Going to Yonkers with Kelsea on a Tuesday
We lie down on the lush grass hill by the river's waterfall,
the perfect medium between upstate New York and the Bronx.
The empty water park beside us is waiting patiently to reopen for the summer.
The liminal presentation of the shuttered fast food stands and the peculiar absence of neon wristbands and kids shouting only amplify the strange nature of the stunning moss lake and the heavenly fields on the right.
And yet, it's so strange that it's somehow exactly how it should be.
You always petitioned the act of order, of prerequisites and meticulously executed plans,
of what we prioritize in the simple yet revolutionary act of feeling good,
just for the sake of it.
“What did we succeed in doing today?” You exclaimed, ashing a joint in your fingers while a honey bee circles a dandelion near your feet. “We succeeded in driving here. We succeeded in going to target and buying a cheap charcuterie board. All things considered, we didn't 'succeed' at much at all today. But it doesn't mean this is not an amazing day.”
Yes, it was an amazing day. I've always learned from you that we never seem to get them when you try.
We took 0.6 mg of shrooms and I let the tears roll down my cheeks as I stared up at the bristling trees, the sun casting a perfect oval on our splayed bodies.
And I cried because I was sad. I cried because I was letting go and it sent my body in gentle shudders. I cried because I hadn't, I couldn't – for five weeks. Like the waterfall that came from the dam in the lake, pouring haphazardly down the giant rocks into the river in the marsh below.
I cried because I was finally lighter. I cried because I finally felt my heart stir when I thought it might be dead. And I know it is the one thing always on my side.
I looked at you. You looked at me. And without a word, you just smiled.
_
So we made our favorite travel plans, and we marched up the sidewalk with our arms interlocked just like we were kids again, passing old retirees on walks and families on their day off,
cotton seeds dropping slowly through the air like petals in the spring,
the mallards sticking their yellow webbed feet out of the water in search of passing fish below.
We riff on imaginary songs for the sake of being silly,
our cell phones dying,
crossing vacant police precincts like the old camping grounds in Big Sur,
wooden bridges,
faded blue water slides.
“How much dried pee do you think is still in there anyway?!” We laughed as we stumbled on to the concrete of the main road, fishing for the lo-fi photo op to match our degenerating phone cameras. It would all only get ten times funnier, and for no particular reason. We giggled all the way up the hill, arm in arm, the smell of sunblock saturating the backpack.
_
We listen to Magdalene by FKA Twigs in the car ride home. Now it's your turn to cry while I pester Google Maps. “It's just so beautiful,” you whisper, your hands in cradled in your lap.
I look at the orange spring sun setting over the Hudson as we merge on to the Brooklyn Queens Expressway. “That's what we really want more of, you know? Sometimes we don't need to know why something is made. It doesn't need to have a purpose, a meaning. It can just exist to be beautiful. To make us feel things – and we don't need to know why.”
“Yeah.” You nod, gazing outside the passenger window, folding down the sun cover. “You know, I really like this side of Sasha.”
And I think about the inexhaustible greatness that lies under the grace of freedom. We are simply too afraid to look at it and realize how effortless that shift of mind can be – only if you let it.
She is one of the only ones who knows how hard it is for me to see.
“Me too.”