Reflective Walk

I walked past the houses lined up along the promenade at 2:30am. I was the only person on the street. I had just walked inland from the beach where I had been hanging out with the last visitors of the HUGE party my family threw last weekend called the Hoover Hootenanny. I was walking back to my great Aunt's house on the Jersey Shore.

There was no one else awake, let alone out on the street. I looked with long indulgent stares at the cookie cutter Victorian architecture that passed me as I moseyed over to the house.

The sky was black, no stars.

The air was still, no wind.

The neighborhood was silent, no sound.

I felt wholly and completely alone, and yet not sad. Just thoughtful and reflective and overall excited about being on the Jersey Shore and away from New York for a night.

A lot has happened this past week, no boredom.

Oh, Summer. You rock.

Concert in the Park

I sat staring at the magenta sky and allowed the music of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra to wash over me like a wave of thick, creamy chocolate. I wriggled my toes in and out of the rich green grass of the lawn and shut my eyes from time to time when a particularly wonderful note was hit. Tchaikovsky, Wagner and Brahms lifted up and over the heads of the thousands of spectators reclining in silence to the beauty and wonder of the masters of music.

I've never heard the New York Philharmonic before. In fact, when asked if I wanted to go to the concert I hesitated, unsure as to whether I wanted to get lost in the crowds, search for a place to sit, buy food to eat, and potentially: get bored. The last time I went to the park to see a free concert I was a lot younger. My babysitter Pat took my sister and I to see Garth Brooks and all I remember of that experience was people walking on and across our blanket and Pat smoking like a chimney. Thankfully, I went with my better judgement and tagged along to see the music last night.

Rarely will a musical piece move me to tears. I work at a cabaret space in Manhattan and see quite a lot of live Jazz, Folk, World music, Classical and Alternative music. There have been a couple times in the two years I have worked there, that I have stopped what I was doing and just openly wept at the sound coming out of the musicians fingers/lips. I remember vividly when a folk group came in and a couple playing their fiddles were harmonizing and I could not keep the tears from rolling down my cheeks. Or, when a South Indian group came and played traditional Carnatic music and two violinists played as if making love to each other, I smiled and got teary eyed at the beauty of what they were saying with their music. 

It's lovely when experiencing a piece through the lens of your own life moves one to tears. Music which can transcend language and time and even cultural differences, can create a story that I can watch in my head and cherish on such a personal level, that the hopes of trying to describe that experience to someone else is all but impossible. Yet, there is a shared understanding when I look at a perfect stranger and watch as that person is probably going through their own version of the same ecstasy. 

I am so glad I went to that concert last night. Plus, the final cherry on that sundae was the firework show at the end. So awesome. And free?! New York: you can really rock. 

Hanging Out

Chilling out in the summer is hard to do unless one has an AC.

But, hanging out? Really relaxing in the company of others and feeding off the creative energy of their bodies, and not feeling pressure to speak or do or act unless one wants to is: in my opinion, truly a wonderful level of friendship to be enjoyed by only the closest of friends.

And what causes that comfort? That level of trust, to know that the people who also happen to be in the room will be totally content to stay in their underwear all day and maybe debate taking a shower and maybe have to get up at one point and announce that they'll be back after they take a dump?  That comes from love. A love of the people around you. A love that transcends a need for sex or for drama or for stimulation, a love that occurs when one can be happy just sitting in the same confines of the same four walls as other people.

When someone has that relationship with others, be they roommates, relatives, co-workers, or best friends, that's something special. Lovely. A romance with other relationships that aren't just a boyfriend or girlfriend.

I love hanging out with other people who also want to just hang out.

Oh, hello delicious summer afternoons. I'm loving the sweet flavor of your laid-back kisses.

Summer-Filled

It was the beginning of the summer break. My Dad, Sister and I were living on 72nd street in a tiny one-room sublet that my dad had found for July and August. It was a single room studio that we were all sharing for a few days before my sister and I were to fly out to Florida to spend a month with our cousins in July.

School had ended only a few days before and the sweet, sweet freedom that candies the air of summer was wafting through my nostrils as I flopped down onto the Queen sized bed in the corner of the Studio. I looked up at the ceiling and counted the shadow-bars left from the blinds that cut through the orange light that came in from the street. I heard the sound of foot traffic going on underneath the second floor window of the apartment. I felt my belly rise up and then down as I imagined the sprawling weeks and months ahead of me before I had to go back to school in September. This is what living like a King feels like. I thought. I have nothing but time ahead of me and I can do whatever I want. I imagined the things I could and would be doing in Florida with my cousins and Sister. I imagined the road trips that were going to happen, the secret all-nighters I was going to pull while reading the latest Harry Potter when I should be going to sleep. I imagined the hours of The SIMS I was going to play on the computer, and the games of Barbies I was going to play and the ice cream I would have to lick off my fingers, and the rain I'd have to run through and the hot dogs I would be eating.

I lifted my hands up under my head and breathed deep. Summer. Oh, summer. Your anticipation is almost better than your actualities, in many ways. But, there is a wondrous mythical flavor to a season that you know will end with more school in the fall. That another year in your young life will be dawning on a new stage in your education, but only after weeks and weeks of girdle-less days spent getting sunburnt and swimming in Chlorine.

Fast Forward: Tonight I was lying on Serendipity's couch listening to the rain fall outside when I thought back to the moment I just described. I reflected on my life and thought of the Me two years ago when I got back to New York City and didn't know what I was going to do to get my life started. I remember, back then, that suddenly I felt as if my life was like a Summer break, except the time just stretched on and on into infinity, with no clear idea of when my "school starting in the Fall" was going to happen. I remember panicking over that idea. Now, 2 years later, I am back on that preverbal bed on 72nd street, listening to New York go on outside, and I have a huge smile on my face: Summer. Summer is my life. This is what living like a King feels like. I think. I have nothing but time ahead of me and I can do whatever I want.