Seasons Change

A few months back I found myself in the bodega on the corner, a place I visit at least twice a day, a place where they recognized me in the local paper and saved me a copy, a place where they let me be a very cents short when times are hard. I look at it as the center of the world for my side of the block, a place where I get to see who really lives around the way: the names I don't know, the faces who keep hours opposite of my own. I sleep though the first third of their work day. I work through the crucial hours where they sleep. Daywalkers. Folks like me are the minority. But I am far from alone.

So I'm in there, copping something to drink when I run into my neighbor who owns the brownstone on the corner. We have a mutual friend in common. We also have the same faith, though due to the geographical differences between our superiors there are differences in doctrine. He's a made guy and I'm still trying to earn my stripes.
But we don't talk about what we have in common. It's been over a year since we've spoken. He tells me about his new baby girl, about his work as an artist. We discuss my spiritual development. He's seen that I've grown since our last meeting, seen that the folks who are training me know that they're doing. We pay for our goods and step out into the winter air. I notice that the stubble on his face is gray. He's older than I always thought he was.

He reminds me that so much of the world he and I walk through is an illusion, a fabrication, a matrix, created by outside forces and hundreds of millions of minds who would rather be told what to do, who aspire to turn on the channel and acquire an opinion than come up with their own, who can only see their peers, their families, their lovers as bags of mostly water shaped in different colors and sizes and sauteed in a jambalaya of histories and cultures.

He tells me that this is the place where people like "us" have to work. This is the maze we navigate as artists, as thinkers, as "healers". I've heard that last word "healer" over and over in reference to me through my short life, almost to the point where it's annoying. Put the right folks in the right situation with me and they'll tell me everything, more than I've asked, more than they even feel comfortable with. Maybe it's what's made me a good interviewer. But others even closer to me can do the same. Folks whom I have idolized have come to me for the strangest kinds of advice despite my mood, financial situation or level of fatigue. And I have always welcomed them.

But just as quick as my compatriot and I's chat began it was over. He crossed Nostrand and I crossed Hancock and that was pretty much it. But when I look back at when it took place it was a time when I felt more alone than I ever had before.

I'd been hoodwinked into believing that a dream job was mine when it wasn't. I was behind on my rent and foraging for the acorns of a job like squirrels on December 15th. I wanted to be a Daywalker. I wanted to be believe in nothing but five senses and a God that only lived up in heaven. But that was bullshit, and he was there to remind me of it.

Now, months later, as I am pregnant again with creative ideas and attempting to broker various ventures, when I'm on the hunt again and know where to find my quarry, I have to be thankful for that little meeting and the many like it with the folks I have met through all kinds of ways. In the last year it has been a series of relative strangers who have saved my ass at various points while my usual allies have been caught up in their own battles. But though time passes, some things don't change.

I had a bit of a text convo with an old friend from my college days. I was there to see her baby on the day that she was born. I was there to see the end of a relationship she thought would last forever. Perhaps along the way I might have imparted something to her, or done some action that caused her to hold me in high regard. But after nearly a decade of not seeing her face-to-face, she still considered me as much of a friend as I had been before. That was a beautiful thing to me. That made me feel like I really was special.

As spring is now here it's a time for new growth, for new life, for the dead things of the past to crumble into the soil of present to bring forth a blooming future, or something like that. I will hike on the soil of another country. I will have sushi and sake in Tokyo. I will walk through the streets of Johannesburg and Bahia. I will write and get movies made. My winter has been a long one, but I think it's finally over. Out.