Presidents Day

Today is Presidents Day. I decided to take a journey around my Long Island listening to some tunes that I handpicked for the ride.

"Good Morning Happiness" by Grant-Lee Phillips: I merge onto Nicolls Road North, cruising by the icy divide. I pass through Selden, Centereach, and South Setauket, listening to "Low Rising" by The Swell Season and "Shambala" by Three Dog Night.

I turn onto Nesconset Highway West, as "Sing" by Travis starts up. I notice the bare tree limbs surrounding me as I'm stuck in serious mall traffic. As I'm dead stopped on the road, I notice it's 45 degrees outside and the snow is gradually melting. An ambulance approaches me on the opposite side of the street, its siren blaring, as I study the red house with the big tree in front of it on the easterly side of the highway, while "Hey Soul Sister" by Train is playing.

As I enter Nesconset for a brief time, "Little Lion Man" by Mumford and Sons is blaring (I turned the volume up for this one especially). I notice the vast snowy field that is on the corner directly opposite one of the largest shopping malls in Suffolk County, the Smithaven mall. A right turn onto Middle Country Road yields me right into the hamlet of St. James as my car radio yields "Peg" by Steely Dan right into my ears.

Steely Dan takes me through Village of the Branch and I'm through Main Street of Smithtown by the end of the song. "The Beat" starts up by Elvis Costello, just as I approach The Bull. And I follow the road to the right, 25A.


Flanked by Suffolk County and New York State parks, the song is "Break Even" by The Script and I notice my "Service Engine Soon" light has gone on. Bummer. Too bad I won't listen to it...

I turn onto East Main Street in Kings Park, where I remember that I forgot to go to a Post Office to mail my congratulatory birth cards as well as my ceremonial wedding response (yes), and then all of a sudden one appears out of nowhere across from the Kings Park High School. I turn into the parking lot, open my door, and Neko Case's "People Got a Lotta Nerve" follows me to the mailbox.

Driving into town, I make a few wrong turns, and have to turn around in Clayton Funeral Home, which I have unfortunately been to before, and am listening to the appropriate "Just Breathe" by Pearl Jam.

Trying to find a suitable restaurant or bar, I am clearly lost, all the while listening to "Honey and the Moon" by Joseph Arthur.

I turn onto Old Dock Road and pass kids and adults sledding down an icy quasi-hill, the Kings Park psychiatric hospital looming in the background. I turn into the semi-packed parking lot of D.S. Shanahans, located next to an old, gray house. Even the Budweiser flags weren't moving at this bar.

So I search on. I find the psychiatric hospital. Not sure if I should be there.




As I pull out, "Boy Lilikoi" by Jonsi playing, I notice Nissequogue River State Park is across the street, so I pull in past buildings boarded up, feeling like I'm trespassing yet again. But I see other cars and I park. Out on foot, I trudge through snow and mud. I'm being followed by a white Grand Cherokee. Nonetheless, I take my pictures, and if I can ignore the crunching of Cherokee tires on ice behind me, there is a serenity of just me and the birds staring out onto the river.







I go back to the car, finish up my pictures, and leave the park, admiring the Nissequogue River, frozen and leading out to the Sound.







"Chasing Pirates" by Norah Jones accompanies me up and down back hills of Kings Park. I take St. Johnland Road past the house of Obadiah Smith and past the town of San Remo. And I am back where I began on Main Street of Kings Park, Levon Helm's "When I Go Away" with me this time around. I go to the Park Lounge, but it's closed, so I turn around and head back to Smithtown, "bound for glory," as Levon sings.

Brian Eno and David Byrne sing "Life is Long" and I sit in the shadow of the bull pondering that sentiment.


Back on Jericho Turnpike, "Old Man Chicago" by Alberta Cross glides me to Union Station Restaurant, which was "Closed. See Ya in the Summer." Of course leaving me with no explanation for the cars in the parking lot.

Dejected again, I turn on Phoenix's "1901" which leads me into town and I park, a little more upbeat than before.


I go into Napper Tandys Pub, where there are no local beers, but I order a Magic Hat #9 and a French Onion Soup. The lone other customer tells me I'm the 3rd patron of the day, and I am forced to eat my soup and watch Fox News, where I learn Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana is retiring. The guy at the other end of the bar is talking to the bartender about Valentines Day, her heating problems, and the Olympics, as I take notes on my day.

I pay my $11.50 bill, leave, and head home on Portion Road.

Nesconset
Lake Ronkonkoma
Farmingville.

"Diary of Jane" by Breaking Benjamin
"You Are the Best Thing" by Ray LaMontagne
"Tunnel of Love" by Bruce Springsteen.

HOME.

"It only ends once. Anything before that is just progress."

December, January, February. The time passes, but life remains the same. Winter is cold, and we've had many snowbound days so far. I don't mind the snow. Maybe it is the variable that interrupts the constants in my life. It gives me something to do, something to marvel over, something to talk about.

As it usually happens around this time of year, my creativity is running out of gas, and is in serious need of replenishment. When my creativity flounders, so does my feeling of self-worth (how depressing!). I seem to run out of inspiration when I have to spend my everydays inside or bundled up inside a tightly wound sausage of cottony layers.

I expressed recently to my friend Victoria that I am feeling suffocated. I come home most days and either stay in my room or the guest room, watching TV and lying down. I am looking for condos, but that is a long process. In the interim, my mind, my heart, everything feels like it's locked up in a black box, dreaming and beating beyond its walls, but unable to burst out and expand.

I was driving and thinking these sentiments the other day when I recalled meeting a Navajo man in an Indian market in Arizona two summers ago. He told me and a few other strangers that it was a beautiful day to wake up on this side of the grass. I find that to be one of the most beautifully reassuring things I have ever heard.

As the months wind on, I am finding ways of reinventing or reestablishing my creativity and thus my sanity and happiness. In one month I am shaving my head in honor of childhood cancer research. The sense of altruism, garnered from fundraising and talking about the cause, leading up to the event is reassuring, and I know the new look I will gain from the shaving will be fulfilling. Today my Dad and I are repainting the guest room, from a pistachio green color to a new pea-soup hue. At first I was opposed to the change--mere laziness--but as we're doing it, it feels good to alter something. I don't really care about the outcome; the room serves its purpose to me whatever the tone, but that I am contributing to its change, and I guess in some eyes, its betterment, for that contribution I feel good.

The time changes, and I need to be more proactive in changing with it. I find myself idly sitting in the sidelines watching my life replaying itself, constant upon constant, not realizing that I can be the variable effecting the change I need to evolve.