Here comes one of those columns that has been kicking around unfinished (or even unstarted!) since I rode the Cyclone back in May. This morning I figured out why I have been avoiding this topic and writing this altogether -- it’s because it’s about something fun.

You see, I am one of those anguished people, let me rephrase that: I WAS one of those anguished folk who feel most comfortable when things are not going "exactly" smooth, when there are some rough patches, some turbulence. Which is why writing about my Cyclone ride should be as simple as reminding myself to breathe, right?

Wrong. On my jaunt on this coaster this year, my second time on the historical rickety rack, I did something to which I am truly unaccustomed. I did something that freaked me out as it was happening. I did something that made me feel so good (for at least 37 minutes) afterwards that I was reeling down Surf Avenue in little circles, yelling out random phrases about the love and joy of all earth’s life.

On the Cyclone, I let myself GOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! I let myself be jostled, tossed, scrambled like dice in a Yahtzee cup. Wherever this coaster was going, my whole mind, body and soul was going with it. I honestly went with the flow -- and it worked! This was definitely one of those "Hallelujah" experiences (I hope to have more of them but I never remember how to spell it). Just letting go works wonders.

I don’t know if any of you have indulged in this practice, but believe it or not it takes a certain discipline. As I was rounding the first bend on the mighty Cyclone, I noticed my shoulders were tensed, my knees were juttingly perched at a rim-rod straight angle (if that’s possible) and my knuckles were bone white gripping the handlebar. O, yes, and my jaw was clenched. That’s when it hit me. "What the hell am I doing?" I thought. "I am on this ride to have some fun yet sitting here as if I am being dragged by my hair to the guillotine. Cut it out already!"

And it worked! This letting go thing was wonderfully freeing. All worries, cares, anguish, depression and anxiety -- everything -- swirled away in the wake of screaming passengers behind me. We throttled forward with a clear head, open mind and yearning heart. It was truly wonderful. I highly recommend just letting go. Don’t try it in the middle of a corporate board meeting mind you, but letting yourself go in daily life can probably work wonders for your headaches, nausea and worry lines. Perhaps it even cures those crow’s feet things.

And even if you don’t let fully go in that proverbial board meeting, you can let certain strands go. Like that strand that thinks you have to control everything even when you are not even heading the meeting. Or that tether that dictates all others have to think like you. Let it go, sip your coffee, and imagine yourself on a beach instead of an over-air-conditioned conference room with rock hard seat cushions.

Come to think of it, the Cyclone was not the only spiritual excursion I found myself on this summer (and there is still half a month to go!). Walking the Brooklyn Bridge was another awakening feat, as well. This activity, of course, does not give you that same 60-miles-per-hour thrill you get strapped in a rickety car that feels about to rollick off the tracks, but it provides a certain uplifting all its own.

I had been on the bridge often enough on my bike to even have an accident story, but I had never walked the fine expanse into the yawning gates of the city. As I began my ascent, my mental energy rose like a fountain from the center of my being and sprouted out my head, enough that my hat almost flew off (although that could have been the breeze).

For a third such excursion, there is a magic-looking tree in Brooklyn’s Botanic Garden that I have the yen to sit under and meditate. I went there once, however, for such a purpose only to found that a host of bugs had also thought the tree magical and it was duly infested. Hence I use the park by my house for this activity, and it’s not a stagnant meditation, either.

The park has a circular track so I can walk round and round into a trance. Sometimes it gets so deep the breeze talks in Chinese and wafting music filters out of the sky (unless, of course, it’s coming from the dozens of others stretching with oriental swords and playing a tape recorder).