By George - elephants!

Last night the circus came to town. And for a moment, the elephants owned 34th street. But perhaps I should first describe the previous twelve hours, or four months.

Intent on temporarily ridding myself of this city that has become so heavy in me, I went hiking with Alex on Storm King Mountain where we balanced rocks and perched ourselves as high as we could. If only I could be so long at my processes like the autumn leaves underfoot, slippery and taking their time at decomposing. Somehow this mountain (eh, large hill) has something to do with the way I was able to be later that night at the pool party – ready. Yes a pool dance party near times square with beach balls and a sauna and steam room and bar and perfect music (Talking Heads, Amy Winehouse) and radical kids from some protest marching band. But even this was too much to take in, the vodka and steam and wide-eyed strangers going straight to our heads and clouding away what we lacked that of course it felt a dream when everyone ran down to 34th street to watch the elephants pass.

I am having a hard time finding an affective way to write about this night, for the very reason that, speechless with head-cocked laughter, hundreds of twenty and thirty-somethings ran along side elephants for blocks. I cannot dream a more brilliant interruption to the state of the world, or a movement, a weird dance into spring and out of the rut of winter. Can you imagine the laughter that elephants in the middle of the night in midtown can conjure? Fuck. Imagine running with elephants in the middle of this crazy city that has caused so many people so much pain in the last months – and then there are elephants. And suddenly we’re whole and, by the collision of this world with another, reminded that there are so many worlds and lives outside of this city and this season. It seems that these hundreds could have just as easily cried as laughed. It didn’t matter; there were elephants in the street.

And even this is not the way I meant to write about this night for what is the use of intellectualizing elephants? I have never been so affected by seasons. The seasons here are vivid and purposeful and go to great lengths to prove themselves and their innate power over all our defenses. Such committed seasons. But there is no light without darkness. We need shadows to discern our breadth and depth and where to step. Spring is here; you cannot argue with elephants. I love New York.

This is what Ursula K. Le Guin has to say about it: “Happiness has to do with reason, and only reason earns it. What I was given was the thing you can’t earn, and can’t keep, and often don’t even recognize at the time; I mean joy.”