Breathing, Again

The people across the way enjoying a lot of Shake Shack custard.  A lot.

Madison Square Park.  NYC.  May 13th, 2012.

Were you around these parts on Sunday?  If no, I'm so sorry!  No, really.  I mean it.  It was Stinking Gorgeous.  I wish you had been here because everyone deserves a day like that.  I was insanely productive in the morning which allowed me to catch a matinee and then park my butt on a bench in Madison Square Park.  In between watching the leaves high above my head against the blue sky, I read.  A little Dominican toddler screamed and squealed and babbled with his parents for a few hours on the bench next to mine.  I thought his yapping would disrupt my calm, but hey, it didn't.  He was cute and hilarious.  An Asian yuppy bragged loudly to two girls about his job at a hedge fund (money makes insecure people act so funny).  The girls lapped up his every word.  I cringed, embarrassed for the whole obnoxious situation, and lit up my iPod to drown them out.  Before I knew it, it was six.  It had felt like only an hour, but I spent pretty much all day in that little bit of green.  It was amazing.

One evening about a month ago, I cut through this same park and came across one of my most favorite smells in the whole wide world: fresh cut grass.  I remembered sitting in my high school Latin classroom.  The edge of the girls' lacrosse field was right outside.  The windows would let in the fresh cut grass smell every spring.  Catching that first spring whiff so unexpectedly in Madison Square Park nearly knocked me over.  The scent was so amazingly therapeutic that I stopped and stood still.  The direction of the wind had changed, but I remained patient until it fluttered through my way once again.  It was, in one word, marvelous.  I wanted to vanish right there.  It was so peaceful.  I didn't need anything else.

Shaking my winter blues this spring was more challenging than any year in memory.  I thought when the clock officially sprung forward, with the extra daylight and the warmer days, I'd perk back up.  But I didn't.  In fact, it wasn't until just a few weeks ago when I had the apartment to myself (for two weekends straight!) that I started to feel like I could breathe again.  It had been a while since I had felt really good, even just ok.  I had the luxury to be carefree, walking around in my underwear, sleeping in almost nothing without the fear of bumping into someone in the middle of the night on my way to pee (someone not related to me, if you catch my drift).  Suddenly, my head wasn't hurting all the time.  I didn't mind my neighbors slamming their doors so much.  I could think straight without getting exhausted.  I didn't want to tuck away early under my soft comforter every night.  I felt like life was back.  And that there was fresh cut grass right outside my window to greet me every morning.

I had been desperately hoping that May was going to be a really good month, and so far, I am so pleased that it has been.  I feel like I'm standing back upright, that I'm not suffocating, that the world is showing its kindness again.