E X T R A C T F R O M S K I N F U L
| ROBYN F L EMM I NG
As usual on a Tuesday whenever I was in New York, I joined the 5.30 am group at Engineer’s Gate to run around Central Park. Our pace was slow enough to chat. Afterwards, back at our starting point. I peeled off to head across the park. The others all lived on the east side. ‘Ciao! Thanks for the run!’ After drinking from a water fountain beside the bridle path, I walked up onto the track that skirted the reservoir. Runners passed me by, but I was content to walk now. My stride was relaxed, my arms swinging freely. I held my head high, smelling the warm air. The towers of the El Dorado apartment building were visible above the tree line. On a white ironwork bridge on the west side of the reservoir, I stopped to retie a loose shoelace. Crouched down, my head bowed, I whispered ‘thank you’ to the forces that had been at work in my life. I felt at home wherever I was in the world and grateful for the people whose journeys had connected with mine. It was nearly four years since I last felt the need to numb myself with alcohol. In that time, I’d learnt to trust the path I was making. I didn’t get things right all the time. I still had dummy spits when my patience was stretched to the limit. But I felt comfortable now with who I was, with all my flaws. I would keep trying to change the things I could and to accept the things I couldn’t. Somewhere in the world, I had mislaid my ‘superpower’ orange knickers – maybe in Kuching or Hong Kong, in Florence or Reykjavik. Perhaps I forgot to retrieve them after my lover in Bali tossed them aside one moonlit night in his villa beside a rice field. It didn’t matter. I had my own power back. The days of fear and anxiety were in the past. I was no longer afraid of what others might see should I let down my guard. I felt at home in my skin now, free to be me and to let what was on the inside show on the outside.
As I passed the tennis club, I felt the warmth of the sun on my arms, where a veneer of perspiration glistened on the hairs. I looked across to the apartment buildings that lined Central Park West. The apartment that was my home in New York was just a few blocks away. A snail made it's way leisurely across the trail, forging its own path to no particular destination; the journey was everything. A slight breeze carried birdsong, the sound of distant, muted traffic, and the whoosh of a passing clump of cyclists in training on West Drive. A squirrel darted across the grass and up the trunk of a tree that was lush with summer growth. Ahead, two golden retrievers were at play on the grass, watched over by a man of about my age. I stopped to gaze at them, too. The dogs’ eyes were shining, their mouths stretched in wide grins, their fat tongues lolling. Sunshine gleamed off their ginger coats as they ducked and turned, springing into the air, always in motion, exulting in being alive. ‘I saw them here yesterday,’ I said to the stranger. ‘They’re gorgeous dogs.’ He smiled at me. ‘You’re gorgeous, too.’
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Robyn Flemming is a freelance editor with clients across the globe. She lived in Hong Kong from 1986 to 1993 and was a global nomad from 2010 to 2020. She currently lives in regional Australia. Robyn had her last drink during a hurricane in New York City in 2011. A Memoir of Addiction will be published in September 2021.
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