Reason to Stay

There's a rock beneath my spine and a fallen tree branch holding my neck into place. I feel trapped in a forest of orange blankets and winking devices. It's morning, and all that I have to show are these aches and pains that bruise my everyday. It's been clear for quite some time, this worn futon is not for my body to lay. And odd as it may sound, I don't believe it wants me to lie here either. Why else these cracks? These not too subtle reminders of the comfort being sacrificed? A few moments more and I'm reminded why these knots are worth their sores. The winking devices. Friends. Messages, tweets, updates. The people I wake up for, already saying hi. A reach, a click, a 'press to unlock', and comfort is restored. If I didn't wake up right where I am, as gloomy as the sky outside, it would mean I'm somewhere else, farther away, at a much less affordable rate. My friends would not be near. So I'm willing to weather these conditions if it means being close to their sarcastic eyes and far from a world of only winks.

Julie's close. Yesterday we took a drive to places the other had never been. Julie wanted to go the park. The one where you can see the bridge, she said. What she was trying to explain was actually not a "park" but a simple jetty, a stretch of rocks that spilled out into the Little Neck Bay. I'd gone before, plenty of times. In high school we'd buy over-sized sandwiches with names like "The Beast" and drive up to the guardrail, looking out at the bits of skyline over the horizon. We'd sit on the hoods of our cars listening to the water crash underneath us. And eventually, if you listened carefully, you could almost hear the cops approaching before they'd yell at us for trespassing after dark. This time was a little different for me. It wasn't dark. It was 4:30. We didn't have creatures made of melted cheese and onion rings on a hero. We had Starbucks. And for Julie, this would be her first memory of this little spot.

It's funny how differently we notice the same places with a few years gone by. This day, the parking lot curved like a fist around our car and the jetty extended into the water like a firmly pointed finger. We climbed out over the jagged rocks. They could've been broken chairs, I thought. Lots of chairs. All the broken, crooked, and forgotten chairs of New York City, piled here in this bay. So we climbed over the legs and arms of fragemented chairs until finally we found the perfect seats, side by side and only slightly uneven.

The sun was gone, like it has been these past few days, and our company was plentiful. Fishermen. Eh. Local fishermen. Extremely local fishermen? Ah. Lot's of typical guys who come down to the bay to cast their line and shoot the shit with strangers. Okay. Fishermen. They were all up and down the jetty. And we stood out, sat out rather, like tourists in a humdrum fishing village.

With conversation rolling and fish being hunted, it didn't surprise me when Julie suggested Sushi for dinner. And in deciding where to go, I realized the obvious place I'd yet to be. Long Beach. Take the Irish out of Rockaway and the energy out of the Jersey shore and you've made considerable progress in defining Long Beach. It was Tokyo Tuesday at Minnesota's (how's that for a juxtaposition) and surprised I was when I ate some of the best sushi I'd ever had.

We walked. Bright orange life guard stands spotted the empty beach and the water crawled up to our toes, surprisingly warm. The seagulls footrints looked to me like an upside down anchor. To Julie, they were a backward mathematics symbol. Great minds think differently sometimes too, I suppose.

We started driving home the long way, the more fun way, and my phone rang. Another friend.


"...A few moments more and I'm reminded why these knots are worth their sores. The winking devices."