thefutureisred

The Day After Ten Years & Why I Won't Watch Video Coverage of the WTC Attacks

I happened to be in NY for the 10th anniversary of 9/11. It wasn't planned and I didn't take part in any of the memorials. I didn't want to. Just as I never wanted to watch footage of the planes hitting. I just don't see the point.

Ten Years Ago Marked the First Day of the New Normal

I saw it from the top of our building in Brooklyn, directly across the river where I stared in shock at two massive burn marks seared onto the side of the Twin Towers. 

Sandra, our neighbor, emerged from the stairwell as we stood atop that old schoolhouse-turned-condos on Hicks Street, “The second tower just fell,” she said, explaining the cloud of grey-white dust that billowed out from the buildings and toward us. So matter of fact, it seemed, reporting what she heard from radio, just letting us know.

Then it was a quick succession of burning asbestos, sirens, people crying in the streets, singed papers and ash wafting their way from Manhattan to Brooklyn leaving by our feet a charred memo reminding Michael M to file his expense report by the end of the week.  The radio told of six suspicious passengers removed from a flight at JFK. A truck thought to contain explosives was stopped near the George Washington Bridge.

We decided to go indoors as the dust cloud began to envelop us.

Ten Years Later and Things Feel A Bit Too Normal

Here I am in NYC after not living here in almost five years. On and off the subway. Great food. The weather has been perfect. Tonight I'm taking a yoga class taught by friend. But I expected things to somehow be different, an obvious mark in the air that this big disaster happened a decade ago.

Something to mark the day I stopped believing.

This Is What I Can No Longer Trust Or Believe

September 12, 2001, I listened to the radio to hear journalists speaking live from the scene, their media veneer stripped clean. “Oh my god. It’s falling. I can’t believe it. The building is falling.” There was panic, fear and a complete loss of control, something I had never before or since heard from the media.

I searched online looking for something to answer why this had happened. I read back issues of the New York Times, read the histories of Afghanistan on CIA World Factbook, my favorite site for basic information on any country in the world.

But all clicks lead me to realize that nothing can explain it. Nothing can explain with any true sense of satisfaction the level of destruction and pain we saw on the streets. And the news media didn't help at all. 

After those early days, the sheen of a well-oiled media machine glossed over the first response as Terror At the Towers and A City Under Siege filled the airways to introduce repeatedly new reports of the same information. 

Stories told in the first days disappeared. The six passengers on the plane became four then evaporated. I never learned what happened with the truck of explosives at the bridge, but reports of the buildings falling and man-on-the-street first hand accounts proliferated, singing the same song with pre-prepped intros, outros, b-roll yet provided nothing useful.

I felt deceived by a media that seemed to only want to present that which would garner the most eyes and largest number of clicks, and the surreal nature of reaccustoming myself to a constantly changing post-9/11 world left me grasping for something solid and real.

Until finally I decided, solid and real is an illusion. 

Question Everything.

Prior to 9/11, the news was all about shark attacks.  Every other day, it seemed, another child, man or woman had been being mutilated by these beady-eyed creatures.

Surely we could have found a corner of the world with a story worthy of telling. It’s not as if the Taliban popped up in Afghanistan overnight. Qaddafi wasn’t all sunshine and lollipops until a couple weeks ago when he was ousted. Mubarak of Egypt didn’t suddenly turn sour a few months ago. But they weren’t yet looming, a fearful and direct danger to our lives, our children and our futures.

At the time of September 11, I was teaching composition at Stern College for Women.  When classes resumed after the attacks, I revised my curriculum completely. Instead of Langston Hughes and Hemingway, we pored over news articles, examined them and tried to answer the questions people asked.

Case In Point: Bush Officials Try To Calm Fears Of Anthrax

This article acts as if it's going to calm our fears about anthrax. Instead, it introduces Tom Ridge as the Bush administration’s new domestic security chief. His appointment, suggests the article, is meant to directly address concerns of terrorist threat in the United States as well as streamline methods of addressing those threats.

Mr Ridge describes his new role as such:

I may need some statutory authority down the line if I'm going to rearrange some of the responsibilities and give cleaner lines of responsibility to the agencies," he said.

Mr. Ridge said, for example, that he would not be the official to decide whether the military should shoot down a commercial airliner that behaved suspiciously. "My role, if there is time, would be more as an adviser," he said.

But, asked in the morning if he was "the boss here or are you a coordinator," Mr. Ridge replied, "The coordinator, it's like the conductor of an orchestra. The music doesn't start playing until he taps the baton.

Even after three separate descriptions of Ridge's new role, I still don't know what he's intended to do. I also wonder what exactly is this statutory authority he seeks down the line.

