October 26, 2025 • 39 mins
A poet’s recovery story rarely starts with a bus up Third Avenue and a rule about not writing while high. Ours does. We sit down with classicist and translator Aaron Poochigian to trace a line from an 18-year-old’s epiphany reading Virgil, through the isolation of lockdown and a cocaine addiction, to a disciplined practice of forest bathing in Central Park that rekindled creativity, routine, and joy.
Aaron makes a compelling case that poetry shouldn’t be confined to classrooms. He opens up his new book, Four Walks in Central Park, a didactic poem that doubles as a tour and a toolkit for attention. We delve into how Shinrin-yoku became a viable meditation for a restless mind, why setting simple rules—such as no drugs in the park and no drugs when writing about the park—helped curb cravings, and how a daily morning ritual helped rebuild sleep, mood, and purpose. Along the way, we wander from the hushed Hallett Nature Sanctuary to the weekend roller-disco at Wollman Rink, exploring contrast as a form of healing.
The park’s layered history surfaces too: Seneca Village, the artifice behind Olmsted and Vaux’s design, and the way curated nature can intensify perception. Aaron reads “The Invitation,” a poem that urges readers to play hooky, step into texture and light, and rediscover delight as an antidote to burnout. We finish at the carousel, where adult play meets literature—think Catcher in the Rye—and hope becomes practical again. If you’ve ever felt disconnected from your senses or your community, this conversation offers a clear path back through nature, routine, and storytelling.
Subscribe, share with a friend who needs a gentle nudge outdoors, and leave a review to help others find the show. Then tell us: what place in your city restores you most?
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SPEAKER_01 (00:02):
Well, hello, and welcome back to the Healthy
Living Podcast.
I'm your host, Joe Grumbine, andwe have a very special guest
today.
His name is Aaron Pukigian, andhe is, I hope I said that right.
Um, but uh this guy is a poet,uh classic scholar, a
translator.
He lives and writes in New YorkCity, and his many translations
(00:24):
include Stung with Love, um,which is a translation of Sappho
and Marcus Aurelia'smeditations.
Um, his works appeared in inFinancial Times, New York Review
of Books, and he's got a newbook out called Four Walks in
Central Park (00:42):
A Poetic Guide to the Park.
And this guy's got quite astory, um, an ex-cocaine addict,
and he found healing in CentralPark.
And so, uh, Aaron, welcome tothe show.
I'm really uh anxious to hearabout your story.
Thank you for having me, Joe.
(01:02):
Well, I hope I didn't butcheryour name too bad.
I I'm I'm recovering from chemonot too long ago, and my brain's
still a little scrambled, butwe're uh we're gaining on it.
We're doing well.
SPEAKER_00 (01:13):
I'm hard.
I'm I'm sorry to hear about thechemo, but you seem to be
recovering from it strongly.
You're very vital and vivacioustoday.
SPEAKER_01 (01:21):
Well, I appreciate that.
I love the alliteration.
I love working with writers.
Anyways, Aaron, um, you know,let's I always like to jump
into, you know, these bios aregreat, but they always are, you
know, most people are muchricher than their bio, and and
or a bio might get so big thatwe're only going to be talking
(01:41):
about some element.
Uh, I always like to start ourconversations off with kind of,
you know, what brought you hereand your story of um, you know,
your life's journey that tookyou to uh becoming a poet, first
of all, and then um findingCentral Park and all of this.
Why don't you uh give us alittle walk down memory lane and
(02:04):
and tell us about how you camehere?
SPEAKER_00 (02:08):
I had a revelation when I was 18.
Um, I think about it as areligious experience.
I was sitting out in front ofthe ivy-covered building um at
my undergraduate institution,and I was reading um a section
on the classical world, theGreeks and the Romans, and there
were the beginning lines of apoem by Virgil, the Aeneid.
(02:31):
And it I didn't know Latin atthe time, but I sounded it out.
Uh, Armoirum Quecano Troia quiprimus aboris.
It all sounds that great.
And like I swear, the sky becamebrighter and the grass became
greener, and I realized that Iwas supposed to be a poet and I
was supposed to learn ancientGreek and Latin um so that I
(02:52):
could learn, yes, all the sortof possibilities um that poetry
has to offer.
And so I've known that I wasgoing to be a poet or that I
should be a poet since I was 18,and I've stuck to that.
Um, I've never really had aperiod when I was trying to
figure out what I was going todo with my life.
And so I went on and studiedancient Greek and Latin and
(03:13):
eventually earned a PhD inclassics.
Um, but it was um yes, I havebeen a scholar and published
articles, but the focus hasalways been on poetry.
Um, and then began the moredifficult years in my life when
I would have one-year academicpositions teaching at a
university, knowing I was gonnaleave.
(03:34):
Um, I became very lonely.
Um eventually I settled in uhNew York City and established
myself here and have, you know,had some friends here.
Um, but there was always a sortof loneliness.
And then slowly during COVID,uh, when I was isolated in my
apartment during lockdown, um, Ineeded something.
(03:56):
I looked, well, I didn't needsomething, I looked for
something um that would what?
Give me something to lookforward to.
And I confess um that I becameaddicted to cocaine that way.
I took it originally um just asa sort of um
performance-enhancing drug andto give me something to do
during lockdown, but I it waslike catnip to it to me.
(04:20):
I I yeah, I succumbed to it umthoroughly.
Within a month, I was addictedto it.
And that yeah, then commencedthe most unhealthy period of my
life.
Um, I'm lucky that I didn't havea heart attack.
SPEAKER_01 (04:35):
Um, that's surely a young man's drug.
And uh, you know, uh when onceyou get over 30 or so, that's
not really um maybe conducive tohealth as much.
SPEAKER_00 (04:46):
No, a wise, yeah, a wise friend told me that yeah,
you shouldn't do that drug,certainly past the age of 50,
but I think even earlier becausethis the yeah, the possibility
of a heart attack is so high.
SPEAKER_01 (04:58):
I'd like to take a step back quickly, just just to
kind of step into your shoes fora minute.
Um, you know, the the focus ofof the classics and poetry and
and all of these things in thismodern world today.
Um, how is that?
You know, I mean I have I didn'tever go to college, so I'm I'm
(05:21):
you know one of these crazyentrepreneur guys that just
finds his way through life andand starts things and figures
things out.
But um, I've always loved poetryand I've written a little bit of
poetry in my life, but it's it'sit's a powerful expression of
thoughts and emotions, and umand yet you don't in the
(05:44):
mainstream world, uh aside fromyou know, maybe rap music or
something, you're like, well,where does poetry show itself?
You know, there's still poetrybooks written and and published,
but you know, in in in today'sworld of instant gratification
and social media and and all ofthese things, it's not, you
(06:06):
know, the the focus on on thearts is certainly not what it
was at one point.
How have you found that um, youknow, with your teaching and and
even just the reception of allof these amazing concepts and
works, you know?
I feel like these works arefading away sometimes because
people aren't seeing them andreading them and recognizing
(06:28):
them, but I don't know that tobe true or not.
SPEAKER_00 (06:31):
Um yes, thank you.
I mean, you you asked thequestion about contemporary
poetry and where it's at andwhere it's going.
Um, I think of poetry right nowas being like an endangered
species that's kept in awilderness, it's kept in a
wilderness preserve.
And that wilderness preserve isacademia.
(06:52):
And so there are English majorswho study it, and then there are
MFA programs that encourage thewriting of it, um, but it's
mostly uh confined to academia.
And so my big crusade is to tryto push poetry outside of
academia and to get it in frontof interested readers.
