i rode the staten island ferry yesterday. the last time i rode it, i was leaving new york for good; wanted to have set foot on all five boroughs before i departed.
certainty is young, almost cute.
both trips, i rode there, walked through the station and got back on and rode back. both trips, i rode with people i love.
each time, i needed to zoom out, and look at the rat infested islands of new york from a distance.
it’s medicinal - this ferry. it’s been there for me in transitions, in times when i could no longer swallow the lies i was telling myself about myself. in times when i’ve been asking, if not - then what?
in No Name in the Street, James Baldwin wrote, “…I have frequently watched him attempt to delude me into his delusions: but we human beings do this with each other all the time. Friends and lovers are able, sometimes, not always, to resist and correct the delusions.”1
i’m grateful for the people who don’t fall for the lies we tell ourselves about ourselves, who don’t go along with the excuses we make.
on the ferry, this desperate loud city seems so tame. and i imagine myself a miniature of it, with visitors and life long residents. neighborhoods and sewage and sunrises, full of pizza and ego.
luckily, people keep ferrying me out of myself. and when they take me to staten island, another ferry dependably takes me back again - to a city that’s already different since i’ve left it.
pg. 117 ↩