Getting Out of My Head

Yesterday Tiffany, Zachary and I all went to Coney Island. We walked by freak shows, relaxed under the sun, went for a swim, had a picnic and rode the Cyclone roller coaster. This is a coaster you can hear all of the way down the beach for the way it rattles and rolls. It was built in 1927 and purportedly has the ability to grant miracles. 

Case in point: a boy who'd been mute for five years road the Cyclone and screamed for the entire 2+ minutes of the ride. Miracle.

We decided (despite the hefty 8 dollar entrance fee) to give the coaster a go. Tiffany was NOT scared as we walked up. Zach and I were trembling. The safety bar came down over our laps, the ride conductor laughed manically, and we were off. We climbed up the first hill, the coaster rattling ominously over every wooden plank, and then right as we crested, it began to rain, hard. Then the entire world dropped away and we plunged down the shaky, wooden slope.

We united in a chorus of screams.

For the entire 2+ minutes.

It was exhilarating. cruising along the same "death defying" curves that have relieved patrons of their lunch for 81 years pushed everything out of my head except for the present moment (and the rain, oh yes, the rain was falling hard by then). Gone were any worries about finding an apartment, gone were any twangs of loneliness or fear, gone, gone, gone.

I was out of my head and loving it.

On the ride home Zach put it nicely.

"It's not often I get out of my head like that. I needed it."

Exactly.