(07:12):
I dream of America having anational poetry again, and
national poets non-specialistsare familiar with and whose work
non-specialists know.
And so that's one of the umreasons behind my book, Four
Walks in Central Park.
I wanted to show that poetry cando more than write intense
(07:37):
little lyrics and can do morethan be um esoteric and limited
to people in academia.
Um and so it's a kind ofoutreach.
I see the book as a kind ofoutreach to meld poetry and the
tour guide.
Um and yes, thus to reach out toum the people who visit Central
(08:00):
Park, for example, or peoplecurious about Central Park, and
to give them the experience ofbeing in the park if they're not
using it as a tour guide.
Yeah, that the book serves as asurrogate for being in Central
Park itself.
SPEAKER_01 (08:14):
Well, you know, and and and then I'll leave my
interjections for this.
I really want to hear yourstory, but it this just
connected me.
Like I'm a guy that was reallyuh I I I love the you know
classic rock and folk songs fromthe 60s, probably through the
90s.
And they used to do these thingscalled concept albums, you know,
(08:35):
a lot of the rock and roll bandsthat I really liked.
And they would tell a storythrough the through through a
whole album and through songs,and and it was all poetry, you
know, and and it might be ascience fiction concept or a
romance or whatever the storywas, but it was it was I kind of
took your book as like a conceptalbum where you know you you
(08:59):
told a story through theseseries of poems that could
easily have been set to music.
So, and and today, you know,you've got these just rough and
raw, you know, short haikusalmost, you know, that are just
almost, you know, they justdrive a point home and and
there's like no nothing to thinkabout, you know.
(09:20):
You're you're not painting apicture, you're not creating an
emotion, you're just likethrowing a drumbeat out there.
So I'll let you go back to yourto your thought about you,
you're you're you're in thisaddiction, and you realize that
you know this is an issue.
(09:42):
You know, you're you're you'rein the middle of COVID,
everybody's stuck in theirhouses, apartments, they're
saying, Don't go outside, don'tdo this, don't do that,
everything's don't.
But then they also kind of said,Well, it's okay to be way out in
nature by yourself.
And that was sort of like one ofthe few things that you know,
some people were like, Well,okay, I can go where people
(10:02):
aren't.
SPEAKER_00 (10:03):
Yeah.
Um, first, I love your analogywith the concept album.
I love concept albums as well,like Pink Floyd's Dark Side of
the Moon or The Wall, or DavidBowie and um The Spiders from
Mars.
Um, I yeah, I love the idea.
I love that analogy of abook-length poem um with a
concept album.
(10:24):
But yes, to get back um to mystory, I realized um eventually,
I realized um, well, when I wasdoing far too much cocaine, I
realized that I would have toquit.
And I was figuring out slowlyways that I could work toward
recovery.
Um, one of them I discovered umthat I tried all different kinds
(10:48):
of meditation, but my mind wastoo hyperactive.
Yeah.
Um to be good at it.
Um, and so I encounteredsomething called Shinrin Yoku in
Japanese, which means forestbathing.
It's not just walking in thewoods, but it's intent walking
through the woods intentionallytaking in um sensation uh by uh
(11:13):
after sensation and sort ofitemizing them and appreciating
them singly in your mind.
Um, I saw that as a kind ofmeditation that I could do.
I also realized I would need toquit doing cocaine.
Mostly it was creative, it wascreative sterility that did it
to me.
(11:33):
I was isolated in my apartment.
I mean, all I saw was the fourwalls of my apartment and then
whatever was at the corner deli.
Um, and so I needed to be ableto learn again how to appreciate
being alive, the sensations ofbeing alive.
And so, since I live um inManhattan in the East Village,
(11:54):
there isn't much wilderness umanywhere near me.
There isn't any wildernessanywhere near me.
Manhattan's not on Central Parkas a substitute um for
wilderness where one is supposedto do Shinrin Yoku.
Um, and I saw the Central Parkas a kind of um concentrated
(12:16):
nature, um, where you have ummany, many different species,
um, that yeah, more species thanyou'd normally find in a
wilderness, more species ofbirds than you normal normally
find in a wilderness, and also agreater variation of types of
landscapes, whether they berocky or there be water features
(12:36):
or there are lawns.
And so I started um with theyeah, I required myself to go to
Central Park, it's about 15minutes from my apartment daily
for at least two hours, and totry to do Shinrin Yoko.
Walking, bicycling, driving,walking and sitting.
(12:57):
Um, the the the tour itself isyes, strolling, and strolling is
a metaphor for taking it easy.
SPEAKER_01 (13:04):
I mean, to get to Central Park is what I'm talking
about.
SPEAKER_00 (13:06):
Oh, I take the bus, take the bus up um Third Avenue.
Um, and then yes, in the park,I'd walk or I'd sit, I'd lean up
against a tree trunk, and then Ihad a book, um, a great book,
which actually maps every singletree in Central Park.
Wow, um, and I um, yes, I was anaspiring naturalist, an aspiring
(13:31):
botanist, and I slowly becamemore familiar with the trees and
their personalities, you know,beech trees with their smooth
bark, the sort of um yeah,player piano bark of a birch
tree, um, and the various timesat which, yeah, they would um be
green and then start turning inthe fall to yellow or red.
(13:55):
Um good.
And so I, yeah, slowly became abetter naturalist um by spending
that time in the park.
And so I was very serious aboutthe meditation of it and at
first wouldn't stop to jot downnotes.
Um, but eventually the poet inme won out and I would allow
myself to stop and jotimpressions.
(14:15):
Um, I eventually realized when Ihad enough of these impressions
in verse, that the yes, that Iwas on to a book length project.
Um, and I realized also that Icould set the book up um in such
a way that it would, as the parkwas good for me and helping me
(14:36):
with my recovery and helping melearn how to appreciate the
world again, so I could providethat solace ideally to readers
as well, um, by encouraging themthrough capturing the essence of
various attractions in the park.
I could entice them back into anappreciation for the world, if
(14:58):
that's what a reader wasneeding.
Um, and so that sort of gave methe structure for the book,
where there is a docent or tourguide who is the know-it-all,
um, who tells, yeah, gives allthe details about the park.
And then there is the addressee,the you, who is the reader, um
and has become isolated and cutoff um from anything outside of
(15:23):
his work life.
Um, and so yes, that gave me thestructure, and it I realized
what I was doing, somethingthat's common, common in
classical poet, in Greek andLatin poetry, but isn't common
today.
It's called didactic poetry,poetry that teaches something.
And so the park, the bookteaches um details about the
(15:45):
park, the history of the park,and even true crime stories
about the park, as it alsoencourages the reader um to
appreciate um sensory detailscoming in from the par just
anywhere in one's life.
SPEAKER_01 (16:04):
No, that's amazing, and um I received a copy of the
book and and have been able toread through some of it, but
enough to where I I see what youdid, and I've never been to
Central Park, and I feel likeI've at least experienced it
enough that says I think when Ido go one day, I will have a
(16:28):
different appreciation for itthan if I just walked in cold.
And so even for me, I live inCalifornia, you know, I've only
been to New York a couple oftimes, and you know, for
specific purpose.
So um I I know the next time Ido go to New York, I'm gonna
make sure I find my way toCentral Park and uh spend a
(16:48):
minute walking through the park.
Maybe I'll even bring your bookwith me.
Um I I think that um it's a veryinteresting and special way of
presenting a narrative likethat.
Um when you started to put yourthoughts down, you know, it's a
(17:13):
it's it's the park's kind oflike an arboretum and a museum,
and it's got a lot of elementsto it that are much more than a
park.