And then I look forward to now, post development of the Department of Homeland Security and wonder if those authorities are the ones that allow the department to wiretap, intercept mail and monitor our e-mails, blog writings, phone calls. Was this Mr. Ridge softening our desire for personal privacy in the hope that opening our lives to the government would protect us from anthrax and whatever else might arise.

Fear Is A Fantastic Motivator

As I told my students in the weeks after 9/11, if a piece of news tweaks the fear strings in your body, take a step back, analyze it and pull it apart.

That is not to say fear is useless. It protects us. Humans are more suggestible and more likely to listen to direction without question when under the influence of fear.

That is a fabulous thing when you’re caught in a flaming movie theater and someone tells you to remain calm, don’t run in directions and follow the aisle to the brightly lit EXIT sign.

It is dangerous and destructive, though, when the fear stimulus is prolonged and has no directed goal. Then, fear leads to random and useless action, often rife with violence and ultimately the mind and body breaks down into disorder.

I don't want to make my choices based on fear. Instead of allowing that belly twinge of emotion to guide my choices, I looked at my life and said "What am I waiting for?"

So many things I'd always wanted but never did because of fear, obligation, not wanting to do the wrong thing. Without fear, I am able to put aside the you-shoulds and what-ifs.

And, for what it's worth, it's easier to give up fear when you live through an event like 9/11. Because that's when I saw without a doubt that staying in one place is no more secure than moving. 

Last Week I Finally Saw the Airplane Footage

I chose not to watch the moment the planes hit because what good does watching a past event that cannot be changed. It's a spectator sport, and I prefer to live by my actions and my own memories.

It happened by mistake when I passed by a TV showing Tenth Anniversary coverage, and I was surprised at my response.

My chest tightened, breathing quickened. I went directly back to my apartment that no longer exists in a life that only lives in photos and memory. I was there again in all that pain and unknowing and indecision. 

Again, I felt the fear vividly. I re-experienced the wild look in the eyes of people around me, when they weren’t filled with tears, and then recognized the same wildness in my own face in the mirror. I thought I'd moved past these feelings, and I suppose I had. The image of the plen hitting brought me back.

For days, I closed my eyes to see those few seconds of footage repeating in my head on loop, watching helplessly as the flight speeds up in those last moments, as if the pilot relished the thought of all the damage he’d cause. Or was that my imagination?

The mind is powerful. It is up to us how we choose to use that power.

And Yet I Do Not Say No To Media

I often criticize the media for being self-interested and false. At the same time, I remain acutely aware that I am clearly part of the media. Am I being hypocritical? I certainly know I'm not immune to representing facts in a light that might misrepresent them or including mainly parts of stories that I know my readers will find most interesting.

Aldous Huxley says in Brave New World Revisited that all media is propaganda. It is impossible to present any experience in its entirety or as an absolute truth. The best we can do is write what we believe to be accurate with the goal of improving what exists in the world around us.

I try to keep Huxley's words as my guideline. I may not present absolute truth, but I do write what I believe to be true, given my own slants and prejudices. I try to think for myself. I make my best decisions with whatever information I have at the moment.

That is the best any of us can do.

This First Day Of the Second Decade After

I don't know what I expected to see on the streets of New York this week. Something palpable to mark the horror I saw? Sitting on the subway yesterday, with the credible threat of a new attack looming, a voice came over the loudspeaker reminding us to report any suspicious packages or people. I felt more vulnerable surrounded by so many people, because, were something to happen, it would be harder to escape.

I'd forgotten the anthrax threats, tucked away in my mind images of two massive plumes of smoke pouring upward where the Twin Towers used to be. I realized I no longer notice the proliferation of police, blockades and metal detectors. They, too, have become normal, and I accept them as helpful.

I Have Chosen To Forget

My most vivid memory of September 11, 2001 is watching a flock of pigeons flying their rounds from my side of the river to the other, circling the smoke as if it wasn’t there.

It was a beautiful day, much like today. The sky rings clear azure, not a cloud, and the sun shines brightly. It's the kind of day when moms take their babies to the park to play and people sit outside chatting with their neighbors over a coffee.

How can the sun shine when the world is falling apart? But then, here we are, ten years later.

Photo courtesy of David Barrie's Flickrstream.

 

What Can Happen In A Thousand Days?

As of today, I've been writing this blog for exactly 1000 days. One. Thousand. Days. I know that's not very long if you compare to all the days I've been alive or days of the recorded universe. Still, it measures the distance between here and there. What was and what is.

Yesterday, I found some old forgotten photos from a cell phone I no longer have and sent to an e-mail address I no longer use. They were taken right before we left New York, just before my thousand days of blogging began.

