the vicissitudes of life

a wise man once said, while standing over me, arms below my elbows watching me in the mirror as i readied to lift dumbbells vertically up and away from my chest, that the question i had about what is going on in my life is all just me experiencing the vicissitudes of life. i laughed harder than i expected with much of the tension leaving my body with every chuckled exhale. he had been jokingly using the word every now and then, one he picked up from a word-a-day app to improve his vocabulary, but this time it really hit. these are the vicissitudes of life and i’m in the middle of them all.

i’ve been trying to fight ambiguity. like time, something i never seem to have enough of, i try to exert my force of will to overcome these personal obstacles. i hate ambiguity. i want to know. and most of the time, i want to know now. knowing gives me control. i can figure out what to do next. i can assuredly move towards my future. that’s what gives me power. however, much of my life now, i feel as though i’m drowning in the unknown. things have been rapidly changing. friends are leaving the city, others are pulling out of my life. new people are entering with a fiery energy that excites and revitalizes me. but it’s still all so confusing. and i’m sure you feel it too. it’s as if we all have been propelled up in the sky and told to figure out new ways to get down. we’re all scrambling to find out where we should land. from that bird’s eye view we see what matters and what doesn’t anymore. we return changed.

i’ve spent the last three sundays at the beach. i’ve always been a beach person — a trait inherited from my parents. as kids, whenever my dad had the day off or if we got out the door quickly on an early sunday afternoon, we’d head to rocky neck state park. it took quite a few years to realize that the beach we went to was connected to a sound and not the ocean itself. but, it didn’t matter to us as kids. we’d lug a huge red and white wheeled cooler filled with subway sandwiches and canned sodas. each of us would wear a chair like a backpack, the clinking of the metal of the chair rhythmically matching the gentle scrape and hollowed fling of our one-size-too-big sandals. my mother would carry our towels in oversized bags, one for each shoulder. we’d walk the wooded walkway and find a place to set up—never too close to anyone else, not too far from the shore. we always brought two umbrellas, my father bending over with a garden shovel and digging as deep of a hole as he could to keep the umbrellas from flying away. i’d watch him dig as the sand shifted from light and dry to denser, wetter, and more compact. we’d hastily apply sunscreen and run towards the water, my brothers and i pushing and shoving, my mother’s shouting growing distant the closer we got. the water was never clear. sometimes it’d be filled with seaweed that we’d throw at one another. other times garbage would float by mixing with the oily sheen of washed out sunscreen. the amtrak train passes just beyond the bush next to the walkway and as it’d speed by, thunderously rattling the sand and shore, the conductor would pull the horn for all the beach goers to hear. we’d always depart around sunset, sometimes the last remaining people at the beach. on the way back, we’d stop for italian ice, all of us slurping with contentment as my father drove us home.

i feel a sense of serene calm at the beach that i don’t experience anywhere else. even in the loud and crowded sands of the rockaways or the queer parties of jacob riis, i still find peace under the sun. i jump into the water no matter how cold, invigorated by the shock and knowing that the risk is worth the reward of faster acclimation. i swim farther out from shore, the mess of tents and towels and people becoming a mosaic. as the waves roll in, i let them crash over me. sometimes i try to jump over them, pushed quickly back by their power. other times i swim under, holding my breath and letting it all roll above me, safely emerging on the other side. i pull my legs up and float and look up at the sky and marvel. i let myself become weightless as the push and pull of the ocean flows beneath me. the water is where i learn to let go, to be surprised by its sway, to resist all efforts to fight back. at the shore, i lie out on my towel, feeling the sun already drying the water from my skin. i try to read but i’m always too absorbed in thought. i watch the planes fly by, the clouds shift and roll across the sky, the birds passing overhead looking for food. i feel both part of a whole and singularly myself. i look out to those who joined me, happy that i have people in my life who enjoy the simple pleasures of the beach as much as i do, bonded by the beauty and tranquility so close to the cacophony and hustle of the city.

i’m trying to give up control. i want to be surprised by my life’s gentle unfolding, as i flow the way water does. every day i feel as though i know less and less. where i’m going. who i’m going to be with. what i’m doing. how i should go about my life. what i want. i’ve never liked being a person who says i don’t know. but, now, i think i have to be that person. i don’t know. i don’t know. i don’t know. that’s fine. i hope. i’m a bit adrift, floating along with my feet barely skimming the surface of the water. the sun is overhead. the gulls squawk in the distance. waves crash over me, sometimes pulling me down, sometimes knocking me out, but i reemerge every time.