.𖥔 ݁ ˖ ✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅ Lai Yi Ohlsen
running route
there are three main ruptures on my morning run. the first one presents itself gently, as the east river arrives through a gradual descent. the temperature is almost always immediately cooler than the streets behind me and even though the width of the water is teensy, the rolling waves can feel like an overwhelming, almost rebellious amount of nature. Oh right, I always think, there’s more to the world than what we’ve made up in the city
The second comes on a slow curve when my first mile energy has faded and I’m hugging the island’s bends through battery park, up to a direct view of the Statue of Liberty. here people are almost always lined up to see where other hoards of people lined up to move in the opposite direction. I’m always inevitably caught in choreographies of capture, my body a blur in between the raised phones and the raised torch. ? as the nationalism of it all is, its hard not to think abt what the idea of america has meant to people in both lines and what it promises of tomorrow and the next day and the next
the third and final rupture comes as a hard, record-scratching, right turn into wall st where I am met with tall textures of reflection, opacity and stone. it’s like a loud, charismatic personality, I’m always instantly struck by its obvious neediness, and still my desire to give it the attention it’s asking for. as the skyline becomes a canopy I can see several overlapping centuries and centers of power colliding into one another, vying for viability in any direction they can get and yet here with the birds singing they’re almost boring in their echo-y stillness