may day may day may day july

before my break today i exhausted myself and karlene - i don't even know where it comes from. i ran out of the building and got on my bici and circled columbus circle to begin circling central park, which i've never rode around entirely. i wasn't expecting the inclines (yello) but you usually don't see those coming, anyway. even when karlene and i spent that summer of 2001 in yosemite, with all those gorgeousities of nature around us, i chose the worst possible way to release pieces of my self, uncertainty, etc. when i climbed half-dome i made promises to myself at the top. i ran the entire way back down the mountain, forgetting most of them while shocking my knees. throughout my life there have always been those unhelpful things i turn to to 'calm' myself down - i never chose say, swimming, or running; and yoga amplifies my anger. if i were able to live feeling like i do when on a dance-class endorphin high i would say: i forgive you, c'est la vie, it is as it should be, i'm not really concerned with what she's shooting, there's my place in the sun, i AM what it looks like, but these anxieties and feelings-in-flux are 1st world "problems" (like bulimia or chipped nail polish), etc.etc.etc.,... rounding the perimeter of the park around 110th street i heard childrens' voices, and then, an aqua blue GEM in the middle of the green - the pools of nyc have opened for the summer! it was a gorgeous, moving, reflective speckling of brown babies and bright swimsuits. i stood above on the path like a creep (+ camera) remembering what it felt like to be set free during this particular month. sarah and i used to play like that, in matching swimsuits, during 104 degree F modesto summers. i remember watching us from the hot dry concrete (where the mothers sat under umbrellas cutting ham sandwiches), as if from an advanced, out-of-body-and-mind awareness/nostalgia - witnessing us growing, soberly...we were at the age right before you take to the mirror. i am required (REQUIRED) to revel in the sun, this circle, this sweat, these sights...hair growing long, unkempt, looking like fireworks of split ends at the very bottom skirt to my waist no helmet no sunscreen no sunglasses no sweetness up and huffing racing whatever french fucking tourists ask for it and so long as i am there - it is mine, this is mine, and that is mine, too...i know.

this photo of magnificent half-dome © Florian Maier-Aichen