You know, you think of a parkand it's like a playground and
some trees and a lot of grass,but this is much more than that.
Like you said, there's all thesedifferent features and water and
buildings and and stories andand um history to this thing
(17:37):
that that make it you know morethan just like a you know
children's playground park or asports park or something like
that.
Was there something that um whenyou first started writing these
impressions that was reallyspeaking to you as far as you
know the impact of this park?
SPEAKER_00 (17:57):
At first I was most drawn to the dense forest areas.
Um in particular, the HallettNature Sanctuary, the North
Woods, and the Ramble.
Um, in that I felt most outsideof the grid of the city when I
was in those dense forest areas.
(18:19):
Um but I eventually, when Irealized I was working on a
book-length project, I realizedthat I would want to have
contrast if it was all the sametone.
Um, then the tours would becomemonotonous.
Um and so excuse me, um I wantedto get the contrast in.
(18:40):
And so, for example, the HallettNature Sanctuary, which feels
like monasteries I've been to inthe past, um, is contrasted with
the nearby Woolman Rink, um,where there's roller skating.
And in particular, I'mparticularly fond, uh, they do
it on weekends, it's calleddiscoases, and it's like a 70s
disco party in the park.
(19:01):
Um, and so you move then fromthe um solemn religious um
nature of yeah, the of the thedensely forested areas, one
moment.
Yeah, yeah, no, no worries.
The densely forested woodedareas to the contrast of this
(19:21):
party space.
Right.
So it's like going from a sacredspace, yeah, a sacred space to a
profane space.
Um, and um yeah, so I built incontrasts like that, and then I
also built in um the um thecontemporary surface impressions
one takes in the here and nowwith history of the park, um,
(19:45):
including true crime.
And so, for example, um, thereis um a city that used to a
suburb called Seneca Villagethat was located in the
northwest of the park.
And um when the yeah, the parkwas originally planned and
designed in the 1850s, um therewere inhabitants in the park and
(20:08):
they had to be bought out withum eminent domain.
Um, and so it's interesting tothink that there were real
houses, real homes in the park,and they then, yeah, were
removed in order to make way forthis artificial landscape.
And I tried also to make that apart of the poem that we think
(20:30):
about when a lot of people talkabout the park as if it's
nature, but it's highlyartificial.
A lot of rock had to bedynamited out, and the
landscapes are planned.
And so I tried to emphasize inthe book it's nature as a
man-made thing, an artificialthing.
And and so it's a kind of yeah,artificial wonderland that
(20:54):
imitates nature, but givesnature in a sort of greater
concentration, if you will.
SPEAKER_01 (21:00):
Well, and nature kind of fills in gaps, you know,
when as soon as man stopsbuilding, nature starts
building.
And so, you know, as as as thework of man begins to decay or
or or even is left alone for awhile, nature finds its way
through the cracks in theconcrete, and you know, one one
little thing will pop up, andthe next thing you know, you've
(21:22):
got a little ecosystem.
I would since oh hello?
Yeah, yeah, no, I'm here.
SPEAKER_00 (21:31):
Sorry, I I left a pause there.
Oh, got it.
Um, and so um I'm excited to betalking on um, yes, for a health
bond uh health podcast.
Um in that um my experience withforest bathing in the park and
the various yeah, restrictionson drug use I imposed as I was
(21:54):
working on the park.
Um, the park I I credit it withmy recovery from the addiction,
um, in that I made it, Ispecified that when I was in the
park, I couldn't be high.
And then also when I startedworking on the bur book, I made
it a specification restrictionfor myself that I couldn't be
high when I was writing aboutthe park.
(22:15):
And eventually the projectbecame so exciting to me and
took up so much of my time thatmy drug use was severely
curtailed.
And eventually I just stoppedentirely.
SPEAKER_01 (22:27):
Well, beautiful, what a way to quit.
You know, it wasn't like uh youdidn't have to turn it into a uh
a lesson of willpower.
You you created an environmentwhere you were doing what you
wanted, and you just wanted thatless.
SPEAKER_00 (22:44):
Yes, it was so healthy for me.
Also, um, in terms of health,um, doctors talk about having a
regular schedule um as a majorcomponent of that.
And so when I was using, I hadno schedule whatsoever.
I would work for 16, 20 hoursstraight, crash for a few hours,
(23:06):
and then start all over again.
Um, but with my visits to thepark, I had a regular schedule.
I'd leave at 8 a.m.
every day to go do my time inthe park.
Um, and so it helped me coaxedme back into a healthier
schedule and just a healthierlifestyle in general.
And then I started gettingexercise again.
(23:27):
And eventually um I startedspending time running in the
park as well.
And so it really has been thesort of fountain of recovery for
me, Central Park.
SPEAKER_01 (23:40):
That's beautiful.
You know, we have a nonprofitcalled Gardens of Hope, and we
we offer what we calltherapeutic horticulture, and
our our garden's only a coupleacres, but it's the same idea,
really, is that nature makeseverything that you do to be
healthy work better.
And even just being in it byitself, doing nothing will give
(24:01):
you healing.
But if you come for a purpose,it will enhance that purpose.
And and it sounds like the parkis a perfect example of that.
Um is there like how many timesover how over what period of
time um did you go to the park?
Like you started in in what yearand and when was the last time
(24:23):
you were there?
I I should say.
SPEAKER_00 (24:25):
Oh um, I started going there about four and a
half, five years ago.
And I would go there daily.
Um, and um, yeah, for for a fewhours.
And then sometimes I would staylonger.
Um, if if the meditation wasreally grooving in me, if I
yeah, I really got into thezone.
Um and now I go, I still gothree, four, five times a week,
(24:49):
but it's gone the park has gonefrom being an a new friend to me
to being an old friend.
Originally it was a new friendfull of surprises, and I was
discovering all of its differentmoods and possibilities.
Now it's an old friend, and thatI, you know, I've seen the
leaves change color um over anumber of years now.
(25:11):
But I do think the park is likebottomless, is infinite, that
there's still more for me tolearn, and I still need to get
better at identifying birds, forexample.
SPEAKER_01 (25:22):
Yeah.
No, I tell people I walk aroundmy property every single day,
and every single day I seesomething new.
And I've been here for 30 years,and nature's just got that
ability to reveal some littlesurprise every day, whether it's
an animal I haven't seen, or aplant that pops up, or a
mushroom, or you know, thestream did a little something
(25:45):
different, or whatever.
There's always something whereyou're like, oh wow, I never saw
that before.
SPEAKER_00 (25:51):
I'm jealous that you have a property to survey.
Um, I live in a very tinyapartment in the East Village,
but I was excited to hear aboutyour nonprofit.
Um, in that here and there,peppered throughout the very
densely populated East Villagewith its small apartments, there
are community gardens.
Um and you um pay a bit of moneyeach year and you get a plot of
(26:14):
land and you can grow flowers onit and vegetables on it.
And the community gardens areusually open to the public um
several days a week.
And so anyone can go in thereand enjoy them.
And yes, we New Yorkers, um,yes, nature.
I mean, I won't say it's moreprecious, but yeah, perhaps I
will say it's it's especiallyprecious to us and that we're in
(26:37):
this concrete grid.
Um and there's and New Yorkersare famously busy and under a
great deal of pressure.
Um, and so yes, I wanted, yes,um, my value that comes from
scarcity, yeah.
Yes, to scarcity, yes, thankyeah, exactly.
Um, and so I wanted, yes, toconvey the importance of Central
(26:59):
Park to New Yorkers inparticular, um, who don't have
uh large properties to survey ornearby wildernesses to go to,
but they do have um that park.
