One hand in the air for the big city

No, I haven’t gone underground again: I had a visitor these past few days!

T. had last visited, with P., a few years ago—they’re the ones who bought me my air conditioner—and had learned that Everything Is Terrible In August; thus, the spring fling.

I took her through the Financial District on Thursday, and while we couldn’t get to the 9/11 Memorial (no tickets available), I did take her to St. Paul’s Chapel, where church workers and volunteers ministered to those who worked on “the pile” in the months after the attacks.

I’ve been to and taken visitors to St. Paul’s a number of times, and the exhibits never fail to move me. Prior to September 20001, it was simply an Episcopalian chapel, open to the neighborhood, and one which sponsored various sacred music events; the experience of caring for the men and women who helped to clean out the wound of the World Trade Center site transformed the church, making it over into place of healing and reconciliation. There is a power to this place, and while I attribute it to the quiet strength of the people within, those searching could probably find their God here, as well.

We wandered around and around the warrens of Wall Street, and I came across this shot of the (admittedly-ubiquitous) juxtaposition of old and new:

Water tanks and towers

That’s the (formerly-named?) Freedom Tower—now the tallest building in New York. Neither the name nor the design is impressive, but yes, this space needed a tower.

Another juxtaposition of old and new, this one near Battery Park:

St. Elizabeth-Ann’s? (shoulda written it down. . .)

A sense of scale:

We grabbed some food from Grotto, then headed over to the park for lunch; afterwards we ambled along the short boardwalk, then slid back betwixt the canyons as we worked our way out of the bottom of Manhattan.

We skirted City Hall and the various city, state, and federal courthouses, standing like sentries below the Brooklyn Bridge. Then into Chinatown and the Lower East Side, where we zipped through the Essex Market, then popped into Economy Candy.

Zotz, I got Zotz. Do you remember those? A hard sweet shell encases a powdery interior—which turns into a tart fizz on your tongue. No Marathon bars, but candy necklaces, dots, ring candy, and Aero bars, along with all of the usual suspects.

Then into Little Italy (gelato!), a swing by the Tenement Museum (we browsed the shop, but decided against a tour), and, for me, a quart of sour pickles from Russ & Daughters, and a brief shared remembrance with the counter-woman of our mothers homemade pickling efforts.

East Village, McSorley’s Ale, Pete’s Tavern—both McSorley’s and Pete’s claim to be the oldest bars in the city—then back to Brooklyn.

The plan on Friday was for T. to wander the west side by herself—she particularly wanted to see the Chelsea Market—then head to K’s place Friday evening for book club. Alas, T.’s allergies kicked up and the wind did a number on her peepers (“I think I got New Jersey in my eyes”), so we bailed on book club and stayed in.

Saturday?

T. got us bleacher seats in center-right for a game against the Cincinnati Reds.

That’s Jeter at the plate—can’t you tell?

We made it through 8 innings under the full sun, then bailed before we both fainted.

I’m not a huge baseball fan, but I did always want to see a game at Yankee Stadium; mission accomplished. (And oh yeah, the Yankees lost.)

Back to Brooklyn and into Dumbo:

Dumbo: A nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.

Then we moseyed down Fulton (where T. got her husband a Brooklyn Nets sweatshirt and cap) and Flatbush, ate at Burrito Bar (amazing! lemonade), then hopped the Q back home. Early (i.e., before noon) Sunday, she left.

Her favorite place? The Wall Street area. We’ll go back (or I’ll send her there alone) her next visit.

We had beautiful weather the whole time, and neither of us (as far as I know) got on each other’s nerves.

You’re a good host, she said.

You’re a good guest, I replied.

Just as it should be.

Feeling groovy

How long does it take to carve oneself into a place?

I’ve been in New York for over 5 years, and only very recently has it begun—begun—in some small way to feel like mine.

This wasn’t something to which I paid much attention in my early wanderings. Madison was the first stop out of SmallTown and I loved it unreservedly, threw my whole self into what seemed the far shore of previous life.

Minneapolis? I did not love, less for its Minneapolisness than for the fact that a) it was not Madison (where my friends were having fun in their fifth year of school) and b) it was the location of graduate school, where I was not having fun.

Albuquerque was so brief—11 months—that it felt more like an interlude to life than life itself. I wasn’t particularly happy to trek back to Minneapolis, but I knew the place, had friends there, had more-or-less (mostly less) of a life there.

The 2 bus down Franklin to campus, the 52 back to Lyndale, or maybe a bus to downtown, then the 15 up Nicollet. The bike route past the convention center, through downtown, sneaking up to the West Bank from behind, then over the river and over the bridge to the gym. Or hopping into my car and on to the interstate to get to campus, scoping out the few all-day spots scattered around Riverside or at least trying for a 4-hour spot.

