Procession

Yesterday I got up and went to yoga in the most oppressive heat and humidity of the summer. The class was packed, and I was feeling ungenerous toward the women practicing on either side of me. I walked home slowly, deliberately, but it didn't help much. I showered and ate, watched some tv. I made my sad face at M. Panique and told him that I didn't know what to do. I didn't feel like cooking, or shopping, or reading. He suggested I cut up some cardboard I had promised him for dividers for his CD boxes. This helped. I forget that he knows me.



I told him that it was his job to force me out of the apartment at 3:15pm, even if I objected, even if it was raining, unless it was dangerous, to go to the open house at the work/study gig. He proved his usefulness again, because it was pouring. The demo wasn't all that, but at least it got me out and about.



Later we set off for Brooklyn for lasagna and Settlers of Catan. I'm loving these dinners with friends that aren't dinner parties, just dinner. With friends. These evenings really make me start to fall in love with my life.



Lately, I'm actually able to hear that kind of thought again, able to listen when my hear tells me an experience will be exciting, enjoyable, valuable, then able to have the experience and appreciate the excitement, joy, and preciousness.



Today we got lunch and picked up some groceries. On our way home, we noticed a crowd on 53rd between Eighth and Ninth: the annual saint's procession of a local Catholic church. These things move incredibly slowly, and I made it home and back to the procession before they had traveled even a third of the block. I hung around until they made it to the corner of 53rd and Ninth, then walked over to Eighth and bought new nail polish at Duane Reade. Then I bought an iced tall skim mocha latte at Starbucks and walked down 52nd, just in time to watch the procession turn the corner from Ninth Avenue. At that rate the procession probably takes four or five hours to get around the block, and an army of purple-robed brothers of the Fraternity of San Martin de Porres stand ready to relieve the crew that staggers along under the weight of their icon of Saint Benedict the Moor. A brass band follows behind, marking time with a crazy circus-sounding march. Two women walk in front with chalice-shaped censors that blow perfumed smoke back over the procession, and a third carries some sort of relic in glass case on a silver pillow. What a fantastic way to spend a late-summer afternoon.