Old and Unfinished

I leave my building with the intention of being free of intention. It is Sunday, the day I walk. There is never a purpose to Sunday walks. There is never a destination or a need for cardiovascular exercise. It is just the day I walk until I stop walking, which always conveniently coincides with the time I arrive back at home. It’s amazing how intelligent the body is once we stop thinking.

Intending to be intention-less, of course, is impossible. Being a goal, it automatically contradicts itself. But it’s un-attainability facilitates success. There is freedom in inevitable failure. So, I set out every Sunday morning to fail, without fail.

This Sunday morning, my failure precedes my walk. I have someplace to visit. There it is: intention. Well, darn, but that’s the thing about these walks. Failure is inconsequential because I have no intention! If I don’t make it there I will have succeeded in being intention-less and failed in arriving at my destination, and if I do make it there I will have succeeded in arriving at my destination and failed in being intention-less. It’s a lose-lose situation. Or, a win-win situation, depending on who you are. But the point is, regardless of where I go, this day will not be wasted because I will have walked. I probably shouldn’t think about this so much. I’ve just written three cyclical paragraphs revolving around nothing. It’s really a simple concept. The city is my Sunday sermon, and Laura Nyro wrote our hymn: “Sidewalk and pigeon, you look like a city, but you feel like religion to me”.

So, I tuck away my intention and let my senses lead me, which proves futile. My destination tints my walk one tiny, imperceptible shade lighter. It illuminates everyone I encounter on my journey, because this will be the day I walked to Shinran Shonin, and these will be the people I passed on the day I walked to Shinran Shonin.

I start off going East on Twelfth Street toward Broadway with a fat, goofy grin on my face. I smile at everyone. I even smile at the construction workers, an invitation for embarrassing whistles I am usually wary of handing out. But today I am feeling generous, and I am, after all, trespassing on their territory. That’s how I feel about all the people I pass, even if they are walking toward me as well. It seems as though this is their habitat. Because, to me, it is. In my memory, the man in the striped red hat and aged leather jacket will forever live in front of the police station. Of all the places along Twelfth Street, I happened to pass him here. It’s like one of those standardized test questions. If I travel east at S miles per hour starting at X:YZ AM, and he leaves his building at A:BC AM traveling west at Q miles per hour, we will meet D miles from my building. There are so many variables. There are no coincidences. This is his habitat. I smile at him, too, and think, “Hello, stranger. Don’t worry, I’ll be out of your hair soon enough. There, there now I’ve passed you. Will you remember my face?”.

From my experience, it seems that the old men are the most likely to smile back. Like this man, walking toward me with his gray hair flattened underneath a black beret. I love these old men. Their smiles hold secrets and gifts. They understand the power of a smile, but not the exceptional power of their unique breed of smile. They smile selflessly, effortlessly, without expectation. And I want to be married to them. I want to be old, with a husband who has grown old with me, who smiles like that. Will I love and appreciate those wrinkles when they reflect the wrinkles on my own face? I wonder, and before the thought is complete, the old man has passed me. Goodbye, old man.

People continue to pass me, and I fight the persistent impulse to change direction and walk with them. I want to know where they’re going. I have an infinite number of questions I would like to ask. It’s disappointing that this isn’t socially acceptable, and even more disappointing that I’m not willing to branch outside of behavior that is deemed “normal”. But there are other things I have free reign to question, to stare at, to touch. I can stroke the rough stone and read the fading graffiti. I can take the cool morning air inside of me and steal its oxygen. I can stand under the skeletal winter trees and scrutinize their layered trunks and branches. Without the perky leaves of spring or the golden leaves of fall, they are seen as ugly, incomplete, bare. Yet every year they decide to shed again, putting function before beauty and discovering the freedom of vulnerability. Their slender silhouettes reach toward the sky in praise or prayer, pleading or rejoicing. I hope they rejoice. I think they do.

Nature flaunts its vulnerability while animals, especially humans, hide it. I guess that’s how we’ve evolved. We are each a threat to the rest of the world. Every one of us has the potential to be permanently destructive. We’ve all experienced the power of words. Our bodies are bombs. There is untapped power in my hands. Power to manipulate, to destroy, to create. I am both intimidating and intimidated. I would never stand naked on the sidewalks of New York as these trees do annually. I am suddenly very aware of my clothes. I can feel where my soft khakis and sweater cling to my body. The wind, strangely warm for a February morning, pushes my pants against my legs, a constant reminder of my separation from the environment. I am the only stranger, I realize. This is tiring.