The diners at Cedar-Riverside, the bars at Seven Corners, Electric Fetus for cds and the 3 used bookstores in Uptown, this one good for memoir, that one for fiction and philosophy, the other one for history of science. Walks through Loring Park and over the bridge to the Sculpture Garden. Swimming in Cedar Lake. All of my friends, oh, all of my friends.

I never adored Minneapolis, but at some point I wore a groove into to the place, a path which became my life.

I did adore Montreal, had my routes and habits, but Montreal was so easy that I wonder if I ever really took my life there seriously at all. I could make my impressions—feet on sand, boots in snow—but a wave or a wind and I was gone.

Then again, with my departure built into my arrival, I was free to swim its surfaces, to rove over the island trying to soak in every last bit of its sublime beauty; I passed through Montreal and let Montreal pass through me.

Somerville and Boston? No, no chance, not for me.

And then, Brooklyn. Unprepared and upside down but determined to make this place stick, to make myself stick. I told a friend last night that it might have been a terrible decision to move here but it wasn’t a mistake. I had to know, I told her.

Still, while a part me locked into the city, there were many more parts which were just. . . alienated? uncomfortable? suppressed? I tried consciously to create habits of living, but that felt fake; I acted as if this were already home, but that was a lie.

I wanted New York to be home, and it wasn’t. It still isn’t.

Recently, however, I’ve noticed that my path is, in some places, noticeably smoother. There are places I know, places I count on without knowing I count on them, friends who are true friends.

Another friend told me, before I moved here, that New York is a hard place, and she was right, it is a hard place. But I can run my hand over this ground and feel, for the first time, the ground begin to give.

Quite something to behold

What does this all mean?

I don’t know. [. . .] What does it mean you can buy t-shirts and baseball caps and coffee and pizza and sushi and hot dogs and pretzels and *gasp* halal food around and next to and overlooking the place where almost 3000 people died?

A place in the middle of the largest city of the country, a city which never stops, never sleeps, where people may pause and mourn and reflect—and live.

I have been so tremendously angry at those current- and former- and half-politicians and pundits and alleged civil rights organizations who and which spew fear and loathing, trying to make us afraid and mean and small.

So let me, uncharacteristically, respond to anger with affection, even love:

This is my city; this is New York City.

It is big and  it is tough, but it isn’t mean, and it shouldn’t be small.

Let us be large, let us be mixed-up and loud and jostling and gesturing and Jewish and Muslim and Christian and Hindu and Sikh and Voudou and pagan and heretic and agnostic and atheist and conservative and liberal and radical and apathetic and hustling and napping and dancing and falling down and flirting and singing and praying and chanting and arguing and mourning and laughing and embracing and letting go and everything everything everything that we have always been and always became and always will be.

Let us be all of that and everything more. Let us be New York City.

_____

(Partial repost from August 3, 2010; would love to know who took this photo)

Letting the days go by

I wasn’t there.

But I still have a story, so here it is:

I was in Montreal, and many mornings I rode my bike up Mont Royal before showering at the nearby medical building and heading to my office on Peel Street. The Biomedical Ethics Unit was still in the old red mansion on the west side of the street, and my office was on the ground floor, separated from the main office on the third floor. I had just walked in, maybe turned the computer on, when the phone rang.

I heard my mom, not recognizing me, asking to speak to me. She and my dad were scheduled to leave for their first-ever trip to Europe (I had long pestered them to go), so I wondered if something had happened with their plans.

The trip was cancelled, she said. All the trips are cancelled. What? I said, why? Are you rescheduling?

I don’t remember exactly what she said next, but something about planes, multiple planes crashing in New York, in DC, no one knows what’s going on, we might be at war, haven’t you heard?

Haven’t you heard?

I do remember standing in my office, one hand on my forehead, not comprehending what was being told to me. Not comprehending at all.

Then D., my fellow post-doc, filled my door-frame. Did you hear, he might have said. Something about planes, multiple planes, crashing in the US, A. has the t.v. on up in the office.

At some point I got off the phone and headed up. There it was. I don’t know how long I stayed, watching, before heading over to the Shatner (the student union) for coffee. The t.v. was on there. Students were crying. People were crying. I don’t know if they were Canadian or American. I don’t remember if I cried.

At some point I heard the borders were closed. Closed! I was locked out! I knew, not forever, but I started to know I was on the outside.

Later I was at lunch with the director of my unit (a dual citizen), a colleague, and that colleague’s girlfriend. The girlfriend got into it, I don’t remember over exactly what, but probably over the question of war. I do remember that I took an immediate stance against any immediate action. Let’s wait, let’s not make things worse. Something like that, probably something like that.