SPEAKER_01 (27:13):
So with the park in in particular, you know, you're
looking at a stretch of almostfive years or maybe over five
years.
Um when you initially werecoming and getting to know the
park, were there phases that youwent through where there were
favorite places?
Did they shift?
And then today that you'veexperienced the park so many
(27:37):
times, do you have some favoriteplaces and are they the same
places?
SPEAKER_00 (27:43):
Oh, they are.
My favorite, I'd love to talkabout my favorite favorite
attractions in the park.
Um one of them is the carousel,um, in the southern end of the
park, right in the middle.
Um, it's been around.
There have been differentiterations of the carousel since
1871.
There have been four iterationsor avatars of the carousel.
(28:08):
And I see it, I mean, I've I'vewritten it as an adult, and I
encourage um in the course ofthe book, um, adult play.
That is adults having funwithout any inhibit the any of
their adult inhibitions.
Um, and it's um it comes from aFreudian concept I'm big on
(28:28):
called regression in service ofthe ego.
Regression means going backwardinto childhood, and then in
service of the ego means thatit's um it benefits your surface
personality, your day-to-daypersonality.
And so um I encourage um thepresumably adult readers of the
(28:48):
book to give way to um adultplay, and the carousel, yeah,
embodies that um as it evolves,it sort of spins out, yeah.
Right.
Um, it's also the the carouselis famous in literature.
Um, there are poets in the 19thcentury like William McGonagall,
(29:08):
who write about the earliestversion, um, which wasn't in a
building, and in fact, it wasbefore electricity, and it was
drawn, it was pulled around in acircle, the carousel, by a blind
mule in an underground chamberthat would answer to the tap of
the operator's foot.
Eventually, um eventually thepower for it was electrified.
(29:32):
It burned down in 1924, but it'sfamous.
Um, it appears in the climax ofthe novel The Catcher in the Rye
by J.D.
Sollinger.
Holden Caulfield is there withhis sister, and she's riding on
the carousel, and he's watchinglike an adult, signifying his
acceptance of an adult role.
Um, and he starts, it's thefirst movement out of his great
(29:55):
drunken depression.
Um, he sees her there.
Reaching for a brass ring.
They call it the gold ring inthe carousel.
And it becomes a symbol of, it'sa symbol of hope.
And it helps him then takes thetake the first step out of his
depression.
And so since I was using thepark as a recovery for myself
(30:19):
from drug addiction and arelated serious depression, that
scene has always been especiallypowerful to me.
SPEAKER_01 (30:27):
I love it.
I love it.
Well, we're running a little shyon time.
Unfortunately, as you know,listeners don't have the
attention span more than a gnator two.
And so if we go too long, nomatter how interesting something
is, people tend to fade away.
However, um, I want to make thisoffer to you that I make to most
of my guests, that especiallythe interesting ones.
(30:50):
Um, if you'd ever like to comeback and continue this
conversation, I would love to dothat.
Um before we get off, though, II have two points.
Do you have a poem that you'dlike to share with us here?
Um, yes.
How much time do we have?
I could read.
We can go another five, maybeten minutes.
(31:11):
Good five minutes.
SPEAKER_00 (31:13):
I'll read um the invitation to the reader um to
come with me and take a tourinto the park.
Um it'll take about a minute anda half.
Perfect.
The invitation.
We struggle, but there's alwaysCentral Park offering water that
upholds and bark to lean on.
(31:35):
People need its longlake-flecked recovery, its roots
and shoots and birds.
Writers, you know, they leavetheir worlds of words.
But Frederick Olmstead,landscape architect, and his
ingenious right hand Calvert Voxleft us a good-sized earth as
(31:58):
their bequest.
The public rectangle runs fiftyblocks from north to south, a
half mile east to west.
I know that headshake.
Like you're asking why, whysacrifice Manhattan real estate?
America deserved its ownVersailles, one not grown only
(32:23):
for a potentate.
We needed both groomed laneswhere a tycoon with coattails
could parade his horse andbuggy, and lawns where clerks
and maids could meet and talkoutside their tenements and off
the clock.
We needed more than bathhouse orsaloon.
(32:46):
So blueprints, pumps and shovelsturned dank, muggy acreage to a
new world paradise that grantsasylum where the concrete ends,
and yet you've never been there.
We've been friends sincemake-believe back home in yards
(33:07):
of yore.
I know you too well.
Time for some advice.
Because you haven't left youroffice much for years and don't
try new things anymore.
Play hooky.
Yes, fake sick, and we'llexplore that curious retreat.
(33:28):
The sheep and gice and willowtrees will get us back in touch
with texture.
Holidays outside the box arewhat keep people from the loony
bin.
I've got it all planned out.
Four days, four walks,redressing stress, gloom,
(33:49):
burnout, and deflation.
Four days of trails and tailsand recreation.
Four days at large.
We'll quest beyond time clocksand worldly wages for the
Cheshire Grin.
What do you say?
You'll do it.
(34:10):
Yay, you're in.
SPEAKER_01 (34:14):
I love it.
That was quite an invitation.
And um it paints quite apicture.
And like I said, I might haveread through, I don't know, a
dozen of your poems, and uh youryou paint you paint good
pictures with words and in my inmy rough-hewn language.
But um I appreciate it.
(34:35):
I have a a thought that youwould like to leave our
listeners with that kind ofencapsulates this conversation.
SPEAKER_00 (34:44):
I would like to say, since this is a health podcast,
um that I want to encouragepeople to reach out and talk to
other people.
I was in a great state ofisolation um before I began this
project and before I startedrecovering.
And I was arrogant about my uhmisery.
I felt it was what made mespecial, what defined me and
(35:06):
singled me out and made mespecial.
And so my ears were closed offum to what other people had to
say about their troubles.
And I thought my my troubleswere unique to me.
And I want to encourage anyonewho feels that way, who is
closed off in that way, yes, toreach out and listen to others
(35:26):
talk about their troubles and tofind others um who have similar
conditions and sympathize withthem.
SPEAKER_01 (35:34):
I love that.
That's a beautiful message, andit it resonates to the message
of this podcast, which is aboutbuilding community focused on
health and healthy living.
So that's uh it fits right inwith what we're what I'm here to
do and what this the purpose ofall this is.
And of course, let's get back toyour book.
How uh let's share any contactinformation you have and how
(35:58):
people can find the book, um, oror any other uh contact that
you'd like to share with us.
SPEAKER_00 (36:04):
Got it.
Yeah, the book is widelyavailable through all the um
vendors of books.
And so, for example, you cancertainly buy it on Amazon, you
can buy it off the shelf inBarnes and Noble, um, or from
any of your favorite uh any anyfavorite bookseller of yours.
Um, my name is Aaron Puchigian,and I am the only one in the
(36:26):
world.
So if you search my name, thebook, the book will definitely
pop up, um, along with otherwork by me.
Um, and so it's as simple asthat.
Just typing my name into Googlewill give you access to the book
and and and yes, all the rest ofmy work.
SPEAKER_01 (36:43):
Beautiful.
And again, the book is FourWalks in Central Park, a poetic
guide to the park.
Well, Aaron, it's been anabsolute pleasure.
Um, I appreciate you uh comingon to the show.
And again, I I welcome you tocome back and and share more of
your story with us.
I really um, you know, I thinkthat these conversations to me
(37:06):
are a lot of times the guestswill come on and they'll have
their pitch points, andsometimes there isn't really
much more to talk about.
But what I always like to do ismeet a new friend and uh uh
begin a conversation that has aplace to continue.
So I feel like we're in thatspot.
