Thanks for another day. Never thought I’d be watching this sunset for nearly 30 years, yet… One more going down. Much gratitude.

It was a quiet, if not quite peaceful day. Heat is a weird thing (and I here I go talking about the weather). I remember getting off a plane in Kingston and walking out onto the blazing tarmac, way back before they built the new Manley airport. It was hot, sure, but it wasn’t just being on holiday that made it peaceful. It was the pace. The pace accommodated the weather.

Here in New York City it’s like Mother Nature herself is committing an act of violence. Everything is superheated. It’s oppressive. I walked by a guy sitting in a doorway near 16th today that I’m pretty certain was dead. Shirtless, jeans pulled down on twisted legs and and his tongue sticking out from swollen lips. The smell? Fuck if I know. He smelled dead. Around the corner on 14th a huddle of crusties were pulled up on cardboard under construction scaffolding. There was shade, but the no relief from the heat. One chick on the end of the row there, about eight in all, held up a small sign asking for donations. Only two on the other end were talking, a guy leaning forward and babbling while the woman fiddled around behind her knee looking for a vein. Yah, no shit, right in the open but believe me nobody is looking at the crusties. Nobody that curious, if you discount me.

Everyone else was too bugged out on their own discomfort to give a rat’s ass about casualties. Me? I can’t help it. I see too much. I can’t unsee it. Whatever. It was still a peaceful walk. God knows why I was even out there except the usual. Mobility has become synonymous with therapy. Not that therapy isn’t in order, and that’s being taken care of, but it takes a bit to get into a headspace where opening up to an analyst is even an option. Hence… walking. It doesn’t matter where. Distance matters. Working myself into a semi-trance matters. And for some reason I decided I need a boonie hat so Dave’s seemed like a reasonable destination, except it is closed on Sunday. That was a bit disappointing but about a block further on a guy walked by in exactly the desired boonie hat and he looked like a right twat, so the stupid headgear gods were looking out for me.

And what’s there to be grateful for? Firstly that there’s nothing to be ungrateful for maybe. The free saunas on the train platforms, why not? That it wasn’t me dead in a doorway or trying to hype a dying vein to the surface on a shit hot sidewalk? That’s not setting the bar very high, but we’ll take that too. I don’t know. There doesn’t need to be anything specific to be grateful for. It’s like what I said to Lysah when we had dinner last week. Things are okay. After all this time, things worked out. You’re okay and I’m okay. I’ve never been okay before and that’s… well, it’s fucking great. Life itself has it’s ups and downs but we’re out there surfing it. It’s cool. We got this. This is what we alway hinted at but never came out and said. We always said it would be nice to break even and here it is.

Selah