Oh, and probably something about how this probably connected to something the US had done. Yes, this was terrorism, and no, the people killed didn’t deserve it, but given how the US acts in the world, it shouldn’t be a surprise when the world reacts. Something like that, probably something like that, is probably what set off the girlfriend. Or something the girlfriend said set this off in me. I don’t remember the specifics, “who started it”, just that we got into it.

Later, not much time later, the director said to me, quietly, that perhaps it was too soon. And I thought, even if I didn’t say it (tho’ I might have said it), that we have to speak now, before everything hardens, and further thought isn’t possible.

Later, maybe later that day, maybe the next day, I rode back up Mont Royal, stood at the terrace near the top and looked toward what I guessed was New York. Could I see the smoke? Could it reach Montreal? Were we all now breathing in the dead?

Melodramatic, I knew, even as I thought it. Besides, everyone would breathe the dead, they would soar around the world and we’d all breathe in everyone’s dead, the way we always had, the way we never thought we had.

A week later I was at the border, a black strip of fabric hanging from my rearview mirror, on my way to see M. & E. in Vermont. I thought it might take hours; it took minutes. No problems, no problems at all.

M. was still working, so E. and I tooled around, running errands, before picking her up (or maybe we ran the errands after we picked her up; I don’t remember). We had to stop at a store E. hated, thought was terrible. “I wish a plane had crashed into that store,” he muttered, and then we both sputtered with laughter. We were terrible, laughing at a terrible joke about a terrible event.

Later, over a year later, hundreds of thousands of us marched down St. Catherine and Rene Levesque; millions around the world marched against the march to war. For naught. I watched the CBC in disbelief as the President led the Congress, and the nation, into war in Iraq. I couldn’t believe it: it was all so transparently false, so obviously wrong, they couldn’t actually pull this off, could they? Yes. And no.

There’s more, of course; ten years, after all. And while I’m in New York now, having not been then, my memories are of the outsider, still.

Which is why I told my story today; let tomorrow be the day for the stories of those who were there.

Don’t walk away Irene

Hurricane Irene is bearing down on New York and I’m. . . thinking of hitting the beach.

C. and I are, in fact, if we can manage it.

No, we don’t plan to be fools—we’d hit Brighton Beach Saturday afternoon, at the latest—but hey, if we can safely bike down and check out the waves, why not? We both like the ocean, we like waves, so here’s a rare chance to see big waves in the ocean!

There were a coupla’ nasty storms in the Boston area when I lived there, but I never made it to the beach (the one on the north side, with the famous lobster roll joint) at the sweet spot of any oncoming storms: close enough to see that, in fact, a storm was coming, but not so close that the water crashing over the breaks on the highway would wash away your car.

No, my only real experience with ocean weather occurred years before, when L. and I road-tripped to Alabama to check out a master’s program for her. After looking at the school in Daphne and poking around Mobile, we set up camp at Gulf Shores State Park in advance of what turned out to be a tropical storm. (Being the good Midwesterners that we both were, we had no clue what that meant.) I don’t recall any rangers telling us it might not be the best time for a couple of small women in a (water-resistant!) nylon tent to kick back on the gulf. We did at least plunk down the tent on the highest ground on the site, joking that the preferred site under the tree could “turn into a big puddle”.

Ha ha.

Anyway, that day was gorgeous. While the campground seemed pretty full (plenty o’ RVs, at which we shook our heads), there weren’t many people at the beach. The sand was white, the beach wide, and the water warm. At one point a water spout formed and we had a good laugh at the panicked look on a woman’s face as she rushed her kids out of the water.

Ha ha.

That night we broke out a bottle of vodka and poured some into our lemonade, then strolled down to the beach to look at the stars and watch all the clouds and thunder way out there across the water. What a show!

We crawled into our tent, looking forward to another day or two at this lovely, lovely park.

You know what happens, of course: That water spout was likely an auger of the storm, that nifty show moved ashore, and yes, it was a very lucky thing that we hadn’t pitched the tent in what was now a pond which waters reached my knees. We had managed to stay relatively dry in the tent, but that highest point was at the far end of the campsite, some distance from the car. We broke down the tent and ran our gear to the car, tossing it in without packing and peeling the hell out of there. There was a nice, solid bathroom nearby, so we took our gear in there and managed to impose some order on our belongings. (There may have been hand-dryers, and we may have tried to dry our gear/ourselves, but I don’t quite remember.)

Then away from the Gulf coast, away from the park, and an early departure for Wisconsin.

Yeah, we were safe and we didn’t lose our gear and it all turned out blah blah, but damn, we coulda used those extra few days at the beach. . . .

Shake it up baby

Felt like we just had an earthquake. Went on for some time—45 seconds, maybe?—but more trembly than cracking.

