NJ happy place

This week my world was rocked, quite unexpectedly. My bearings are off and I'm wounded. To compound things I'm on night shift, which means I'm left to my own devices, replaying scenarios over and over in my head and getting agitated. Talking to friends helps, talking to Shane last night really helped, but I don't talk nearly enough about important events, in fact by all outward appearances things are normal.

My usual response, in lieu of socializing, is to retreat to Sewaren and meditate along the Arthur Kill. I grew up in Sewaren, and even among the tank farms, refineries, power plants, and blight of what was once a resort town, I find solace sitting on a bench and watching tanker barges go by. Directly across the Arthur Kill is Staten Island, if you wore a full body nitrile suit, you could swim the 100 meters to NY and not get cancer. To the immediate south is the Outerbridge Crossing, and immediately beyond Staten Island on the horizon you can view the lower Manhattan skyline and Brooklyn. When I was a kid everybody would go down to the waterfront on the 4th of July to watch the fireworks from the East River.

When things were bad as a kid, I'd hop on my bike, sometimes with some Salems I "borrowed" from my mom, park myself by the water and just clear my head. I still do the same, except my mountain bike is replaced by a motorcycle, and the salems, well, now it's natural tobacco in one form or another... It's amazing, at home, at work, even on my bike lately, I find it hard to relax and just think about nothing. The second my ass hits that bench on Boynton Beach (nerd out on some history), instant nirvana. I looked up nirvana to make sure that's the word I meant, as it turns out it's perfect, even in literal Sanskrit form.

I don't know what I'd do if I moved out of state and lost that place. I went there after the shit hit the fan this week, I might stop by on my way home from shift and watch the sunrise... That should be just enough time to recharge and return to the madness