the joys of the sullen...

at 4 o'clock in the afternoon on september 3rd i was sitting on an aluminum chair on the High Line in the meatpacking district listening to a man play Bach on a mournful cello.  a slight smattering of rain. so romantic and it was my birthday.  i was thankful for my mirrored aviator sunglasses.  tears rolled in a slow, straight line from my eyes.  it was such a moment of simple beauty and generosity.  i sat there for close to an hour and just listened.  it felt perfect and important to relish the notes that bled with such intense sadness from the strings of the cello. 

i usually ignore my birthday and let it roll by without any real acknowledgement whatsoever but this year i made a point of doing things differently.  so much has changed in the last few years, and especially during the last several months, that it was important to me to actually physically take note of the passage of time and to celebrate the fact that i am alive and kicking, not beaten, not degraded, not broken.  this year i feel alive. 

when the man stopped playing i gave him the few bucks i had in my pocket, thanked him for his amazing playing, and walked away in the rain listening to Ohne Dich on my headphones.  i headed toward the Lower East Side and stopped at a blue mail box on the street somewhere along the way.  i filled out two postcards, both relaying the same tale of my immediate moment of listening to music in the rain in New York, put stamps on them and dropped them in the box.  one was to one of my best friends ever and the other was to myself.  it arrived here in oakland 2 days after i returned.  it is tucked in to the corner of the armoire mirror.

 

i took this picture right before walking up the steps to the High Line.


and this is the song i walked away listening to.

 



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