Brooklyn

My plan for the day was to attend the morning service at Fire Lotus Temple, the Brooklyn affiliate of John Daido Loori's Mountains and Rivers Order, the urban sister for lay practioners of his Zen Mountain Monastery in upstate New York's Mount Tremper. But my sunburned feet had swollen up and became quite painful, and it would have been difficult to sit in a cross legged posture and even more difficult to impossible to get back up again gracefully, so instead I slept in and took in the breakfast buffet at the Long Island hotel.

Zen Master Dogen repeatedly urged his monks not to forsake zazen for physical comfort and not to let pride get in the way of practice, but there I was, limping from the omelet bar to the coffee station, avoiding the morning service at Fire Lotus Temple because pressure on my feet would have been uncomfortable and I would have looked conspicuously awkward getting up and sitting down on the zafu. Obviously, I have more work yet to do on my attitude and aspiration.

Following morning zazen, my original plan for the rest of the day was, before going to LaGuardia and flying home, to go from Fire Lotus Temple, located in Brooklyn's Boerum Hill, over to the Pool Party concert in nearby Williamsburg. The Pool Parties are a series of free concerts formerly held at a closed swimming pool in McCarren Park and now held along the East River. This year's series opened with a show featuring the legendary and now reunited Mission of Burma and will close later this summer with Grizzly Bear. Today's show featured Atlanta's own The Black Lips and a band called ". . . And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of The Dead."

Following breakfast, some time spent blogging yesterday's post about Fire Island, and packing, I checked out of the hotel. I wasn't sure if my sunburned and blistered feet were up to standing around all day at a rock concert, but lacking any other concrete plans, I got on the Long Island Expressway headed toward New York City and got off on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. I drove past the exit that would have taken me to the site of The Pool Party concert and eventually got off the BQE in the Vinegar Hill neighborhood to look at the Brooklyn Bridge from the Brooklyn side.

This is a part of the city I had never been to before and didn't know quite what to expect, but as it turns out, I was totally charmed. There was very little traffic along the cobblestone streets on a Sunday afternoon as the area was largely industrial. The lack of traffic allowed a fair number of bicyclists to ride around (although it has to be an interesting experience, to say the least, to ride a bicycle over those cobblestones), and there was a significant presence of tourists walking around with backpacks and cameras.

The area was only a block or two from the East River, and the iconic skyline of Manhattan was visible over the industrial foreground.

I parked the car (plenty of room for free, on-street parking) and followed the direction in which the tourists were walking. Soon, I saw what the attraction was: the very view of the Brooklyn Bridge for which I had been looking.

Walking from block to block, the buildings in Vinegar Hill framed the bridge in several unique ways.



The street-level storefronts were a mix of restaurants and bars, furniture stores and shops for funky sculptures, and other eclectic retail. Graffiti in the area ranged from the banal to the artistic, bridging the gap between the sacred and the profane.








After walking around Vinegar Hill as long as my aching feet would let me, I got back in my car and followed the East River up past the Navy Shipyard and into Williamsburg, occasionally stopping at streets that ended at the river to admire the Manhattan skyline and its iconic buildings.


My find of the day was along one of those dead-end streets, where I came across a d.j. playing ultra-cool acid jazz and trip-hop music to a hip, multi-cultural audience. A summer breeze was blowing in off the water, and I sat down and just soaked in the ambiance. If I wasn't up for spending the day standing in a crowd at a rock concert, chilling out to the sounds of this d.j. and the vibes of this gathering was a more-than-acceptable substitute.

Satori in Brooklyn, with views of the Williamsburg Bridge.

I eventually had to leave for the airport and my trip home. Removing and replacing my shoes for airport security aggravated my sunburn, especially since my feet had swelled from walking around all afternoon. My shoes, a normally comfortable pair of Merrell Jungle Mocs, felt two sizes too small for my swollen feet and the interiors felt like sandpaper, even through my socks.

We boarded the flight just as a thunderstorm hit the city, and spent the next two and a half hours of the tarmac waiting for conditions to change. We didn't even take off until the plane had been scheduled to arrive in Atlanta and were re-routed to a longer flight plan (fortunately, I had been upgraded to first class, which took away at least some of the discomfort). I didn't get home until well after midnight (I posted this the following Tuesday), and finally taking off those shoes and socks after all those hours was probably the most painful experience second only to wearing them for the duration of the flight.

But at least I'm finally back home.