Huh.

*Update* Yup, it was an earthquake, a 5.8  5.9  5.8 out of Virginia.

Glad I wasn’t on a train or in a tower.

Summer in the city

Hot, broke, and unemployed.

Yes, once again, I hate everything.

(Tho’ it must be said that we New Yorkers don’t have it as bad as those in the middle of the country. . . .)

Snips and snails and puppy dog tails

I know, children die every day, children are killed every day. This is heartbreaking, nonetheless:

The search for a missing 8-year-old Brooklyn boy ended early on Wednesday when investigators discovered what they believed to be his remains . . . .

The grim discovery capped two days of intense searching for the boy, Leibby Kletzky, who had disappeared along a short walk between a Borough Park school and a meeting place with his parents on Monday. Police detectives searched around his neighborhood and used helicopters to find the boy, who was part of the Hasidic Jewish community. They recovered video clearly showing the boy alive.  . . .

The police said it was the boy’s first day of walking home by himself. “He’d asked his parents’ permission to walk home alone and the parents were waiting outside” for him to return, Mr. Browne said.

The parents live on 15th Avenue. They were to meet their son at 13th Avenue and 50th Street; six blocks from the school.

The police retrieved other video showing the boy walking near a hardware store in the direction of where he was to meet his parents, but not quite at that spot.

His first day walking home alone! He must have been so excited. . . .

My condolences to his family.

It’s just a city and I am just a girl

This is a city of cities.

Out of the walk-in clinic on 34th in Murray Hill and strolling up Park Avenue so I can catch the 4 down out of Grand Central, and I see flowers and doorman and shiny little dogs and most of all, most of all, the people gliding across the sidewalks as if they have every right of belonging to this city of canopied entrances and italicized addresses and by the way, shouldn’t there be music wafting over all of us?

Then through the lower doors beneath the high icon and there’s the clock and the space and perhaps I was imagining that I could hear the tiles flip to reveal train arrivals and departures on which track as I swooped obligingly through the benign and bemused swooping corridors to the hard stairs leading down the platform, and home.

And the next day on that same train, heading up, as it whooshes out of the tunnel into the 160s and the back ends of notched-out apartment building. Look fast and you see a stand of trees at the end of that early block, but as the train sashays around to 167 and 170 and beyond, swivel your head west and see the staggered sentries of apartment buildings shouldered by buildings and backed by even more buildings.

Any grace here is tired, resigned, a handkerchief wiped across the brow then flicked in an unthinking wave over the wrist to hang as if giving up, or just waiting, waiting for this longeur to cease.

Still, it moves. The long steps, utilitarian up the middle with the pole hand-rail, up between the shouldered buildings an egress between the steep streets, a kind of hillside concrete tier farming people instead of crops.

Stand on the platform at Kingsbridge and look south and on a clear day you don’t see forever but you do see the Empire State, jutting out from that discreet and italicized neighborhood a beacon warning signal to anyone standing on a platform looking south or west and knowing that this city which is her city is not her city.

This city of cities, tilt the land and we have the archaeological dig, the layers of streets and neighborhoods and boroughs and which is the real city?

Lay it back down and remember we live it across and criss-cross as well as up and down, and it’s all the real cities,  the gliding and swooping and flicking, it’s all the real city.

Let’s run naked through these city streets (part I)

Restless, I am restless. Again.

I thought I’d be over this by now. I know New York’s my city—where the hell else am I going to live?—so you’d think that knowledge would be enough to calm me.

It does not. Knowing there is no place else does not calm me.

Oh, I could certainly live elsewhere. Had I any knowledge of German beyond gesundheit and Gott im himmel and I’d give Berlin a whirl, and I wouldn’t mind a stay in Budapest or Prague. Or Paris, despite the cliche of, well, Paris.

But could I live, forever, in one of these places? Make them home? If I can’t make it here, I can’t make it anywhere.

Why is this? Is this the consequence of lookin’ to leave since I was thirteen? Bide time in SmallTown, live in Madison—love Madison, but know I have to leave, because to stay is to, I don’t know, to give up, somehow—live in Minneapolis, knowing I’d have to move to wherever I’d be lucky enough to land an assistant professorship, etc. Even when I moved to Boston, allegedly for my last move, I had a sense it wouldn’t take. It didn’t.

New York, however, New York took. It took awhile, but, man, this is it.

And I don’t know what to do with that.

It feels like a last stand, no more escape hatches or retreats across the desert, no more waiting for life to begin.

What am I still waiting for?

My life is more than halfway over and I’m afraid to let it be. I’m in the city I’ve dreamed of in that first escape plan, and I still feel like I’m on the run.

So I’m staying put and waiting and on the run, all at once. No wonder I’m restless.