8th ave / bleeker st /2nd st / pitt st / montgomery st / clinton st / ave b / ave a / norfolk st

8.76 miles

i write this entry a week removed from the day of this walk, as i listen to les misérables. this week has been long, in the sense that i have felt a multitude of emotions each day, and each day is removed from the one before it. i have cycled between highs and lows rapidly; vicissitudes and languor sending me spinning, unable to resettle myself, ignoring text messages and assignments, just barely picking myself up to click on the next zoom link of the day.

my most dearest mother tells me that she felt waves of sadness from me this week, an ocean of feeling billowing across the country from me to her, i suppose.

particular shades of loneliness, hopelessness, uncertainty, shame, disappointment,

yet moments of deep happiness, too.

the sun came out yesterday, and while it appears that this online journal of mine is over populated with references to this fiery sphere, i cannot help my astonishment at spring. the californian cannot comprehend the immense joy of the first warm day. i smiled and smiled as i rested on my back in the warm grass.

furthermore

shared moments with friends,
reading this book in one afternoon turned evening,
dancing alone in the nude,
sunset riverside walks after a long day of sitting,
this rubik’s cube documentary (and subsequent non stop rubik’s cube practicing)
perfect scrambled eggs,
the sun
the sun
the sun.

i have not mentioned details from this walk, admittedly, because many have disappeared from my brain. yet here are the sights: andrew yang! about to go on a bike ride from columbus circle; a mariachi band in the subway, what a forgotten sight, an accordion; a couple people watching through a coffee shop window, another strange sight; posters for broadway shows that have not performed in a year; a man sleeping in a wheelchair on the side of a sidewalk; indoor tennis; penn station; moynihan trail hall; drowsy puppies through a glass pane; a stressed parallel parker; a child nursing; a delicate graveyard hidden away; two chinatown grandmothers stopping to chat with each other; asian dreads, questionable; hookah in an outdoor dining enclosure, questionable again; a sleeping babe.

And must I now begin to doubt,
Who never doubted all these years?
My heart is stone and still it trembles
The world I have known is lost in shadow.
-
Do you hear the people sing
Lost in the valley of the night?
It is the music of a people
Who are climbing to the light.