Parks and desperation
I don't think much about Lindsey anymore, which is only appropriate since it's now been about as long since the whole thing imploded (late January) as we were actually dating in the first place (mid-December). I could almost say I've moved on, except I haven't found much else to move on to, whether it be a person, an idea, a project, a goal, or even an event. I'm really starting to feel like nothing makes me happy anymore (well, my cats are always the exception) and that I'm just totally lost in life, mustering only the energy to do the bare minimum.
Today I did do something a bit unusual for me, though. I went to this park 15 or 20 minutes from my house whose existence I only very recently became fully aware of, despite living in this area for over 5 years. It's a fairly expansive park called Dreher Park, which has in its vicinity an old science museum (notable mainly for the monthly laser music shows it holds in its planetarium) and a small zoo. I've been to the laser shows and the zoo a couple of times, but was unaware of how large and pleasantly circuitous the park itself was. It's gotten unseasonably chilly down here in South Florida this past week or so, with temperatures in the 50s and 60s during the day, and today it was both brisk and sunny, with little wind. One could hardly ask for a more perfect day to go to this park. It has long, winding, intersecting walking paths, numerous lakes and ponds, benches, pavilions, docks, hills, a little garden, and along with the grass, many different kinds of trees, including some large and gnarled old ones. (Don't ask me to name all the flora and fauna. I'm no Darwin or Thoreau or anything.) My regret is that I got there so late in the day, choosing to waffle about at home much of the time before that. I arrived at around 5 pm and left at 6:15 or 6:30, as the sun was beginning to set. I brought along a book of G. K. Chesterton's essays, figuring that would be my chief activity there, but I was so taken with walking down the paths, and veering occasionally into the adjacent residential streets, that I only read for 15 minutes or so right before departing. It was an invigorating walk, and it had me thinking some different things than I'm used to, since I'm not an outdoor type. It did not exactly bring me the calm I hoped for, as my mind was still in its typical state as of late, that is, a ceaselessly sifting mixture of petty fretting, regret, nostalgia, music, remembered reading and fragments of conversation, sheer nonsense and free-floating verbiage, abstraction, and anxious boredom, along with the meta-consciousness of all these things and the occasional failed attempts to muffle, combat, or reverse them. Sometimes even nature's most generous bounties will only do so much to heal her gloomy, petulant human children.
Despite all this, I'd say it was a positive experience and I will definitely be going back. For as long as I've lived in this area I have looked for such a place of retreat and reflection, a place besides my house to wander safely or just sit and read or write or reflect. I had sometimes used beaches for this purpose, but it gets strangely uncomfortable for me, lying on the beach for more than an hour or two, not to mention I'm not very fond of sand. Unless you just kind of nap or zone out, the beach by oneself can get boring quickly. This park gives me the right combination of mobility and stasis, of relative solitude without complete desolation (there were a few other people in the park, but they seemed more a part of the landscape), of remoteness and accessibility, of expansiveness and enclosure. I don't know how it works there at night, but I have a feeling it might just be closed to the public then. (I imagine a lot of teenage drama, romance, and carousing goes on there at night though, especially with all those houses so nearby. How I wish my teen years had more drama, romance, and carousing in beautiful parks!) So I still don't have much of a night time retreat, besides just driving, which as I discussed in an earlier post (in the long third paragraph) is no longer the same for me as it once crucially was years ago.
Edit 12:45 am: I almost forgot to mention this but on February 19th, I took an impromptu trip up to Orlando, my old stomping grounds from my early college days of 2002 and 2003, to see a favorite band of mine, the instrumental post-rock group Caspian, from Massachusetts. They were truly amazing and I nearly cried at one song. I went with my old friend Anthony, who I met back when I was still living there and who still lives there now, though he'd been to New York City and who knows where else in the intervening years. I hadn't seen him in nearly a decade. We hadn't even talked online for many years, but he seems to have emerged from some long period of seclusion or something. He took along his girlfriend, whose name I think was Sarah. She was very quiet and Anthony and I did almost all the talking. We didn't really do a lot of catching up, more just bantering and joking around, though he did tell me a little bit about his office job in some little computer-related company. I am glad to be talking to him again as he is one of the most intelligent, intense, and like-minded people I've ever met. Before the show we went to dinner at some big restaurant/bar place that was having a trivia night, which we three and a few others who are friends of Anthony's and longtime acquaintances of mine, that is, Kevin, Jess, and Shannon, participated in, though with lackluster results. Anyway, I got a cool shirt from the Caspian show and got to stand right by the stage since the venue was small and the crowd was far from full. The two and a half hour drive each way was a good warmup for the three and a half to four-hour drive I'll be making to visit Galina. I was in Orlando in April 2010 with my then-roommate to see another post-rock band, Red Sparowes, but that night was marred both by my roommate's glum indifference and nonchalance and by the huge speeding ticket I got on the way back home. I scarcely even remember the trip now. Being back in Orlando on my own for the first time since summer 2008, when I played at my last National Scrabble Championship (and so far, my last tournament period) and stayed with Justin and Christina, was a little weird though. Since leaving Orlando for good in December 2003, I've made numerous trips back up there, and for a time it remained a part of my life, as many people I was close with still lived there. By now, however, those people have moved away or I'm no longer close with them. So, being back there, I felt like an utter stranger, even as I recalled successively with astonishment each of the familiar streets I passed.
