Serendipity in a bookstore

gtgt You want to know what serendipity is Serendipity is walking randomly into a bookstore in Brooklyn and finding playwright and feminist Eve Enslerrsquos memoir In the Body of the World her gutwrenching book about her own cancer and the cancer of violence against women in the world a week after yoursquod read an excerpt from it and had known at once that it would be the book that would change your life Brooklyn Bridge Serendipity is that itrsquos not finding just any copy of the book but an author signed copy Serendipity is that Ensler had officially released your own book Spirited Souls Winning Women Of Mumbai at the NCPA many years ago Serendipity is that you had happened to attend the premier of her play The Good Body in San Francisco Serendipity is finding two other books right there that addresses the issues of physicality sexuality and inhabiting onersquos body that you have been thinking about au00a0lot recently Haruki Murakamirsquos What I Talk About When I Talk About Running and philosopher Alain de Bottonrsquos How To Think More About Sex Eve Ensler Serendipity is thinking about these books early the next morning as you walk across the Brooklyn Bridge in an attempt to reclaim your body A heart in New York gtgt So Irsquom walking on the bridge The bridge completed by a woman The bridge that connects two worlds The bridge on which people run to claim their bodyrsquos strength and beauty The bridge that connects where Irsquom living to where Irsquom going And Irsquom thinking about bodies health writing running men women and sexuality Art Garfunkel My iPod is playing Itrsquos a Beautiful Day now as I watch cyclists ballerinas beauty queens lovers perform their parts on the bridge Will I finally take up running Or writing seriously Was that Murakami who whizzed past me now And then as I reach the end of the bridge into Manhattan and the sun is up I recall a conversation I had with my son the day before about his friendrsquos aunt ldquoShersquos recovering from cancer in Manhattan mom And guess wherersquos shersquos staying while shersquos in New York Right next to Art Garfunkelrdquo he had said ldquoIsnrsquot he the guy who sang Bridge over Troubled Water ldquoYes and also A heart in New Yorkrdquo Irsquod replied Whatrsquos that we were saying about serendipity The Brooklyn bridge gtgt A word about the Brooklyn Bridge This is not just any old bridge It is one of the oldest suspension bridges in the United States connecting Manhattan to one of its most important boroughs Brooklyn by spanning the East River It is a bridge whose legacy has been as much of a tragedy and defeat as it has been of the triumph of the human spirit Its designer the German immigrant John Augustus Roebling was compelled to undergo an amputation of his toes when his foot was crushed while overseeing construction after which hersquod developed a tetanus infection which led to his early death The Brooklyn Bridge is one of the oldest suspension bridges in the US His 32yearold son Washington who took over the project had also suffered a paralysing injury as a result of decompression sickness shortly after the beginning of construction a condition that afflicted many of the workers working on the project When Washingtonrsquos condition left him unable to complete the bridge his wife Emily Warren Roebling stepped in And it was she who studying higher mathematics the calculations of catenary curves the strength of materials bridge specifications and the intricacies of cable construction and helped oversee the completion of that historic metaphor of the modern world A woman had been the critical link in the bridge Irsquom walking on is what Irsquom thinking as I walk on it more than a century later A woman whorsquod been the bridge over troubled waters Elephant parade gtgt We live in a world of hyper inter connectivity happen chance serendipity and synchronicity What one person calls coincidence another knows as lifersquos winks and nudges The completion of the bridge in 1883 was not the end of its troubles six days after its opening a rumour that it was going to collapse caused a stampede which resulted in at least 12 people being crushed and killed PT Barnum Then on May 17 1884 legendary circus impresario PT Barnum helped to douse doubts about the bridgersquos stability mdash when he led a parade of 21 elephants over it So is it any coincidence that while I walk across the bridge my iPod chooses to play The Ganpati Parade by the Indica Project Running and Writing gtgt lsquoIf some people have an interest in long distance running just leave them be and theyrsquoll start running on their own If theyrsquore not interested in it no amount of persuasion will make any differencersquo says Haruki Murakami who runs six miles a day six days a week and has been doing so for a quarter of a century now Running and writing Haruki Murakami Somehow there is a compelling connection between them in my mind I who have been waiting on timorously on the edge of both activities knowing that they are the only ones that will help me inhabit my body and fulfill who I am in the way that Ensler speaks about in her book lsquoI think what the book is really about is how we can be forced to leave our bodies at a young age how exiled we are from our bodies due to whatever the circumstances are In my case it was enormous abuse and violation But I think many lsquoleave homersquo For me so much of my life has been this attempt to find my way back into my body I tried various forms from promiscuity to eating disorders to performance art And I think it wasnrsquot until I got cancer where I was suddenly being pricked and ported and chemoed and operated on that I suddenly just became body I was just a body And it was in that in that finally landing in myself that I really discovered the world in my body That world where we are connectedrdquo she said in an interview in the Huffington Post recentlyu00a0