Left Behind on My Run, heading down Court Street

"You tie me into knots,

and I'm not ready

to be tied down."

Intersection of Court Street and West 9th. Lots of bicycles road past as I posted this.

From Court and 9th to 3rd Avenue

Corner of 9th Street and 3rd Avenue. I posted this right next to a bus stop, hoping passengers waiting for the bus would be amused by it.

"When you're around, I want to crawl

inside you and never leave."

Left behind on my run: Third Avenue and Third Street

Third Street is a great block to run on. It's quite hilly, and also traverses the Gowanus Canal. I particularly like this part of Brooklyn.

"With each step,

I feel

our connection renew."

This is a map of another one of my running routes.

Left Behind on My Run - Smith Street and Third Street

This is where I left my final sign this evening. I had intended to leave more, but somehow lost my packing tape!! 

"I still hope he'll change."

If people do read these, and I very much hope they do, maybe these pieces will inspire more affection among couples, and a great leap forward towards secret crushes...

When You're Around

I don't actually have a cat, but some close friends of mine do, and he's sick. He's so proud that he continues to have a sleek, shiny, black coat, even though he is getting skinnier. 

I keep wondering if we can love the cat enough to talk it out of its illness?

I once fell for someone with several chronic injuries. Every time he talked about them I wished I could take away his pain. 

Just like I wish we could talk the cat into being healthy. And I wish I could have coaxed my grandmother out of her illness before she died.

"Food tastes better, trains run on time, even my cat's coat looks shinier when you're around."

Left behind on my run

As many of you know, I am an avid runner. While running, I think about all kinds of things. Sometimes I count the number of blocks left on my route, sometimes I make a mental list of everything I need to do at work that day, and, quite often, I have a realization about how I feel about someone in my life at that moment. 

The map at left is one of my running routes through Boerum Hill-Carroll Gardens-Gowanus-Park Slope. I tend to pick hillier paths so I can increase resistance. I seem to like slogging through the difficult parts to get to my running high.

Is the same true of my relationships?

My plan is to install some of my "post-its" along my running route. These will be stitched on pieces of plastic bags. I feel as though I have accumulated a lot of dating experiences, and it's time to let go of a lot of ideas and memories. Similarly, I seem to accumulate plastic shopping bags. I can reuse them if I want, but ultimately, they are disposable. In today's dating culture, I feel as if relationships are disposable. We are "shopping for perfection," and can always replace a current love interest with someone "better."

The piece at left says, "What I left behind on my run: thoughts of you and my relationships, current and swollen with memory."

Towards Bliss

Can desire for another person light us up from inside and give us a sense of purpose?

Does the desire need to be mutual to be so potent?

I realized on one of several train rides this weekend that many of my relationships have been a monologue. I think I held on to my sense of what could develop, rather than what was necessarily present. And in one relationship in particular, I felt an underlying anxiety that my boyfriend would disappear. Ultimately, he did leave in a way that felt like complete abandonment.

At this specific moment, I have no desire to date. I am bored by the dynamics of dating, and I am tired of being on uncertain ground. I am tired of waiting for something to develop.

I have always hoped I could become very good friends with a man and have the relationship transition to being romantic within a period of a few months of getting to know each other.

Readers, I will share this with you when it happens, I promise.