Certainly welcome you to comeback.
SPEAKER_00 (37:24):
Thank you very much.
I just want to say in the middleof my distraction was my cat
started jumping on a on a paperbag.
SPEAKER_01 (37:30):
I see him sitting uh on a shelf behind you right now.
SPEAKER_00 (37:33):
Yes, oh got it, yes.
No, there she is.
Yeah, there she is.
And so I apologize for thebackground noise.
I had to go and push my it's allgood.
Okay, got it, got it.
Thank you very much, Joe.
I would love to come back.
SPEAKER_01 (37:46):
Oh, wonderful.
Well, we can schedule thatanytime.
This has been another episode ofthe Healthy Living Podcast.
I'm your host, Joe Grumba, and Iwant to thank our listeners for
making the show possible.
And we will see you next time.
Well, hello, and welcome back to the Healthy
Living Podcast.
I'm your host, Joe Grumbine, andwe have a very special guest
today.
His name is Aaron Pukigian, andhe is, I hope I said that right.
Um, but uh this guy is a poet,uh classic scholar, a
translator.
He lives and writes in New YorkCity, and his many translations
(00:24):
include Stung with Love, um,which is a translation of Sappho
and Marcus Aurelia'smeditations.
Um, his works appeared in inFinancial Times, New York Review
of Books, and he's got a newbook out called Four Walks in
Central Park (00:42):
A Poetic Guide to the Park.
And this guy's got quite astory, um, an ex-cocaine addict,
and he found healing in CentralPark.
And so, uh, Aaron, welcome tothe show.
I'm really uh anxious to hearabout your story.
Thank you for having me, Joe.
(01:02):
Well, I hope I didn't butcheryour name too bad.
I I'm I'm recovering from chemonot too long ago, and my brain's
still a little scrambled, butwe're uh we're gaining on it.
We're doing well.
SPEAKER_00 (01:13):
I'm hard.
I'm I'm sorry to hear about thechemo, but you seem to be
recovering from it strongly.
You're very vital and vivacioustoday.
SPEAKER_01 (01:21):
Well, I appreciate that.
I love the alliteration.
I love working with writers.
Anyways, Aaron, um, you know,let's I always like to jump
into, you know, these bios aregreat, but they always are, you
know, most people are muchricher than their bio, and and
or a bio might get so big thatwe're only going to be talking
(01:41):
about some element.
Uh, I always like to start ourconversations off with kind of,
you know, what brought you hereand your story of um, you know,
your life's journey that tookyou to uh becoming a poet, first
of all, and then um findingCentral Park and all of this.
Why don't you uh give us alittle walk down memory lane and
(02:04):
and tell us about how you camehere?
SPEAKER_00 (02:08):
I had a revelation when I was 18.
Um, I think about it as areligious experience.
I was sitting out in front ofthe ivy-covered building um at
my undergraduate institution,and I was reading um a section
on the classical world, theGreeks and the Romans, and there
were the beginning lines of apoem by Virgil, the Aeneid.
(02:31):
And it I didn't know Latin atthe time, but I sounded it out.
Uh, Armoirum Quecano Troia quiprimus aboris.
It all sounds that great.
And like I swear, the sky becamebrighter and the grass became
greener, and I realized that Iwas supposed to be a poet and I
was supposed to learn ancientGreek and Latin um so that I
(02:52):
could learn, yes, all the sortof possibilities um that poetry
has to offer.
And so I've known that I wasgoing to be a poet or that I
should be a poet since I was 18,and I've stuck to that.
Um, I've never really had aperiod when I was trying to
figure out what I was going todo with my life.
And so I went on and studiedancient Greek and Latin and
(03:13):
eventually earned a PhD inclassics.
Um, but it was um yes, I havebeen a scholar and published
articles, but the focus hasalways been on poetry.
Um, and then began the moredifficult years in my life when
I would have one-year academicpositions teaching at a
university, knowing I was gonnaleave.
(03:34):
Um, I became very lonely.
Um eventually I settled in uhNew York City and established
myself here and have, you know,had some friends here.
Um, but there was always a sortof loneliness.
And then slowly during COVID,uh, when I was isolated in my
apartment during lockdown, um, Ineeded something.
(03:56):
I looked, well, I didn't needsomething, I looked for
something um that would what?
Give me something to lookforward to.
And I confess um that I becameaddicted to cocaine that way.
I took it originally um just asa sort of um
performance-enhancing drug andto give me something to do
during lockdown, but I it waslike catnip to it to me.
(04:20):
I I yeah, I succumbed to it umthoroughly.
Within a month, I was addictedto it.
And that yeah, then commencedthe most unhealthy period of my
life.
Um, I'm lucky that I didn't havea heart attack.
SPEAKER_01 (04:35):
Um, that's surely a young man's drug.
And uh, you know, uh when onceyou get over 30 or so, that's
not really um maybe conducive tohealth as much.
SPEAKER_00 (04:46):
No, a wise, yeah, a wise friend told me that yeah,
you shouldn't do that drug,certainly past the age of 50,
but I think even earlier becausethis the yeah, the possibility
of a heart attack is so high.
SPEAKER_01 (04:58):
I'd like to take a step back quickly, just just to
kind of step into your shoes fora minute.
Um, you know, the the focus ofof the classics and poetry and
and all of these things in thismodern world today.
Um, how is that?
You know, I mean I have I didn'tever go to college, so I'm I'm
(05:21):
you know one of these crazyentrepreneur guys that just
finds his way through life andand starts things and figures
things out.
But um, I've always loved poetryand I've written a little bit of
poetry in my life, but it's it'sit's a powerful expression of
thoughts and emotions, and umand yet you don't in the
(05:44):
mainstream world, uh aside fromyou know, maybe rap music or
something, you're like, well,where does poetry show itself?
You know, there's still poetrybooks written and and published,
but you know, in in in today'sworld of instant gratification
and social media and and all ofthese things, it's not, you
(06:06):
know, the the focus on on thearts is certainly not what it
was at one point.
How have you found that um, youknow, with your teaching and and
even just the reception of allof these amazing concepts and
works, you know?
I feel like these works arefading away sometimes because
people aren't seeing them andreading them and recognizing
(06:28):
them, but I don't know that tobe true or not.
SPEAKER_00 (06:31):
Um yes, thank you.
I mean, you you asked thequestion about contemporary
poetry and where it's at andwhere it's going.
Um, I think of poetry right nowas being like an endangered
species that's kept in awilderness, it's kept in a
wilderness preserve.
And that wilderness preserve isacademia.
(06:52):
And so there are English majorswho study it, and then there are
MFA programs that encourage thewriting of it, um, but it's
mostly uh confined to academia.
And so my big crusade is to tryto push poetry outside of
academia and to get it in frontof interested readers.
(07:12):
I dream of America having anational poetry again, and
national poets non-specialistsare familiar with and whose work
non-specialists know.
And so that's one of the umreasons behind my book, Four
Walks in Central Park.
I wanted to show that poetry cando more than write intense
(07:37):
little lyrics and can do morethan be um esoteric and limited
to people in academia.
Um and so it's a kind ofoutreach.
I see the book as a kind ofoutreach to meld poetry and the
tour guide.
Um and yes, thus to reach out toum the people who visit Central
(08:00):
Park, for example, or peoplecurious about Central Park, and
to give them the experience ofbeing in the park if they're not
using it as a tour guide.
Yeah, that the book serves as asurrogate for being in Central
Park itself.
SPEAKER_01 (08:14):
Well, you know, and and and then I'll leave my
interjections for this.
