Astoriabout bubble wrap. pop. pop. pop.

The Lost Girl.

I got lost today. A little. Lost means something different to me these days. Being from Atlanta, I couldn't always picture my whereabouts from a bird's eye perspective. But here in New York it's not too tough. Like today, I knew I was in the middle of Central Park around 96th Street. So, "lost" I was, temporarily, maybe ten minutes or so. I just needed to find the North Meadow Recreation Center. Found it! 32 minutes late. Can't blame that on being lost, I blame that on not really caring much about the content of the training I was to attend there.

The content of the training is less important than the fact that after four hours, I had gained a jam packed binder, 24 owl pellets (dried, sanitized owl vomit --also jam packed, but with mice skeletons and stuff), a stack of paper plates, Dr. Seus's The Lorax book, and a flat cardboard box that was taped shut with a round sticker. Had I known that I'd be 84 pounds of supplies heavier, I'd have brought a bag, or not attended at all.

Think back to 12:30pm today. If you were both awake and above ground, you saw the rain. You braved the rain. You cheered it on or broke down, one or the other. A glorious down pouring of fall! Being in the middle of the jungle, I was elated to see the green all around me, I even saw a hawk soar overhead. The Earth was alive with life and stuff and animals and water and whatever, happy Fall to me and to you! But then it sank in. Literally, my shoe. It sank into the ground at my first attempt to leave from this training center. And let me tell you, Ashley Buffa Pearce, who gave me those shoes 6 years ago, they are incredibly awkward and painful to walk in. Dr. Scholls needs to check his facts. I'll only say a few brief words about them: wooden, knobby, plankton, clydesdale. My fault, you say? Check the weather, you bark! I might just after today.

So, I hmm and haw and ho, do I take a cab from here, or do I just walk? Maybe I'll make this like a Goosebumps "choose your ending" book. You can choose "I took a cab from this desolate jungly training center" or you can turn to page 68 (about how long Goosebumps books were) and choose "I walked, without an umbrella, in clydesdale shoes, in the down pour, with a 50 pound Staples box (which if you know your paper supplies is RED), with a super nice leather Italian bag that I only take out when I'm trying to impress people."

Page 68: So, I walked, without an umbrella, in clydesdale shoes, in the down pour, with a 50 pound Staples box (which if you know your paper supplies is RED), with a super nice leather Italian bag that I only take out when I'm trying to impress people! And boy were they impressed.

I'd like to think my decision to walk was a product of my spirit, my boldness, and really, my desire to be different. The rest of the trainees were complaining, and chattering as if they couldn't imagine a single way out of our predicament. In the middle of NOWHERE in this monsoon! Hmph, I snorted, I'll walk it. Clomp, clomp, clomp. Oops, lost a shoe. See you guys later! Clomp, clomp. Bye! Clomp, clomp, shit, this was a bad idea. But it was too late, I'd already gained the respect of my elders and peers. I couldn't turn back to call a cab. So I pioneered on.

By the time I arrived at the diner 12 minutes later, I was drenched like that-time-I-college-we-all-thought-it-would-be-funny-to-stand-in-the-rain-with-our-clothes-on drenched. I almost felt like an outcast I was so wet. Could it have been the blood stained tee shirt I was wearing? It wasn't blood, I had to explain, it was dye. Dye from the Staples box. It had bled all over me. I was carrying a wounded box. Everyone's in the same boat in a rainstorm, but I felt alone in my hardship today. I knew with the right attitude, supplies, and skill set, I could be reborn in this diner, a new September-23rd-2011-Jennifer (you only have one chance at these things)! What I needed was a little perspective. From the moment I decided to walk it, I knew what would save me. I knew I'd get frustrated and wet, I knew I'd ruin all the supplies I'd just acquired. But I wanted it. And here's why.

I'm reading a book right now. It's written from the perspective of one of the Lost Boys of Sudan. I'll tell you, one evening while reading, I got on the wrong bus and ended up far from where I had intended to go. I felt such compassion for the boy, and the other boys, that I was too ashamed to look away from their stories. Then I was ashamed that I got on the wrong bus.  What's the Q66? I thought this was the 69, yo. Naw. You gotta get off here and walk back. More walking! I love it! I could face anything after reading what this little guy went through. But I can't, I reckon. He lost his family and friends at age 8 or 9 when his village was attacked, and he walked with hundreds of boys from Sudan to Ethiopia. He walked mostly without water or food, sometimes without clothes or shoes. We're talking months of walking. Dangers: being shot down from overhead, lions, famine, dehydration, disease, and on and on and on.

It's tough to read this book around meal time. I read, "I ate the nuts quickly, first one at a time and then filling my mouth with a handful. It was more than I had eaten for weeks, I chewed and swallowed and felt the paste of the nuts fortifying my chest and arms, clarity returning to my head. The man filled the plate again with nuts and I ate them, now slower. I felt the need to lie down and did so, still eating the nuts, one by one," and look down at my plate. A feeling like guilt over comes me. I like to eat out by myself. I bring a book as a date, but not this one. It reminds me that my life is not normal. To just throw around $25 like it's nothing. To order a meal that would, from the looks of it, feed 200 Lost Boys for a week. Are you kidding? Boys! You're walking in the wrong direction! Come here, to Michaelangelo's in Astoria. They'll feed you thin crust pizza with mushrooms and white sauce. And they'll cater to your every need, and all you have to do is....what? What do you have to do to get here? Did I earn it? Did I win a prize? Girls, show her what she's won! A life of ease! 14,000,000,000 feet of bubble wrap to cushion your life until you die. Which will probably also be nice. You'll drift off after 100 years on a bed of feathers and candy bars. You won't: die from being eaten by a lion (unless you CHOSE to put yourself in that situation), or from hunger, or from a preventable disease. You'll never have to go more than three hours without eating, and clean water will ALWAYS be accessible to you. No matter what happens to you, you will always be enclosed in bubble wrap. Invisible as it may seem, it's there until you die. Pop. Still safe.Pop. Pop. safe. pop. pop. pop.

I guess that's why I chose to walk the 12 minutes today. I am so privileged that a story about a 12 minute walk in the pouring rain, in painful shoes, with a heavy box, was worth telling.

pop.