NOTE: If you happen to be a police officer of any sort, or some sort of vigilante, please either leave now or agree that this is NOT your jurisdiction. Thanks.

I went skinny-dipping last night. Want to know where? Right in the smack center of downtown Binghamton, on a Friday night, just as the bars were closing and people were wandering the streets everywhere.

*grin*

See, it was very fucking hot last night. The sort of heat that's pleasant if you're outside, just sitting around, but horrendous if you're indoors someplace, or busy doing something that involves moving. Norman and I were shooting pool in a bar -- he won, of course, because I suck ass compared to him -- and sweating profusely. As he wiped sweat off his face and whined about the heat, Norman's face suddenly lit up and he said, "Let's go to the River!"

So we did. I'm not going to tell you exactly where, not online anyway, because I might go there again someday and I don't want anybody peeking... But we went down to the Chenango River, and tentatively took off our sandals to test the water. Oh, how cool it was! The rocks were a little slimy, and I know very well that the river's pretty polluted, and maybe there's radioactivity in it, or raw sewage, but it didn't seem excessively disgusting, so, you know, what the hell -- we decided it would make a nice swim...

And of course, you don't swim in all your clothes... So we disrobed, looking around a little hesitantly, and wandered in.

"If I were to die as soon as I get out of this water, no one could EVER say I have not lived!" crowed Norman, sort of half-assedly quoting something, I think. Thoreau, I think.

I found myself treading water in the very center of the mighty Chenango. I forgot all about Norman's presence. It was a sort of baptism, floating naked in a natural body of water on a hot night, a full moon overhead. The mighty Chenango, I swear, has a soul. I often think I can sense it laughing at me. I think sometimes it's watching me somehow, knowing all the little dramatics of everything. It was the sole witness of the time I climbed to the top of the abandonned Derby building downtown and made love on the rooftop. It was the sole witness to dozens of times I stood alone on the Main/Court Street bridge, thinking solitary thoughts. It was the sole witness to the numerous little stones and sticks and flowers I've dropped into the water as some sort of childish wishing-game. Nobody can tell me the River doesn't know about these things. Maybe not in a human way, but dammit, that River is WELL aware of what's going on around it. Somehow, I really believe that, as dumb as it sounds.

And last night, I let it immerse me. All its cynical history, its calm and peaceful resignation. Its KNOWING.

I am not a religious person, certainly not a practicing religious person. My belief-system does not include images of any specific higher beings, because I think images of such forces are detrimental to the accuracy of one's beliefs. But drifting across the River, under a full moon, I could not help but feel very much as if there are indeed, higher forces. Goddesses. Gods. Who KNOWS what. But regardless of what those forces are, they were present.

We didn't stay very long. Long enough to swim to the other side, though, and then swim back to the center and drift for awhile. The current was barely noticeable. I had to stand on a rock, chest-deep in water, and actually TRY to feel the current. There was almost no motion at all. Hence the name Chenango, I guess: "peaceful." Norman insisted we'd only had to swim about twenty yards, total, because the water level is low this time of year. I'm not sure exactly how far twenty yards is, but even at such a low level, that River, let me tell you, is a LOT wider than people imagine it when they're not looking at it. Think of it this way: if you're about to cross the Main/Court Bridge over the Chenango, and you happen to have Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young in your discman, it would take you the entire song of "Find the Cost of Freedom" to cross that bridge. It's not a long song, but it IS a whole song. It's a BIG freaking River. But I swam it. Badly, that is, because while I can tread water and float for an awfully long time, my actual swimming abilities extend no further than a half-assed sidestroke. But who cares. This was not a competition. This was the divine experience of being naked and immersed in water in downtown Binghamton. There's just not a way in the world to beat that, at least nothing I've ever heard of.

We dried off, sort of shaking like dogs do, dressed, and climbed back up to the people-part of Binghamton. There, streetlights and voices and cars and billboards obscure the loveliest part of the town. A car drove by and a kid yelled to Norman, "Hey, buddy! Fuck her! I did!" Amazing. Simply amazing. So many people are just so damned ignorant. And pitiful. You have no idea, pal, what's around you, and what it's worth. Like the River, for example. Or me. I sort of smiled. I sort of forgot all about it.

There are things I won't forget about last night, though...