I really want to hear yourstory, but it this just
connected me.
Like I'm a guy that was reallyuh I I I love the you know
classic rock and folk songs fromthe 60s, probably through the
90s.
And they used to do these thingscalled concept albums, you know,
(08:35):
a lot of the rock and roll bandsthat I really liked.
And they would tell a storythrough the through through a
whole album and through songs,and and it was all poetry, you
know, and and it might be ascience fiction concept or a
romance or whatever the storywas, but it was it was I kind of
took your book as like a conceptalbum where you know you you
(08:59):
told a story through theseseries of poems that could
easily have been set to music.
So, and and today, you know,you've got these just rough and
raw, you know, short haikusalmost, you know, that are just
almost, you know, they justdrive a point home and and
there's like no nothing to thinkabout, you know.
(09:20):
You're you're not painting apicture, you're not creating an
emotion, you're just likethrowing a drumbeat out there.
So I'll let you go back to yourto your thought about you,
you're you're you're in thisaddiction, and you realize that
you know this is an issue.
(09:42):
You know, you're you're you'rein the middle of COVID,
everybody's stuck in theirhouses, apartments, they're
saying, Don't go outside, don'tdo this, don't do that,
everything's don't.
But then they also kind of said,Well, it's okay to be way out in
nature by yourself.
And that was sort of like one ofthe few things that you know,
some people were like, Well,okay, I can go where people
(10:02):
aren't.
SPEAKER_00 (10:03):
Yeah.
Um, first, I love your analogywith the concept album.
I love concept albums as well,like Pink Floyd's Dark Side of
the Moon or The Wall, or DavidBowie and um The Spiders from
Mars.
Um, I yeah, I love the idea.
I love that analogy of abook-length poem um with a
concept album.
(10:24):
But yes, to get back um to mystory, I realized um eventually,
I realized um, well, when I wasdoing far too much cocaine, I
realized that I would have toquit.
And I was figuring out slowlyways that I could work toward
recovery.
Um, one of them I discovered umthat I tried all different kinds
(10:48):
of meditation, but my mind wastoo hyperactive.
Yeah.
Um to be good at it.
Um, and so I encounteredsomething called Shinrin Yoku in
Japanese, which means forestbathing.
It's not just walking in thewoods, but it's intent walking
through the woods intentionallytaking in um sensation uh by uh
(11:13):
after sensation and sort ofitemizing them and appreciating
them singly in your mind.
Um, I saw that as a kind ofmeditation that I could do.
I also realized I would need toquit doing cocaine.
Mostly it was creative, it wascreative sterility that did it
to me.
(11:33):
I was isolated in my apartment.
I mean, all I saw was the fourwalls of my apartment and then
whatever was at the corner deli.
Um, and so I needed to be ableto learn again how to appreciate
being alive, the sensations ofbeing alive.
And so, since I live um inManhattan in the East Village,
(11:54):
there isn't much wilderness umanywhere near me.
There isn't any wildernessanywhere near me.
Manhattan's not on Central Parkas a substitute um for
wilderness where one is supposedto do Shinrin Yoku.
Um, and I saw the Central Parkas a kind of um concentrated
(12:16):
nature, um, where you have ummany, many different species,
um, that yeah, more species thanyou'd normally find in a
wilderness, more species ofbirds than you normal normally
find in a wilderness, and also agreater variation of types of
landscapes, whether they berocky or there be water features
(12:36):
or there are lawns.
And so I started um with theyeah, I required myself to go to
Central Park, it's about 15minutes from my apartment daily
for at least two hours, and totry to do Shinrin Yoko.
Walking, bicycling, driving,walking and sitting.
(12:57):
Um, the the the tour itself isyes, strolling, and strolling is
a metaphor for taking it easy.
SPEAKER_01 (13:04):
I mean, to get to Central Park is what I'm talking
about.
SPEAKER_00 (13:06):
Oh, I take the bus, take the bus up um Third Avenue.
Um, and then yes, in the park,I'd walk or I'd sit, I'd lean up
against a tree trunk, and then Ihad a book, um, a great book,
which actually maps every singletree in Central Park.
Wow, um, and I um, yes, I was anaspiring naturalist, an aspiring
(13:31):
botanist, and I slowly becamemore familiar with the trees and
their personalities, you know,beech trees with their smooth
bark, the sort of um yeah,player piano bark of a birch
tree, um, and the various timesat which, yeah, they would um be
green and then start turning inthe fall to yellow or red.
(13:55):
Um good.
And so I, yeah, slowly became abetter naturalist um by spending
that time in the park.
And so I was very serious aboutthe meditation of it and at
first wouldn't stop to jot downnotes.
Um, but eventually the poet inme won out and I would allow
myself to stop and jotimpressions.
(14:15):
Um, I eventually realized when Ihad enough of these impressions
in verse, that the yes, that Iwas on to a book length project.
Um, and I realized also that Icould set the book up um in such
a way that it would, as the parkwas good for me and helping me
(14:36):
with my recovery and helping melearn how to appreciate the
world again, so I could providethat solace ideally to readers
as well, um, by encouraging themthrough capturing the essence of
various attractions in the park.
I could entice them back into anappreciation for the world, if
(14:58):
that's what a reader wasneeding.
Um, and so that sort of gave methe structure for the book,
where there is a docent or tourguide who is the know-it-all,
um, who tells, yeah, gives allthe details about the park.
And then there is the addressee,the you, who is the reader, um
and has become isolated and cutoff um from anything outside of
(15:23):
his work life.
Um, and so yes, that gave me thestructure, and it I realized
what I was doing, somethingthat's common, common in
classical poet, in Greek andLatin poetry, but isn't common
today.
It's called didactic poetry,poetry that teaches something.
And so the park, the bookteaches um details about the
(15:45):
park, the history of the park,and even true crime stories
about the park, as it alsoencourages the reader um to
appreciate um sensory detailscoming in from the par just
anywhere in one's life.
SPEAKER_01 (16:04):
No, that's amazing, and um I received a copy of the
book and and have been able toread through some of it, but
enough to where I I see what youdid, and I've never been to
Central Park, and I feel likeI've at least experienced it
enough that says I think when Ido go one day, I will have a
(16:28):
different appreciation for itthan if I just walked in cold.
And so even for me, I live inCalifornia, you know, I've only
been to New York a couple oftimes, and you know, for
specific purpose.
So um I I know the next time Ido go to New York, I'm gonna
make sure I find my way toCentral Park and uh spend a
(16:48):
minute walking through the park.
Maybe I'll even bring your bookwith me.
Um I I think that um it's a veryinteresting and special way of
presenting a narrative likethat.
Um when you started to put yourthoughts down, you know, it's a
(17:13):
it's it's the park's kind oflike an arboretum and a museum,
and it's got a lot of elementsto it that are much more than a
park.
You know, you think of a parkand it's like a playground and
some trees and a lot of grass,but this is much more than that.
Like you said, there's all thesedifferent features and water and
buildings and and stories andand um history to this thing
(17:37):
that that make it you know morethan just like a you know
children's playground park or asports park or something like
that.
Was there something that um whenyou first started writing these
impressions that was reallyspeaking to you as far as you
know the impact of this park?
SPEAKER_00 (17:57):
At first I was most drawn to the dense forest areas.
Um in particular, the HallettNature Sanctuary, the North
Woods, and the Ramble.
Um, in that I felt most outsideof the grid of the city when I
was in those dense forest areas.
(18:19):
Um but I eventually, when Irealized I was working on a
book-length project, I realizedthat I would want to have
contrast if it was all the sametone.
Um, then the tours would becomemonotonous.
