light kind. It was just there. The pink and yellow, deep blue of an earlier time rose so high, it stayed behind, it said goodbye. I was approached by a baby’s eyes—welcomed into this new city that would be my home for a week. Its mother whispered, “Good Morning.” I smiled at him, he laughed. His eyes widened in excitement, raw and young and free. I couldn’t help but laugh too because this was a new era. I was away from something so heavy: the past. But I was in flight, I was a bird like I always imagined young and in bed drifting away to bedtime stories. The airplane was like a boat descending the sea, nothing was as serious as it seemed. These past six days have blurred my vision of self, or it has awakened a new sense that has always been there, that I have never seen. When I landed, I grabbed a ticket and trusted the yellow taxicab that seemed to be waiting to take me into New York City. I pretended to know where I was or where I was going. The traffic was the only thing keeping me from something bigger than myself. I spotted my best friend, Jackie, in her purple NYU sweatshirt. I didn’t even realize the 10 dollar tip I handed to the driver. He didn’t say much. After Jackie and I grabbed breakfast at this cute french bakery and restaurant, Le Pain, we joined the routine of the subway: the music, the people rushing and stopping, the incessant swiping of metrocards, the wind of those fast, frenzied underground trains.
Our first stop was in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The waterfront, broken windows and graffiti art with cats and teenage hearts. We sat on the ground of this thrift shop, Junk, and held pictures that was once the property of lost families and dearest dears. I wondered if they were missed. We sat on the ground and held them up until the sun shone through. That evening, we ventured to the markets of Chelsea, explored galleries, and drank don’t-mind-if-I-do glasses of wine. The crepes back in Greenwich were lovely. In the early hours of the morning, we walked through Washington Square Park, cast by the hazy shadow of the massive white arch. Frozen and cold, we made it to St. Marks where I held my 99 cent pizza for warmth. I felt more than what was, and even now my memory begins to fade.
Running on what seemed like no more than two hours of sleep, we awoke to a rainy mist and the brooklyn seashore. I joined Jackie and her wonderfully artistic friends she made through photography. I couldn’t stop smiling at their eclectic blend of personalities that seemed to mix so well, and the way their views of the world painted itself beautifully through pictures (inspiring, might I add). We were the only ones on a shore ridden with broken glass and bottles—a mosaic array that reminded me of stepping stones we used to make in Garden class in elementary school. The shattered treasures became the sand itself, the bottles that washed among the current like an ancient celtic folklore clanged together with the tune of chimes dancing in the wind, not cradled by the lull of a waters edge. It was so beautiful and untouched even though they say it was once a landfill, forgotten and left in decaying grace. I collected glass bottles, green, brown, clear for my future and past. A sacrificed present to the gods. I wondered who held these once, what apothecary named these Bella Donna. My feet soon dragged on this cold, English coast. We pandered through golden fields and found our way back to the bus stop, our noses and lips bruised blue by the cold, until we gathered for final warmth in Snice coffee shop with tea, bagels and cookies.
St. Patrick’s Day filtered the city in green people. The bar hoppers started early with their green shirts and green, sparkly hats--an obvious patronage to the Irish spirit. However, Jackie and her friend Jessie and I met some lovely old ladies, dressed in style at the famous "off broadway". We perused the shelves of a book store, novels and the likes painting the walls to the ceiling. We stopped for lunch at Cafe Lalo, a two-hour affair that was enjoyed over coffee and talks that perused the very living. Central park bloomed cherry blossom and white daisy trees, the Guggenheim museum a marvel of art and photographs of Francesca Woodman that seemed so sad because maybe her life’s end was so sad. I lost myself in translation that night. Starting off the night in one of Jackie’s good friend, Maddie’s dorm room, I met some lovely, sweet and unique people. Swayed by influences that seemed to bubble in happy fever, I held a cigarette to my lips and knew that this is what my five-year-old self was thinking of: cool and burning like the embers lit. We were fumbling over our high, unfiltered laughs. Coughing the smoke away, sitting on St. Mark’s stoops with our 99 cent slice. I didn’t want to leave these people. I wanted to collect every moment and sense.
Walking by myself around west village, I noticed the movement of trees and flowers: nature in such a high rise city garden. We look for what is more than ourselves, hoping to lose what has been garnered real and vaguely this. Words are lost when attempting to pinpoint each encumbrance. If only I could envelop the words of all the great poets and novelists, but I find that I am only left with an empty sugar packet and a dehydrated cherry blossom. My tea bag of apricot orange has floated, or descended to the warmth of a grounded city.
“I am living,” I laughed uncontrollably under the sway of bubbly, happy fever drinks.
I am living.
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