My Beach

I live in the shadow of a postcard image. The New York City skyline shines brightly across the Hudson River, almost a stone's throw away from my front door. Every day and night, the buildings tower into the sky relentlessly, standing there as some benchmark for the glory and achievement of mankind. We did this. Well, not me, but people did this... human beings. It stands as possibly one of, if not, the greatest record of man made structure.

Living as close as I do, I tend to take this great behemoth for granted. Sure, some days I acknowledge just how awesome it is to be so close to it all. But many days, it's as if it's not there. Or it is but I just choose not to pay it any of my attention. Tonight, for the first time in some time, I paid a visit as close as I could to the Hudson River to bask in its glory.

As I stood there, I was hit with sudden flashbacks. I started to remember a time in my life when this was one of my favorite things to do. Coming up in my 20's, a younger me would love to venture to this spot after the bars had closed down. Sometimes I'd head down there with a bunch of friends, and we'd bullshit our way through a 12 pack while New York City stood there screaming at us. It wasn't serenity, but it was something.

The NYC skyline plays such a pivotal role in my upbringing. I came into legal drinking age only a year before 9/11. I grew up to a skyline that was filled with those gigantic Twin Towers and then one day they were gone. And the spot where they stood was a void, not to be filled with anything for many years to come. I remember 9/11 and coming to terms with it. A more selfish part of me worried about wars and drafts and no more fun. Sometimes it seemed like the party was only beginning for people my age and all of the sudden everything had changed.

But that feeling faded over time. Eventually there came a moment where it all sorta went back to normal. Being pissed at the boss. Being behind on cell phone payments. A flat tire. Sex. Drugs. Breaking up. That sorta stuff. It kept on going. For a short time, it felt like someone pressed pause on life but eventually we had to hit fast forward just to make up for lost time.

Somewhere in my 20's the skyline became a getaway. A beach. A destination. A place to extend the night once the bars closed down. A place for me and my dumb friends to go and demand more from the night. Those were good nights. To hell with the Jersey shore. We had our own place by the water. We had the biggest city in the world looking down on us and we clung to cheap beer and cigarettes and talked philosophy and cracked jokes well into the night.

Until one night when it ended. Cops rolled up. We were drinking in public. The officer told us to get lost and so we did. We never returned. And I never thought much about it. We replaced it with diners or friends' houses or wherever else we could find a willing host to our after hours. But none of that was ever a beach. Not like the NYC skyline. That's my beach.

As I stood there tonight, I wondered about those times. I wondered if I appreciated it enough back then. I wondered if those were simpler or better times or if I was only increasing its value through nostalgia. Either way, I missed my beach.

The skyline remains. I fear about a future skyline when all of New York City finally gets wise to New Jersey's staring eyes. How long until everything on that skyline would be covered in advertisements? How much more purity could they suck out of it? I wondered what it looked like from the Jersey side 200 years ago. If anyone could've ever imagined this. And then I wondered what I possibly couldn't imagine it'd look like 200 years from now.