Um and so excuse me, um I wantedto get the contrast in.
(18:40):
And so, for example, the HallettNature Sanctuary, which feels
like monasteries I've been to inthe past, um, is contrasted with
the nearby Woolman Rink, um,where there's roller skating.
And in particular, I'mparticularly fond, uh, they do
it on weekends, it's calleddiscoases, and it's like a 70s
disco party in the park.
(19:01):
Um, and so you move then fromthe um solemn religious um
nature of yeah, the of the thedensely forested areas, one
moment.
Yeah, yeah, no, no worries.
The densely forested woodedareas to the contrast of this
(19:21):
party space.
Right.
So it's like going from a sacredspace, yeah, a sacred space to a
profane space.
Um, and um yeah, so I built incontrasts like that, and then I
also built in um the um thecontemporary surface impressions
one takes in the here and nowwith history of the park, um,
(19:45):
including true crime.
And so, for example, um, thereis um a city that used to a
suburb called Seneca Villagethat was located in the
northwest of the park.
And um when the yeah, the parkwas originally planned and
designed in the 1850s, um therewere inhabitants in the park and
(20:08):
they had to be bought out withum eminent domain.
Um, and so it's interesting tothink that there were real
houses, real homes in the park,and they then, yeah, were
removed in order to make way forthis artificial landscape.
And I tried also to make that apart of the poem that we think
(20:30):
about when a lot of people talkabout the park as if it's
nature, but it's highlyartificial.
A lot of rock had to bedynamited out, and the
landscapes are planned.
And so I tried to emphasize inthe book it's nature as a
man-made thing, an artificialthing.
And and so it's a kind of yeah,artificial wonderland that
(20:54):
imitates nature, but givesnature in a sort of greater
concentration, if you will.
SPEAKER_01 (21:00):
Well, and nature kind of fills in gaps, you know,
when as soon as man stopsbuilding, nature starts
building.
And so, you know, as as as thework of man begins to decay or
or or even is left alone for awhile, nature finds its way
through the cracks in theconcrete, and you know, one one
little thing will pop up, andthe next thing you know, you've
(21:22):
got a little ecosystem.
I would since oh hello?
Yeah, yeah, no, I'm here.
SPEAKER_00 (21:31):
Sorry, I I left a pause there.
Oh, got it.
Um, and so um I'm excited to betalking on um, yes, for a health
bond uh health podcast.
Um in that um my experience withforest bathing in the park and
the various yeah, restrictionson drug use I imposed as I was
(21:54):
working on the park.
Um, the park I I credit it withmy recovery from the addiction,
um, in that I made it, Ispecified that when I was in the
park, I couldn't be high.
And then also when I startedworking on the bur book, I made
it a specification restrictionfor myself that I couldn't be
high when I was writing aboutthe park.
(22:15):
And eventually the projectbecame so exciting to me and
took up so much of my time thatmy drug use was severely
curtailed.
And eventually I just stoppedentirely.
SPEAKER_01 (22:27):
Well, beautiful, what a way to quit.
You know, it wasn't like uh youdidn't have to turn it into a uh
a lesson of willpower.
You you created an environmentwhere you were doing what you
wanted, and you just wanted thatless.
SPEAKER_00 (22:44):
Yes, it was so healthy for me.
Also, um, in terms of health,um, doctors talk about having a
regular schedule um as a majorcomponent of that.
And so when I was using, I hadno schedule whatsoever.
I would work for 16, 20 hoursstraight, crash for a few hours,
(23:06):
and then start all over again.
Um, but with my visits to thepark, I had a regular schedule.
I'd leave at 8 a.m.
every day to go do my time inthe park.
Um, and so it helped me coaxedme back into a healthier
schedule and just a healthierlifestyle in general.
And then I started gettingexercise again.
(23:27):
And eventually um I startedspending time running in the
park as well.
And so it really has been thesort of fountain of recovery for
me, Central Park.
SPEAKER_01 (23:40):
That's beautiful.
You know, we have a nonprofitcalled Gardens of Hope, and we
we offer what we calltherapeutic horticulture, and
our our garden's only a coupleacres, but it's the same idea,
really, is that nature makeseverything that you do to be
healthy work better.
And even just being in it byitself, doing nothing will give
(24:01):
you healing.
But if you come for a purpose,it will enhance that purpose.
And and it sounds like the parkis a perfect example of that.
Um is there like how many timesover how over what period of
time um did you go to the park?
Like you started in in what yearand and when was the last time
(24:23):
you were there?
I I should say.
SPEAKER_00 (24:25):
Oh um, I started going there about four and a
half, five years ago.
And I would go there daily.
Um, and um, yeah, for for a fewhours.
And then sometimes I would staylonger.
Um, if if the meditation wasreally grooving in me, if I
yeah, I really got into thezone.
Um and now I go, I still gothree, four, five times a week,
(24:49):
but it's gone the park has gonefrom being an a new friend to me
to being an old friend.
Originally it was a new friendfull of surprises, and I was
discovering all of its differentmoods and possibilities.
Now it's an old friend, and thatI, you know, I've seen the
leaves change color um over anumber of years now.
(25:11):
But I do think the park is likebottomless, is infinite, that
there's still more for me tolearn, and I still need to get
better at identifying birds, forexample.
SPEAKER_01 (25:22):
Yeah.
No, I tell people I walk aroundmy property every single day,
and every single day I seesomething new.
And I've been here for 30 years,and nature's just got that
ability to reveal some littlesurprise every day, whether it's
an animal I haven't seen, or aplant that pops up, or a
mushroom, or you know, thestream did a little something
(25:45):
different, or whatever.
There's always something whereyou're like, oh wow, I never saw
that before.
SPEAKER_00 (25:51):
I'm jealous that you have a property to survey.
Um, I live in a very tinyapartment in the East Village,
but I was excited to hear aboutyour nonprofit.
Um, in that here and there,peppered throughout the very
densely populated East Villagewith its small apartments, there
are community gardens.
Um and you um pay a bit of moneyeach year and you get a plot of
(26:14):
land and you can grow flowers onit and vegetables on it.
And the community gardens areusually open to the public um
several days a week.
And so anyone can go in thereand enjoy them.
And yes, we New Yorkers, um,yes, nature.
I mean, I won't say it's moreprecious, but yeah, perhaps I
will say it's it's especiallyprecious to us and that we're in
(26:37):
this concrete grid.
Um and there's and New Yorkersare famously busy and under a
great deal of pressure.
Um, and so yes, I wanted, yes,um, my value that comes from
scarcity, yeah.
Yes, to scarcity, yes, thankyeah, exactly.
Um, and so I wanted, yes, toconvey the importance of Central
(26:59):
Park to New Yorkers inparticular, um, who don't have
uh large properties to survey ornearby wildernesses to go to,
but they do have um that park.
SPEAKER_01 (27:13):
So with the park in in particular, you know, you're
looking at a stretch of almostfive years or maybe over five
years.
Um when you initially werecoming and getting to know the
park, were there phases that youwent through where there were
favorite places?
Did they shift?
And then today that you'veexperienced the park so many
(27:37):
times, do you have some favoriteplaces and are they the same
places?
SPEAKER_00 (27:43):
Oh, they are.
My favorite, I'd love to talkabout my favorite favorite
attractions in the park.
Um one of them is the carousel,um, in the southern end of the
park, right in the middle.
Um, it's been around.
There have been differentiterations of the carousel since
1871.
There have been four iterationsor avatars of the carousel.
(28:08):
And I see it, I mean, I've I'vewritten it as an adult, and I
encourage um in the course ofthe book, um, adult play.
