Life Is But A Dream

“To live is to risk it all. Otherwise, you’re just an inert chunk of randomly assembled molecules drifting wherever the universe blows you.”
–Rick Sanchez, Rick and Morty, S3, Ep. 2 Rickmancing the Stone

I woke up one Saturday and within an hour was already bored. I had no plans for the day, no reason to get out of my pajamas, which used to excite me when I was younger, but was now giving way to feelings of numbness…and grossness as far as my pajamas were concerned. I’d had my breakfast, sipped some tea, and listened to some music, in what has become a very routine routine.

I decided that I had to get out of the house. The next day I’d be able to read the Sunday New York Times in my pajamas all morning long but as far as Saturday morning was concerned, I decided that I’m not allowed to live in New York City and feel bored.

So, I had lunch at Le Pain Quotidien at the Central Park Boat Club. One mint lemonade and chicken mozzarella panini later, I was ready to move further into the park and join the swaths of people splayed out on the lawn, reading their books and playing frisbee. It was a brisk 90 degrees outside and I was wearing a chic all-black ensemble that included the knee-high rain boots since the chance of rain was the only part of the forecast that I’d taken to heart.

En route to the field, I walked past all of the people who were lined up for the Central Park Boat rowing and signing waivers on clipboards. The line would have looked miserable had it not been for the view of boats setting sail as far as the eye could see. It looked enticing, but not like the type of thing they’d let you do without a partner to keep you from capsizing.

Instead I walked around the reservoir, watching everyone fan themselves with desperation

and listening to a man sing a rendition of a Coldplay song that should have stayed in the shower. You can do all this while watching the people row their boats, like I did while standing at a statue of a woman with her arms delicately outstretched in front of her.

In a book I had recently read, I learned that most New York City statues (sans the Statue of Liberty) were of the same woman, who was not in fact a woman, but actually a teenage girl, who struggled with what to do with her life after being a muse to so many artists. Now she’s immortalized in bronze all over the city over a century later, appearing in the starring role of innumerable tourists’ selfies.

It was around this statue that I ran into a woman who asked me about the boating service and I told her where it was. When she asked me if I was interested in doing it, I told her that I doubted I could do it alone, and then she invited me to do it with her and her friends.

We waited for about an hour, sweating like hookers in mass, but only needing to pay about six dollars each for our $25 per hour boat ride. We hit the water in our four-person boat, making our way across the water. I’d pictured our boat gracefully skimming the water as we passed beneath a bridge, but as it turns out, rowing is much harder than that.

Most of the other girls did the rowing, until I offered to do it for a second. There was nothing gentle about how I rowed my boat down the stream. I hit two other boats immediately and let someone else row within minutes of my stint as rower. I’m not a great boat rower, but I would be great at bumper cars.

All around us were people nauseatingly in love. A man took a break from rowing his girlfriend across the reservoir so that he could hold hands with her as they drifted past the willow tree, while another man only occasionally took a break from rowing so that he could get as much red lipstick down his face and neck from his girlfriend.

We were told that if it started to rain, we would have to immediately start coming back, since the boats were made of aluminum and we could be struck by lightning. They did not tell us, however, how hard it is to make a hairpin turn in a boat and haul ass back to the harbor.

We were attempting to make record time on our way back while storm clouds rolled in and the wind started rustling the tops of all of the trees. The clouds looked like we were gearing up for an “Auntie Em let me into the storm cellar” type of storm. I briefly put my mind at ease, reminding myself that I was in rubber boots and that I couldn’t possibly be struck by lightning, until I realized that being in a metal boat in the middle of a body of water might cancel out the power of my shoes.

Needless to say, we made it out of the boat, unscathed.

I’d gone from waking up to a day full of potential, being dismayed by the lack of things to do, forcing myself out, making new friends, and cheating death, or at least that’s how I see it. I lived so hard that I almost died.