One More Month of Respite From City Life
by Mike Levin
Monday, May 30, 2022Iām at the Winona Lakes pool on our second day of Memorial day swimming. What a gift this community has been over the past two yearsāa true cure for the cabin-fever of tiny NYC-apartment living. I am so grateful for the little rental cottage and that fateful drive out route 280 to route 80 into the Delaware Water Gap. I had no idea we would end up minutes from my childhood āsecretā ski-mountain and am sad we wonāt have another winter season here. I only got Adi out on the mountain ski-boarding once, but thatās okay.
Insert pool pic (very zoomed out)
Itās been nonstop trampolining, campfires, ziplining, canoeing, gocart racing and the like. I mean really, it was an experience of a lifetime⦠or maybe not. With year to year leases and the mobility of a homeschooler and telecommuter, you never know. Donāt rule anything out. For now, we can make the return to this area a special weekend activity we come out and do, scheduled lessons and all. I can help make snowboarding and whatever else stick.
Insert picture of the yard
Posting and sharing this idyllic existence while Iām enjoying it really isnāt in my nature. Call it superstition, but is there not an evil eye jealously looking down on us punishing us when things look too good? There is, I tell you. There is! But Iām not superstitious, but spit, spit. Maybe itās for the best that circumstances being what they are conspired to compel me back to the land of pretentious faux Greek columns and Manhattan-hating New York locals. The rule is grin and bear it⦠as opposed to my current existence which is more like grin at bears watching them knock over the trash cans.
Insert picture of bear
I signed a lease last Friday on a nice 3-bedroom around the corner from one of the great āGreen Beltā parks of Staten Island. On the whole, the parks are much nicer than the people in my estimation. Staten Island is most decidedly not my vibe, but my child is having a difficult time, and Iāve received my last crying phone-call that I couldnāt do anything about but remote-time. No, now itās time to be there and face the issues driving them to dark places in their mind. I start by making sure they are involved in the selection and āYes, this is where weāre going to live approval process. So much of this kind of mental state is from lack-of-say over oneās own life.
Insert YouTube here
Saturday was rainy, so Sunday was our first day here at the pool. I am grateful that I did not have to return Adi last night for the Memorial Day parade that her mother told me they had to be back for on Monday. I got a text mid-day yesterday saying they werenāt attending the parade, and so Adi had the opportunity to stay. Adi is instantly hitting it off with the local kids as they always do, and Iām sitting here typing as I hear shouts of Marco Polo and the giggles of a good time. Adi loves using āMy Dad told me to socializeā as an easy way to introduce themselves to new kids. Thereās an exchange of names, and bammo whammo let the good times role. I am so proud of their socialization skills.
Maybe Another Pool Pic
Of course itās the pride of a parent talking, but in addition to that deep comfort level in the water, easy socializing, the kid is also a natural mimic. Adi does their spot-on Mickey Mouse impression and I say I wish I could do a Fry impression as Iām wearing my Planet Express T-Shirt today in anticipation of the upcoming 1.5-hour drive. Without missing a beat, the kid busts out a perfect āShut up and take my moneyā. I am both floored and proud beyond measure. My movie-quoting bantering roommates of yore would have laughed their asses off as I called their nonsense prattle as they called it banter. It seems I canāt escape Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra. Sighhh. When the walls fell.
Well the walls are not falling anymore. This dumb delivery boy is at ease with his holophoner without a single smart-worm up my butt. Iāll have a bunch of trips back and forth as I move most things into cheap public storage here PA-side, like the canoe and the bicycles. Yes, the 2 Mongooses and the Schwinn are a problem, living up a flight of stairs as we do. But maybe not. Maybe I just carry them up and down the stairs. Thereās the electric bike too which maybe Iāll be able to keep folded at the bottom of the flight of stairs. But these are the little bits of ironing out of details. Theyāre the small details, nuance and subtlety that donāt really matter. Nothing involving matter really matters much.
The matter that matters is the matter that lives. Live, laugh, love. If the matter can do any of those things, it matters more than any other matter. Pets and other living things come in a very close second. Hand-crafted or nature-made irreplaceables come in very distant third. Thereās nothing so irreplaceable that it should put much of a dent on your spirits if lost. What, are you going to take it to the afterlife? Nope! In fact, the only thing that might even go with you to the afterlife is the information that permeates your awareness and being; your experiences.
Okay, wrap this one one, but definitely capture more mental snapshots and vignettes of your life. Youāre wrapping up a time here at a place youāll have lived at for 2 years by the time itās done. Thereās been so many places over the years, but this one was different because it as during the first few years of the pandemic and it was during Adiās 10 to 11 years-old times when thereās so much important stuff going on in the brain. Adi deserves to see Dad working at his best. I may not have a lot of money to work with, but I have a lot of brains and heart, and they saw them in action.
Fast-forward to about 8:00 PM. Have to start the drive back to Staten Island. It was a gift to have Adi this āextraā day of the Memorial Day holiday. Iām starting to think that the cutting-short of time may be deliberate and my diligent documenting of it may be paying off. We just watched Mean Girls with Adi. Itās feeling like the highlights of my life, the simple pleasures of watching a movie with and connecting with my kid.