Now, I can only hope to get back in a somewhat better mood for the couple days I take my trip to see Galina. After that, I'll really have no excuse at all not to be looking for new work, as my life is pretty much a complete blank after this Saturday.
Today I did do something a bit unusual for me, though. I went to this park 15 or 20 minutes from my house whose existence I only very recently became fully aware of, despite living in this area for over 5 years. It's a fairly expansive park called Dreher Park, which has in its vicinity an old science museum (notable mainly for the monthly laser music shows it holds in its planetarium) and a small zoo. I've been to the laser shows and the zoo a couple of times, but was unaware of how large and pleasantly circuitous the park itself was. It's gotten unseasonably chilly down here in South Florida this past week or so, with temperatures in the 50s and 60s during the day, and today it was both brisk and sunny, with little wind. One could hardly ask for a more perfect day to go to this park. It has long, winding, intersecting walking paths, numerous lakes and ponds, benches, pavilions, docks, hills, a little garden, and along with the grass, many different kinds of trees, including some large and gnarled old ones. (Don't ask me to name all the flora and fauna. I'm no Darwin or Thoreau or anything.) My regret is that I got there so late in the day, choosing to waffle about at home much of the time before that. I arrived at around 5 pm and left at 6:15 or 6:30, as the sun was beginning to set. I brought along a book of G. K. Chesterton's essays, figuring that would be my chief activity there, but I was so taken with walking down the paths, and veering occasionally into the adjacent residential streets, that I only read for 15 minutes or so right before departing. It was an invigorating walk, and it had me thinking some different things than I'm used to, since I'm not an outdoor type. It did not exactly bring me the calm I hoped for, as my mind was still in its typical state as of late, that is, a ceaselessly sifting mixture of petty fretting, regret, nostalgia, music, remembered reading and fragments of conversation, sheer nonsense and free-floating verbiage, abstraction, and anxious boredom, along with the meta-consciousness of all these things and the occasional failed attempts to muffle, combat, or reverse them. Sometimes even nature's most generous bounties will only do so much to heal her gloomy, petulant human children.
Despite all this, I'd say it was a positive experience and I will definitely be going back. For as long as I've lived in this area I have looked for such a place of retreat and reflection, a place besides my house to wander safely or just sit and read or write or reflect. I had sometimes used beaches for this purpose, but it gets strangely uncomfortable for me, lying on the beach for more than an hour or two, not to mention I'm not very fond of sand. Unless you just kind of nap or zone out, the beach by oneself can get boring quickly. This park gives me the right combination of mobility and stasis, of relative solitude without complete desolation (there were a few other people in the park, but they seemed more a part of the landscape), of remoteness and accessibility, of expansiveness and enclosure. I don't know how it works there at night, but I have a feeling it might just be closed to the public then. (I imagine a lot of teenage drama, romance, and carousing goes on there at night though, especially with all those houses so nearby. How I wish my teen years had more drama, romance, and carousing in beautiful parks!) So I still don't have much of a night time retreat, besides just driving, which as I discussed in an earlier post (in the long third paragraph) is no longer the same for me as it once crucially was years ago.
Edit 12:45 am: I almost forgot to mention this but on February 19th, I took an impromptu trip up to Orlando, my old stomping grounds from my early college days of 2002 and 2003, to see a favorite band of mine, the instrumental post-rock group Caspian, from Massachusetts. They were truly amazing and I nearly cried at one song. I went with my old friend Anthony, who I met back when I was still living there and who still lives there now, though he'd been to New York City and who knows where else in the intervening years. I hadn't seen him in nearly a decade. We hadn't even talked online for many years, but he seems to have emerged from some long period of seclusion or something. He took along his girlfriend, whose name I think was Sarah. She was very quiet and Anthony and I did almost all the talking. We didn't really do a lot of catching up, more just bantering and joking around, though he did tell me a little bit about his office job in some little computer-related company. I am glad to be talking to him again as he is one of the most intelligent, intense, and like-minded people I've ever met. Before the show we went to dinner at some big restaurant/bar place that was having a trivia night, which we three and a few others who are friends of Anthony's and longtime acquaintances of mine, that is, Kevin, Jess, and Shannon, participated in, though with lackluster results. Anyway, I got a cool shirt from the Caspian show and got to stand right by the stage since the venue was small and the crowd was far from full. The two and a half hour drive each way was a good warmup for the three and a half to four-hour drive I'll be making to visit Galina. I was in Orlando in April 2010 with my then-roommate to see another post-rock band, Red Sparowes, but that night was marred both by my roommate's glum indifference and nonchalance and by the huge speeding ticket I got on the way back home. I scarcely even remember the trip now. Being back in Orlando on my own for the first time since summer 2008, when I played at my last National Scrabble Championship (and so far, my last tournament period) and stayed with Justin and Christina, was a little weird though. Since leaving Orlando for good in December 2003, I've made numerous trips back up there, and for a time it remained a part of my life, as many people I was close with still lived there. By now, however, those people have moved away or I'm no longer close with them. So, being back there, I felt like an utter stranger, even as I recalled successively with astonishment each of the familiar streets I passed.
Now, I can only hope to get back in a somewhat better mood for the couple days I take my trip to see Galina. After that, I'll really have no excuse at all not to be looking for new work, as my life is pretty much a complete blank after this Saturday.