The Weekend Closes with Liberty

So, the Fourth of July Weekend has come and gone. It felt a little bizarre to have the Fourth on a Friday. The entire week leading up to the weekend felt like part of the holiday, which makes sense given that Pride was going on the weekend before, and I had not one but two different friends visiting from out of town. There were several drinks and dinner get-togethers involved, and they all kind of blur together.

The Fourth itself was a bit of a mixed bag. I made plans with one friend, but she begged out in the afternoon because she wasn't feeling well. So, I called up another friend and we got together for dinner in the Lower East Side. As much as that neighborhood changes, it's still fun to walk through, especially since I'd been out the night before an had some ideas for dinner. We ended up at a nice Mexican place on Saint Marks, a place I'd enjoyed during the day a while back, but which was very nicely lit at night. We managed to see some of the fireworks but they were mostly obscured by a muggy fog that hung over the entire city. As we wound our way through Thompkins Square and to points east (as far as Avenue C) we only saw a periodic glow in the heavens above.

Saturday I chilled in. I worked with my kayak group in the park, but after some heavy rains and twenty minutes of no one stopping by, we closed up. I got some soup at Ollie's and came home.

Sunday, I went on a big kayaking trip with our group. We sponsor these trips with the public, and I was hoping to just go along for the ride. You have to arrive early, before eight in the morning, and the trips last about three or four hours.

Before we left, someone told me that our trip leader had a tendency to let people get a bit too extended. She got some more experienced volunteers to come along with us. This set the tone for the trip to come.

It wasn't a bad trip. Altogether we shepherded a dozen people in open boats across the Hudson river at 56th street all the way down to a marina in Liberty State Park. The current was with us each way, and I learned a lot about that part of the river - I hadn't been past Hoboken previously.

What was daunting was that this guy kind of passively put me in a leadership position I wasn't prepared for. While crossing the river and kayaking in general are safe, when you lead one of these trips you are, basically, responsible for other peoples' lives. You not only have to watch out for river traffic and changing river conditions, but you have to communicate with complete strangers who may have no kayaking skills at all, keep them together, and make sure they don't become too tired to make it back.

I made the mistake of making myself known when I offered to organize the public while our leader finished getting in his boat. When we left, he told everyone to follow me across the river. I did it wrong - not knowing exactly where we were going, I picked a spot to far up, costing us time and almost forcing an unnecessary crossing in front of a ferry terminal.

Fortunately another, more experienced volunteer realized what was going on and coached me through, and on the way back, our leader took more of a leadership role. It was like he couldn't wait to get back.

The trip itself was phenomenal. It was one of the longest trips I've taken so far. As we cruised past Hoboken and Jersey City, it was remarkable how much that area has changed. There are twice as many skyscrapers in Jersey City as I recall from when I lived there five years ago. As we came around the Colgate clock and pulled in to the marina, I realized we were in a familiar place, as I used to walk past the marina whenever I went to Liberty State Park.

After we came back, I chatted with some friends and came home to shower and get ready for church. I was reading scripture that day and wanted to look nice. Our readings were strange when next to each other - romantic piece from the Song of Solomon, and a piece from Romans that basically says, "woe is me, I keep doing things I know are wrong even though I want to do good things." The sermon put it together though - Love, not punishment, is the only thing that can effect real change. It's not quite liberation theology, but it is liberating for many people.