That is adults having funwithout any inhibit the any of
their adult inhibitions.
Um, and it's um it comes from aFreudian concept I'm big on
(28:28):
called regression in service ofthe ego.
Regression means going backwardinto childhood, and then in
service of the ego means thatit's um it benefits your surface
personality, your day-to-daypersonality.
And so um I encourage um thepresumably adult readers of the
(28:48):
book to give way to um adultplay, and the carousel, yeah,
embodies that um as it evolves,it sort of spins out, yeah.
Right.
Um, it's also the the carouselis famous in literature.
Um, there are poets in the 19thcentury like William McGonagall,
(29:08):
who write about the earliestversion, um, which wasn't in a
building, and in fact, it wasbefore electricity, and it was
drawn, it was pulled around in acircle, the carousel, by a blind
mule in an underground chamberthat would answer to the tap of
the operator's foot.
Eventually, um eventually thepower for it was electrified.
(29:32):
It burned down in 1924, but it'sfamous.
Um, it appears in the climax ofthe novel The Catcher in the Rye
by J.D.
Sollinger.
Holden Caulfield is there withhis sister, and she's riding on
the carousel, and he's watchinglike an adult, signifying his
acceptance of an adult role.
Um, and he starts, it's thefirst movement out of his great
(29:55):
drunken depression.
Um, he sees her there.
Reaching for a brass ring.
They call it the gold ring inthe carousel.
And it becomes a symbol of, it'sa symbol of hope.
And it helps him then takes thetake the first step out of his
depression.
And so since I was using thepark as a recovery for myself
(30:19):
from drug addiction and arelated serious depression, that
scene has always been especiallypowerful to me.
SPEAKER_01 (30:27):
I love it.
I love it.
Well, we're running a little shyon time.
Unfortunately, as you know,listeners don't have the
attention span more than a gnator two.
And so if we go too long, nomatter how interesting something
is, people tend to fade away.
However, um, I want to make thisoffer to you that I make to most
of my guests, that especiallythe interesting ones.
(30:50):
Um, if you'd ever like to comeback and continue this
conversation, I would love to dothat.
Um before we get off, though, II have two points.
Do you have a poem that you'dlike to share with us here?
Um, yes.
How much time do we have?
I could read.
We can go another five, maybeten minutes.
(31:11):
Good five minutes.
SPEAKER_00 (31:13):
I'll read um the invitation to the reader um to
come with me and take a tourinto the park.
Um it'll take about a minute anda half.
Perfect.
The invitation.
We struggle, but there's alwaysCentral Park offering water that
upholds and bark to lean on.
(31:35):
People need its longlake-flecked recovery, its roots
and shoots and birds.
Writers, you know, they leavetheir worlds of words.
But Frederick Olmstead,landscape architect, and his
ingenious right hand Calvert Voxleft us a good-sized earth as
(31:58):
their bequest.
The public rectangle runs fiftyblocks from north to south, a
half mile east to west.
I know that headshake.
Like you're asking why, whysacrifice Manhattan real estate?
America deserved its ownVersailles, one not grown only
(32:23):
for a potentate.
We needed both groomed laneswhere a tycoon with coattails
could parade his horse andbuggy, and lawns where clerks
and maids could meet and talkoutside their tenements and off
the clock.
We needed more than bathhouse orsaloon.
(32:46):
So blueprints, pumps and shovelsturned dank, muggy acreage to a
new world paradise that grantsasylum where the concrete ends,
and yet you've never been there.
We've been friends sincemake-believe back home in yards
(33:07):
of yore.
I know you too well.
Time for some advice.
Because you haven't left youroffice much for years and don't
try new things anymore.
Play hooky.
Yes, fake sick, and we'llexplore that curious retreat.
(33:28):
The sheep and gice and willowtrees will get us back in touch
with texture.
Holidays outside the box arewhat keep people from the loony
bin.
I've got it all planned out.
Four days, four walks,redressing stress, gloom,
(33:49):
burnout, and deflation.
Four days of trails and tailsand recreation.
Four days at large.
We'll quest beyond time clocksand worldly wages for the
Cheshire Grin.
What do you say?
You'll do it.
(34:10):
Yay, you're in.
SPEAKER_01 (34:14):
I love it.
That was quite an invitation.
And um it paints quite apicture.
And like I said, I might haveread through, I don't know, a
dozen of your poems, and uh youryou paint you paint good
pictures with words and in my inmy rough-hewn language.
But um I appreciate it.
(34:35):
I have a a thought that youwould like to leave our
listeners with that kind ofencapsulates this conversation.
SPEAKER_00 (34:44):
I would like to say, since this is a health podcast,
um that I want to encouragepeople to reach out and talk to
other people.
I was in a great state ofisolation um before I began this
project and before I startedrecovering.
And I was arrogant about my uhmisery.
I felt it was what made mespecial, what defined me and
(35:06):
singled me out and made mespecial.
And so my ears were closed offum to what other people had to
say about their troubles.
And I thought my my troubleswere unique to me.
And I want to encourage anyonewho feels that way, who is
closed off in that way, yes, toreach out and listen to others
(35:26):
talk about their troubles and tofind others um who have similar
conditions and sympathize withthem.
SPEAKER_01 (35:34):
I love that.
That's a beautiful message, andit it resonates to the message
of this podcast, which is aboutbuilding community focused on
health and healthy living.
So that's uh it fits right inwith what we're what I'm here to
do and what this the purpose ofall this is.
And of course, let's get back toyour book.
How uh let's share any contactinformation you have and how
(35:58):
people can find the book, um, oror any other uh contact that
you'd like to share with us.
SPEAKER_00 (36:04):
Got it.
Yeah, the book is widelyavailable through all the um
vendors of books.
And so, for example, you cancertainly buy it on Amazon, you
can buy it off the shelf inBarnes and Noble, um, or from
any of your favorite uh any anyfavorite bookseller of yours.
Um, my name is Aaron Puchigian,and I am the only one in the
(36:26):
world.
So if you search my name, thebook, the book will definitely
pop up, um, along with otherwork by me.
Um, and so it's as simple asthat.
Just typing my name into Googlewill give you access to the book
and and and yes, all the rest ofmy work.
SPEAKER_01 (36:43):
Beautiful.
And again, the book is FourWalks in Central Park, a poetic
guide to the park.
Well, Aaron, it's been anabsolute pleasure.
Um, I appreciate you uh comingon to the show.
And again, I I welcome you tocome back and and share more of
your story with us.
I really um, you know, I thinkthat these conversations to me
(37:06):
are a lot of times the guestswill come on and they'll have
their pitch points, andsometimes there isn't really
much more to talk about.
But what I always like to do ismeet a new friend and uh uh
begin a conversation that has aplace to continue.
So I feel like we're in thatspot.
Certainly welcome you to comeback.
SPEAKER_00 (37:24):
Thank you very much.
I just want to say in the middleof my distraction was my cat
started jumping on a on a paperbag.
SPEAKER_01 (37:30):
I see him sitting uh on a shelf behind you right now.
SPEAKER_00 (37:33):
Yes, oh got it, yes.
No, there she is.
Yeah, there she is.
And so I apologize for thebackground noise.
I had to go and push my it's allgood.
Okay, got it, got it.
Thank you very much, Joe.
I would love to come back.
SPEAKER_01 (37:46):
Oh, wonderful.
Well, we can schedule thatanytime.
This has been another episode ofthe Healthy Living Podcast.
I'm your host, Joe Grumba, and Iwant to thank our listeners for
making the show possible.
And we will see you next time.
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