Positiveness is what brought John Lennon and Yoko Ono together. He went to a performance art show of hers. To see one of her pieces Lennon had to climb a ladder to read a message on the ceiling. He expected it to be something political or self-righteous, but instead it said YES. That’s when John knew that Yoko was different.

I think of that story a lot.

I thought of it today when I saw this graffiti on the bridge that passes over Sunnyside Yards, underneath the 7 train:

The message did not seem to be directed at anyone in particular. I liked it.

I’m not sure if there’s a name designated for that bridge (there is no name for it other than Route 25 on my Hagstrom map) but it’s where Queens Boulevard leads into Queens Plaza. Another nearby bridge, the Steinway Street/39th Street Bridge, is similarly un-named on my maps as anything but a street.

The Honeywell Street Bridge is where a friend of mine walked backwards last week in search of silence. He has walked the length of the much longer Queensboro/59th Street Bridge backwards, and says that when he got to Manhattan the souls and consciences of everyone he saw were visible.

Today on the Honeywell some biker dudes were tearin’ it up, doing wheelies and raising a gut-crunching amount of noise. I can’t remember the last time I heard noise so loud and of such a quality that it made my stomach rattle, but that happened today.

I can walk a long, long way. This summer I walked the length of the Triborough Bridge and back, from Queens to Wards Island, starting at about 3:00 AM and getting back to Queens at 7:00 or 7:30 in the morning.

I get jumpy thinking about that night. The fences seemed quite low at the bridge’s highest point and I was in sorry emotional shape. It’s a high bridge.

I saw a couple of other people up there. One very elderly looking man on a bicycle, he had a Grizzly Adams beard and what I imagined to be all his possessions in a basket on the back of his bike. We looked each other straight in the eye and I wondered if he was me in 40 years, or if I was him.

While we looked at each other I thought that at that moment on that night on that bridge it really was 40 years ago.

Another night I walked from my place to Northern Boulevard, over the Honeywell Street Bridge then north to Skillman Avenue and along some streets in Sunnyside. It was about 3:00 am. Some pubs closed but others were going strong. I think I walked left on 58th Street to Broadway, then turned right and came to Roosevelt Avenue in Jackson Heights. It was a noir atmosphere. Some night clubs had closed and people were milling around outside under the subways. The only English words spoken were obscenities people yelled at each other. Steam belched out of open manholes; garbage trucks zipped around, dangerously it seemed, through construction and road work barricades; the subway roared by overhead.

It felt like I’d walked into a part of the city that existed illegally, or that most people ignored.

Back on Roosevelt Avenue I walked north and north and north for what seemed like a lifetime. I rarely plan these adventures but this night I did. Before leaving I made coffee and brought it in a thermos. I was wide awake and hot as hell.

My plan was to get to Flushing Meadows Corona Park when it opened at sunrise. That never happened, but I got as close as Junction Boulevard around 96th Street. At 4:30 I got a bottle of water and a
nectarine at the Food Bazaar, and sat on a bench outside the store.

I tried to get a cab but several cabbies refused to give me a ride. I didn’t care, and the walk back home seemed quick.

I stupidly remembered a Rod McEwen poem that I read when I was 12. The poem was something like: “The journey back is always longer than the forward run.” The only reason I remember that poem at all is because soon after I read it I found another poem by another schlock poet who said precisely the opposite. It might have been Leonard Nimoy who wrote that the journey back is always quicker than
the first trip.

At that age I think I thought “Well, it’s poetry.” At 12 years I thought poetry was an elaborate game of confusion and impenetrably hidden meaning, but in the case of these contradicting poems I
remember thinking this would be food for my life. I looked forward to determining which was right and which was wrong.

My mind had collapsed into a jumble of bad poetry, and that was my queue to end the journey. My shirt was soaked with my sweat and I zoned out the long walk by looking forward to the air conditioner
blowing into my face when I got back here.

Tupelo (a hipster dive bar) was still open and serving drinks at 6:15 in the morning, but I did not stop in. My other haunts had closed hours earlier.

I don’t know if there is a point to these stories, but I’ve told them several times and the reactions are very different. Some envy me for these earnest, solitary pursuits. Others think it’s a weird cry for help. Others forget the story as soon as I’m through telling it, if they even let me finish.