I'm Char.
I know we've hung out a bunch of times this past year informally,... we have the same friends and what not..... but I guess we've never really been formally introduced. I'm sorry. I really should've taken the initiative sooner. In all honestly, I've spent the last year seeing not much more than your face out the window of a 21st floor office building. I guess what I'm saying is it's never too late to make a change. I know a lot of people really like you... I wanna get to know you better while I have still have the chance. Let's not let this be one of those things where the opportunity passed, and neither one of us said anything, though we always meant to. I guess that's it. It's good to finally meet you. I'll see you tomorrow, new friend.
CHARxNYC: T Minus 30.
Sunrise at Central Park.
Google says the witching house is estimated for 7:08 am when the sun will rise over New York City. It's 6:08 as I lay in bed with no ticket to return to Dreamville in my near future. Too much on my mind, I suppose. I can make it Uptown to 81st St. within the hour for sure. Let's DO THIS SHIT. It's rare that I've seen the desolate streets of Bushwick at such an early hour,..... A few months back I did a freelance project that had me up for nearly three days straight. I saw the digital numbers on the oven go from 8pm to 8am for several consecutive days -- Talk about literally losing your mind. And there's been the unfortunate and unfathomably uncomfortable scenarios where the remnants of last night's party are still present while you watch the more responsible members of society on their way to start their day. You aim to go to sleep and wake up having forgotten that your night ended at 8am and you're way too old to be raging this hard. Neither were the situation today, but I did take new notice of the different demographic of folks in the neighborhood at 6:30am. Industrial Brooklyn -- a vision of graffiti covered walls, rooftop parties, exposed brick loft buildings, artist work spaces and trendy co-ops. But INDUSTRIAL BROOKLYN...? Factories. Industrial factories. 6:30 a.m. trains are filled with workers on their way to their factory jobs. Clearly 9 a.m. is the hour for black wool peacoats headed to Midtown Manhattan for their high paying salary jobs and full package benefits. And the typical Bushwick resident with his boat shoes (no socks) and raccoon tail doesn't really need to be up at ANY particular time because the beauty of being an artist is the unstructured nature of the occupation, also masked as the term "freelance".
I haven't been remotely near Central Park since riding in one of the horse drawn carriages with my family when I was in high school and visiting New York as an ultimate tourist. There may have been a hot pretzel consumption that partnered this experience. Today there was no pretzel and the horse drawn carriages must not start luring in unknowing and money throwing tourists until later in the day. But I did see the determination of early morning joggers.... friends catching up on gossip.... TONS of dogs having the time of their lives running freely off their leashes and being rewarded by their masters with treats. And I did catch the sunrise.
I was hoping to feel some kind of groundbreaking epiphany as a result of my "morning meditaton", if you will. But even with seeing and partaking in one of the most beautiful offerings of one of the most lucrative and exciting cities in the world, I couldn't get much further than the thought of "What's beauty or success or happiness in life without someone to share it with?"
