The Hammer

it can build you up, or break you down

In 2012, while waiting for the gyn to call me with test results, I flew to New York City to attend the Yoga Journal conference.

Having spent most of the night before awake, in the arms of Dr. Google, I bought the only green juice thing I could find at the airport, willing my cells to beHAVE and please not be cancer.

My sweet and dear kindred soul friend Sophie, who I don’t see nearly enough, but whose blue college dorm towel still resides in the back of my car for emergencies, welcomed me into her apartment home and generously ordered Indian food for delivery. This was such a miracle of New York, in the days before Door Dash, you could call a place a block away, ask for your usual, and someone would just walk it up to your door. And it would be better than literally anything you could order in the entire Western half of the United States.

In the morning, rather than taking a cab, I walked from 102nd street to the Hilton on 54th street through Central Park, just as trees were blossoming and spring was flirting with the city.

The 6:30am walk was after sunrise, but the valley of the park only caught occasional glimpses of sun through and from reflections and alleyways between the skyscrapers. I come from the land of earth-made mountains, who plenty of writers wax about, but also there is something majestic about the glass mountains of NYC.

Forty eight blocks took me about an hour, and I joined the bizarre collection of ‘wellness enthusiasts’ who could not have looked sicker or more profoundly malnourished if they tried. Gaunt, chiseled, and tattooed, their bodies as polished as the glass and steel building that contained us. I felt soft and freckled and sloppy among them, like a finger puppet inappropriately filed with the transformers and legos.