Drift

Maybe Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn was the last straw for me. Specifically the mall that greets you as you rise up from the underground. I was humbled to start with, having allowed the Starbucks monkey onto my back again after being clean for two weeks. The Venti iced coffee came back into my life in 90 degree weather right before a very long subway trip that was to take me to Coney Island. The timing was less than perfect to say the least. The 20 oz Venti took me off the Q in search of a bathroom, in a strange neighborhood where many streets converge into a horn honking mess. I saw a Modell's Sporting goods and was drawn in to look for snorkel gear, maybe some Tabi's or aqua booties, something to protect me in this long month of jellyfish watching that lay ahead of me. It took me three minutes to realize that I wasn't in Hawaii anymore. There were ten or so fishing poles and a few silicone worms, and a couple of squirt guns. That was it for the water section. That summarized the Flatbush Avenue relationship to the sea.

I pushed on looking for a bathroom and found in route a Chuckie Cheese. I was tempted to rekindle my glory days as a skee-ball champ or maybe win a teddy bear after spending $50 at Wack-a Mole. But instead I reminisced with the security guard from Jamaica, the real Jamaica not one where you change trains. I once had a great love of Chuckie Cheese, even though the robotic pizza man always scared me and reminded me of the real pizza guy of my Wisconsin childhood, who made the headlines for both his amazing thin crust and for being the master mind international cocaine ring. So much for my favorite childhood pizza place. Now that I think of it all of the robotic characters scared me a bit, especially when they convulsed and twitched when the spotlights were off them. They had a secret life too. I was sure of it.

The day was careening out of control. It was noon and I was nowhere near the 3am low tide jellyfish watch that "Lenny the Angler" had directed me to. Yes, I did write am not pm. I wasn't in Long Island, but staring in the window at Chuckie Cheese. This had to stop. Sometimes you have to hit rock bottom in life before you realize that you are off course. There I was with a tee shirt and linen pants thrown over a bikini, reeking of Hawaiian tropic sunblock and an entire underwater camera system stuffed into a Sierra Club backpack, staring into a Chuckie Cheese on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn. My life sucked, but just temporarily.

So I made my way to the LIRR to see just where I could go. Anywhere was quite possibly better than the children's video arcade scenario at the mall. Oyster Bay was in "the Sound." There was a nature preserve of some kind where scientific boats trolled for those clear creatures just above diatoms. I had done a quick cross reference the night prior trying to figure out where I could get to on the train. The next train was leaving in seven minutes. Alright, lets go. I fantasised about crab cakes and lobster, red painted hulls on boats and the smell of diesel near the pier. I could not wait. But it was soon after leaving the Oyster Bay train station that I realized that my fantasy was about Cape Cod and not Long Island.

I walked through a cloud of sea breeze to the squawks of seagulls, ready to enjoy my day of solitude. I soon found that my arrival at Oyster Bay caused the entire beach to stop and stare at the newcomer. My day of getting away from it all landed me on a very full, very public beach. I tried to blend in by going to the snack shack and ordering some fries. The seagulls were on to me from the moment I left the train. They left me alone for the twenty minutes it took to make the fries, then attacked from three sides when the fries were plated up. One cheeky gull pulled out a fry after his friend nipped at my left arm. They definitely had this all worked out. I may as well have been with the pickpockets at Coney Island.

There was a reason to be here. It wasn't really for the beach, but rather the access to the sea, which in turn is an access to myself. The sea reminds me of the big questions that are easy to overlook in our culture. So I turned to my french fry making friend, payed six dollars for under a liter of water, I took off across the tidal flats as the sea pulled back. I was on a half day vision quest. I walked along the coast like I have done all over the world. Just walk and look. It really could have been anywhere, with the buzz of cars and the sound of jet skis. Canadian Geese rested next to a flock of Great Black Backed gulls and their smaller cheekier relatives. It was the smell that I needed more than anything. The smell of salt, life and decay all rolled into one. The tall beach grass served as a place to catch all sorts of things left from the high tide. Beautiful pink seaweed and green bubbled varieties. None of which could be seen through the green murk of the tide, but when washed up on the shore they were beautiful like the ones in my videos. I realized how wondrously clear the water was up in Newfoundland. Something I will always feel privileged for discovering. Water clarity is special. I have been spoiled for too long.

