so alive right now

here's another from way back that just felt right for the moment:

originally dated April 28, 2006

Today, I saw a man lie down in the sun by the elementary school on 4th street and die.

I don't want to give the impression that this kind of thing happens often around here or anything...it certainly does not. We don't even really have any homeless people in my neighborhood, except Buster, and he doesn;t really count. I'm not sure if this man was homeless and giving up or whether he had some kind of heart attack....I have no idea.

But the people on the street tried to wake him up and then me and another girl called the police. We waited and waited. Eventually most people broke off and the girl's boyfriend came to wait with her. They told me they would stay and wait for the cops and so, after giving him a sansho, I left.

Everything is so alive right now, it's a real jolt to remember that anyone could die. Life is so long and so short. And lately, despite all these new beginnings, I had been feeling in kind of a funk. Not any actual negative thoughts or depression...just a lack of the ridiculous glee that had taken over my life since moving to New York.

I'm all about being grateful in the moment...often I am overwhelmed by gratitude and have to take a moment... so I guess it's easy if I'm not careful to be annoyed when I feel unappreciated. But what's nice about life, is that it's always teaching me patience (something I am only recently starting to grasp) Patience to know that in the end, I am appreciated. In the long run...at first, most people think I'm a nut (and I am). But those are the people the normally end up as my best friends. Eventually, they accept the weirdness of me, see the method in my madness (I hate that cliche, but it's true) and I feel more importantly than being appreciated, that all the energy I expend....has a purpose...a mission....that I have done some good in the world.

I mean, that's what I'm in it for. In the long run...

the mission that is.

which always leads me back to Broadway.

As funky as I had been feeling, in an instant, it can all turn around, like it did a few days ago, in the very same spot that this man lied down and died.....

I was walking home at night, and I passed a couple. The man was pretty young, and was using a song to illustrate his point. He said:

"New York, New York, helluva town...."

and INSTINCTUALLY, without even thinking about it, I replied:

"The Bronx is up and the Battery's down..."

and there I was. I was back. That uncontrollable grin on my face...who am I??? But the guy laughed and looked at his girlfriend and said, "See?!"