Getting Centered In the Loop (Run, Kid, Run!)
I’ve lived in New York City some 13 years, that swirling, maddening Center of the Universe. Just two years it was all about the delightful excesses of consumption — the most expensive condo ever (in the Plaza building, $76 million or something), $50 hamburgers, Swarovski crystals on your sneakers — and now, suddenly, it’s all lay-offs, my-misery-is-worse-than-yours, and Upper East Siders selling off their estate jewelry.
Whatever.
For in truth I’ve been here long enough to know it’s all pretty cyclical: Most of us here five years ago will be here five years from now, making deals, making fashion and art, making asses out of ourselves, on grand display for the entire world.
Which all brings me to a run in the park. The big loop in Central Park, to be exact. Most of those 13 years here, I’ve found myself on the road, traveling far and wide. Some of it has been fully employed by this magazine or the other, and a lot of it as a freelancer — gloriously without an office to trudge to, but simultaneously without any health insurance, either.
It’s certainly natural to wonder at your place in the world, but it’s magnified sensation here in NYC, where a random street corner is transformed every 15 minutes. Crazy tumult: That’s the baseline.
Yesterday, 2:30 pm — temperature around 30 F — and I was in the park, the place which most centers me while in New York City (which hardly makes me uncommon). The full loop is six miles and I enter at 84th street on the east side, where it takes you… north up to 112th Street and the breath-wrenching Heartbreak Hill, to the west part of the park, past the duck pond (the setting of countless romantic movies), past all the grass fields where everyone lays half nude during the summer months, toward the southern end and Midtown’s buildings peekaboo-ing above the trees. Back to the east side, and north (another good hill), passing the incomparable Met, and then, for me at least, east down 83rd street and home.
Slushy snow coated the fields, my breath crystallized in the air, and there were precious few people out. Central Park is a microcosm of the city, and while I certainly enjoy a run here on a gorgeous Saturday morning in summer, I never quite feel like I own a piece of it on those days, as I do when I’m out here and it’s raining, cold, blustery, windy… Those are the days when only the hardy and foolish are out. Those of us looking for a bit of solace while not huddling in our own high-rise apartments. It’s a way to be outside without having to endure all the jostling, excuse-me’s (please move the fuck OUT of my way, buddy) that invariably encompasses a ride on the subway or even a stroll along Fifth Ave.
As my sneakers slap upon the asphalt, my mind also takes in the rhythm, and I’m reminded of all the years I’ve run these same lanes. (I used to hate to run, but that’s another story.) It’s a way to reconnect with my former self (or selves), and reconnect to the city. I always say New York is the best city in the world — as long as you can get out of it. And as desperate as I can be to get out of it on occasion, I’m always happy to be back. These long Central Park runs remind me of this fact, almost without fail.
My gym is good, and there’s many days when I’m in no mood to suffer the cold. (In fact I’d rather not suffer the winter at all, and this one looks to be a long, bitter one.)
As I rounded the south and headed back north, my creative mind was thinking of stories I wanted to write; had worked out some plans that I needed to mull over; and I’d pounded out a sense of lingering frustration I’d felt earlier in the day. But, mostly, I felt centered again: Happy to be in my own life here in New York City, come layoffs, fear, panic, or come big new jobs, elation and big spending.