It was after an hour of walking that I really began to observe anything. I needed some time to retrain my eyes. Just as badly, I needed to stop fretting and focus. Walk and look was the order of the day. I was able to step carefully enough that the great white Heron let me cross behind her. She kept me in her sights though, I could feel the gaze. Dappled teenage gulls worked themselves into a frenzy as I drew near. They were juicy plump from enthusiastic mothering. After a couple of hours spent out there, the calm returned to us all. They returned to their normal behavior, ignoring me almost entirely as they battled like siblings. I also seemed to return a bit of myself as well though I left my battles behind. I watched a Herring gull drop an oyster from fifteen feet onto a shoreline rock, then retrieve it and repeat the process. It wasn't pretty to watch. It was aggressive and dynamic at the same time. It was well practiced precision

This short half day journey did give me a chance for mulling over a few things. It has been a turbulent year and a half. I would like to say turbulent year, for we all have one of those, but to be honest, I am past that. I maybe do not give New York the chance it deserves, but really I think I do not think I give myself the chance I deserve. I feel as though I am observing, but not really digging in to deep. It has been nearly ten months which seems like an eternity in a place that is so hard to crack. But just like Hawaii, places like this take some serious "earn your wings" time. Ten months doesn't begin to cut it. I have to say that I have only met a few NYC lifers. Many of the people I come into contact with are new, temporary, or passing through. I am not sure what I am, but considering I spent three hours researching opportunities for artists at the earth's polar caps, I might be passing through as well. Regardless of my own timeline, I have to learn patience for myself.

I felt the pang of not belonging as I sat in the salon chair in last weeks session. The stylist sprayed a very expensive synthetic sea water spray into my newly coiffed hair. I felt a bit like the castaway who has been rescued from the island and plunked down in the city again with orders to clean her up. We did not understand each other, but we kept trying to relate. They had just spent a combined six hours in two days discussing every aspect of my skull shape, hair porousness, texture, and hairline, as well as acting on their discussions with straight edged razor and vats of color. I could not have been more styled if I tried. Then came the fake ocean in a can. I questioned why I would need it, and naively joked that I spend most of my life trying to get sand, salt and seaweed out of my hair. I mentioned that I could go to the sea, and get that look if I needed it. I mean I was long over due for some real ocean time. My stylist halted at the prospects of me going in search of the genuine.

The genuine thing. It is getting harder and harder to inspire myself to look for it. Looking takes time and a whole lot of effort. Just the mention of your quest creates a divide between yourself and others. There are ocean people and ocean in a can people. It isn't always that easy to define. Sometimes there are long uncomfortable pauses when your search for the genuine reminds others that they have lived their whole life happy with the non-genuine. Sometimes your simple search becomes sea salt in an other's wound. Regret is a word that I am using frequently in my explanations to people about why I am in New York even though it seems so obvious to so many that I should continue on another island with fewer inhabitants than Manhattan. I mention that I had to try it here, inform myself here. I did not want to live knowing that I never looked under that one rock called New York City. I think it is something that I would have always looked back on and wondered why didn't I? If I could find the courage to travel the world but never bothered to check out domestic art opportunities, then how could I live with my ageing self. Perhaps the bigger question is why is it so hard to inspire myself to keep searching and researching here. Is it the distractions? The endless possibility, or maybe the competition. Are there maybe too many options, so you sit frozen with too many choices to make, and make none in the process. Tonight, the elderly Haitian woman down the hallway told me that she prays everyday that I succeed with my art, and she gives thanks that I was brought into her path. I walked away asking myself, why don't I.