72 Hours

I am here. And then I am there. I move with the energy through these warm days and wet cold nights. Here, is where I am. From canvas to train, bar to obsession, beauty to tragedy, and vibrancy to strong, silent, peace. Through the graveyard of old wooden piers to the peak of tall elegant buildings.

I have wandered. I passed through the city and absorbed it as much as is absorbed me. And a booming city is much like a deep ocean: It moves you. The illusion of control I feel within both is different, but neither brings legitimate comfort. In both it seems that if I make the wrong move the consequence could be severe, but in truth, I am being pushed and pulled with only minor negligable input. When both the ocean and a great city wish to sting you with something of true importance, they will. And so I move as one molecule with these great and large things; hoping only to learn.

And as the Hempstead Train next to me and the Babylon Train I am on, in this dark night, jockey for position and hum with a static march of persistence; all I can do is sit and reflect on my 72-hours in New York City. The lessons on fear and the human condition that it taught me in a crash course fashion. A soft cool rain falls, small electronic devices click and whir around me, and hearts beat in irregular motions. We'll all stay on this train until it makes us get off.

I was within inches of the souls of Cezanne, Monet, Dali, and De Kooning in the afternoon. And on my back I carried those of Gibson, O'Conner, Roth, Dellilo, and Pynchon. Or so I hope. We all hope there is eternity in these pages and on these canvases. Perhaps it is a vain hope.

As I write this, aboard the Babylon Train in my little green composition book, I have only left the New York City limits, heading west, for about twenty minutes. So what I know and have soaked in about the place is still raw and unsorted. Imprints still to be deciphered. But it seemed that most everyone was hurting in their hearts and minds. And we all put up a very tough exterior, but maybe more importantly, we keep moving. And no where was that more evident then in the bars under the Brooklyn Bridge, in the vodka swilling bourgeois fashion stores in the East Village and in the dark and warm basement restaurants where those without illusion wept and struggled right alongside those who have not. Those ones song and held tight. But disillusioned or not; we were one.

And we kept moving, and without any question we pushed hard. It's the only responsible choice. These 72-hours in the City were some of the most beautiful in my life, and they were wrapped lightly in the enigma of pain.

Sweet and true; everything authentic and powerful. There are places in New York City where you can feel that you're beholding something that may just be the peak of the Western Hemisphere's collective human creation. Spasm inducing moments of technological, artistic and absurdest power. And in those moments the feeling I had was of both elation and deep horror. But never hollowness.

And like this light falling rain, a pulsating piece of neon tubing, and a railway always in flux: All I can do is to following the energy. And take it wherever it may lead me.