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Picture Credits:
This past Saturday morning, after living like a recluse in my cramped one-room efficiency in Peekskill, NY for almost two years, I decided to take a walk. Sounds dull enough, right? My previous explorations had been limited to taking my 8-year-old teacup poodle, Pierre, for his brief early morning and evening constitutionals in the parking lot behind my apartment building. Hardly “walks,” but occasionally brisk trots, as Pierre was a very energetic little guy who liked to lead me on his leash, tugging vigorously to his favorite trees and “pee” zones, until that fateful eve when I came home from work and found him lying on the bathroom floor, one side paralyzed by a stroke. But that’s another sad story. Suffice it to say that my buddy is now on the Other Side. But, as usual, I digress.
Having lazily completed my routine weekend ablutions, I dressed in some ancient black jeans, a washed-out black cotton short-sleeved button-up shirt and once-white, low-cut Adidas walking shoes. I tugged on my blue-black U of Michigan ball cap with big yellow letter “M” and was ready for my sojourn. I locked up my hovel and headed down the stained carpeted stairs to the side door. The sun was high and comforting and I was reasonably enthused about the prospect of my walk.
The first leg was a challenge, since I live on the west end of Main Street and the access and exit ramps to Highway 9 North intersect within about ten or fifteen feet of one another on my route down the hill to Water Street, which runs parallel to the Hudson River. Vehicles were exiting left and right onto Main off 9N with little or no pause at the stop sign in front of me and careening to the right from behind me onto the steep 9N access ramp with typical New Yorker impatience and apathy for the lowly pedestrian. Both streams were blocking my path to the stone bridge over the highway, west of the Peekskill Motor Inn. After several minutes of apprehension that my walk was a bad idea and would be terminated early by my being smacked into eternity by a hurtling car or truck, I spurted across the intersection and heaved a sigh as I made the bridge sidewalk on the other side.
I noticed, for the first time, since I had never ventured beyond my parking lot on foot before, that some cut stone stairs led from the left side of the old bridge down a path to a walkway and thence to a pedestrian walk for the 9 overpass. Also, for the first time, I realized that the little stone bridge to Water Street was a “bridge over a bridge.” Amazing what you miss when you rarely move without your car.
Out of curiosity, I walked down the stairs and stood for a few moments watching cars and trucks on 9 as they all raced to somewhere important. I could see expansion gaps along the overpass covered with steel plate and listened as they echoed a resounding “clump-clump” with each set of tires that pummeled them. I knew then the source of at least one annoying, arrhythmic sound that invariably awakened me virtually every morning about 4:30 AM. I proceeded back up the juxtapositioned stone slabs and onto the litter-strewn sidewalk towards Water Street.
Mainstreet meanders down a gently sloping and curved hill and tees into Water Street at the bottom, with “Nick’s Place,” - a tiny neighborhood pub - on the left side of the corner, green siding and awnings over the sidewalk. I turned left at the bar, almost tempted to seek the soothing dark confines, cool draft beer and potential camaraderie, but proceeded past, dutifully dedicated to at least try to do the healthier thing.
A block down Water St., I looked up at the rust-red iron bridge framework that supports Hwy. 9 high overhead and heard the amplified clumping again, marveling once more at how loud the noise was and at my stupidity - that I’d never made the connection.
Another two blocks and I turned right towards the Hudson. Amtrak also runs parallel to the river. I stepped cautiously across the double set of well-polished tracks, apprehensively glancing left and right for approaching trains, and proceeded across a side street after a black Z-3 convertible backed up and turned around in front of me in the intersection and found myself entering a spacious park with a large sign posted off to the left announcing “Rivergreen Park, Public Boat Ramp and Access,” or words to that affect.
I angled right, across well-worn grass to the rocks along the water’s edge and stood on the gray smooth surface of an almost-level rock, looking out at the Hudson and the high hills beyond. Folks were fishing under a big umbrella from the shore to my left and an abundantly endowed blonde lady in jean shorts and canary halter-top was roller-blading towards me on the black top lane to my right. Gulls flew overhead and dipped to the water to capture scraps of flotsam, small prey or get a drink. A gaggle of big Canadian geese filled the inlet off my right shoulder with some brown mallards quacking noisely closer to shore. The waves were lapping the rocks gently with an occasional hint of a white cap further out.
While I stood there in the sunlight, with a breath-taking view of the Hudson River and surrounding hills, a nice breeze in my face, a revelation came to me. It was nothing that had not been thought by others a zillion times before, I was sure - but new to me. My mind had initially been doing what it always did, wandering all over the place, preoccupied by thoughts outside of the time and the moment I was in right then. Worries about the future - anguishing over the past. Everything from what would I make for dinner to whether the IRS would take my house in PA for back taxes.
So… I took in a deep breath and literally forced myself to stop thinking. Just stop. Stop and “Be” in the moment. Something I realized I had completely forgotten how to do. That was my revelation, unastounding though I know it will be to the reader. I had forgotten how to “Be!” To simply exist in real time, right where I was and not allow myself to think of anything else but the water, the sky, the hills, the fishermen, the gulls, the geese, the ducks, the large chested roller blader – the “Now.”
I continued to stand there, taking in the sights, sounds, smells and sensations around me, temporarily immersed in them and only them, for as long as I could. It was so blissful - I felt for those fleeting minutes as though I'd magically returned to the innocence and wonderment of childhood. For as long as my messed-up mind would allow. Then, of course, the revelation was gone and the rediscovered ability was lost, as subtly as it had been captured. I wandered through the grass and trees lining the riverbank for another block or two before turning back toward “Nick’s” and the oblivion of the beer.
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