We had just finished the long and tedious process of selling our apartment and divesting of all the things we didn't need. These were the days just before the beginning, when we were mired down with saying goodbye and had no idea what lay ahead of us.

This is my cat Paloma. Lila is giving her a last goodbye kiss at the vet's office.

I found Paloma at the ASPCA on 5th Avenue on the Upper East Side when she was three months old. She lived with me through college, my first apartment in NYC. Marriage. A move to Brooklyn. Pregnancy. Newborn. Paloma patiently bore the wrath of toddlers running rampant through the apartment, grabbing her tail. She was sick once in her life and that once was complete renal failure. The vet suspected all the excitement of packing and an inadvertant change in food were too much for her aging body.

I remember this particular day even more clearly, because 7am the morning this photo was taken, we received a call to say that during the night Noah's grandmother, Grandma Ruth had passed away.  Noah took Lila home right afterward, and I stayed while Paloma was put to sleep.

Then I took a long walk listening to Sufjan Stevens before going home to pack our suitcases and fly to Atlanta for Grandma Ruth's memorial service.

This next photo I took while waiting for the 2/3 train to arrive at Borough Hall in Brooklyn.

I was on my way to my very first Couchsurfing meeting. It was one of the last times I ever took the subway, and I felt that as a landmark as acutely as the nervousness I felt about going to some random bar on the Lower East Side to meet a group of strangers from Couchsurfing.

I met a couple from Iowa, now living and acting in New York City, although they traveled pretty extensively for work as well. I met a 22 year old guy who had just been living in Prague. And a cool woman named Jennifer who had just been to her first Burning Man.

Noah, Lila and I were living in a rented apartment, where I didn't feel comfortable inviting strangers since it wasn't really our place. (Now, I wouldn't care) The owners of that place sent their friends around with regularity to check up on us and make sure we weren't ruining their things or doing things we weren't supposed to do. It was an uncomfortable situation.

This third photo comes from a goodbye brunch we had with all the families we knew from the neighborhood. It was at Pacifico restaurant early one Sunday morning. Too early for all the non-childed folk of the neighborhood to even consider being awake on a weekend. So we had the place to ourselves.

The kids sat lined up at the bar watching cartoons on the TV while the most awesome bartender ever served them drinks and snacks. Apparently, he used to be a nanny, so he was fabulous with the kids. Pacifico, itself, got a bit punchy though. Something about worrying they'd lose their liquor license because of minors seated at the bar (I mean. Really?).

There's something funny about old photos, especially when you haven't seen or thought about them in a long time. They carry with them a shock of emotion, bringing back the past to life for just a brief moment. And like a smell or strain of music, evaporates quickly as you incorporate the past into the now.

But for just a brief time, I again feel the cold February wind as I wandered the streets of Brooklyn between the vet's office and our house. Or that amusement bubbling from the bit of my belly as I saw all our three year olds on bar stools ordering another juice. Or how amazing was that first bite of salmon taco?

What I can't quite grasp is who I was then.

It's only been 1000 days, and yet those days of travel have changed everything.  I am no longer the person I was then. They way I think, the manner in which I relate to other people, all different. Saying hello to strangers or goodbye to old friends have become part of my daily landscape. 

I look at this photo taken by Ali. We celebrated Lila's first four birthdays with famous John's pizza on Bleeker followed by a walk to Magnolia Bakery. Then to the park where we played on the jungle gyms and ate banana pudding with Nilla wafers. 

And while I know just what I was thinking by the look in my eyes, I no longer understand why I was thinking it.

So tell me, where were you 1000 days ago? What were you eating? Or wearing? Who were you then and how has your life moved?

What will the next 1000 days bring?

Mr. Mackie's Classroom: Why South Park Characters Shouldn't Teach In NYC

A recent article detailing how a California school banned the dictionary because a student looked up the term oral sex, reminds me of a similarly anti-educational incident from my teaching days.

I was running poetry workshops at Booker T Washington middle school through CCNY’s Poetry Outreach Center which paired graduate students with a classes in the New York City public school system. I worked with Ms Wertheimer’s 8^th grade class for four years.

Once a month, I came in with poetry and literature, everything ranging from Shakespeare and Kafka to Outkast’s Ms Jackson -- oooh, I am for real -- and we read, discussed and wrote our own poetry.

The students in these classes were in what was called The Olympia program. Which meant, not quite special education behavioral problems, but not quite expected to truly succeed either. Among quotes I heard directly from teachers and administrators mouths.

“Don’t teach these kids Shakespeare. They won’t understand.” I did anyway.

"Some of these kids have real potential, it’s a shame most of them will end up working at McDonalds.”

And my personal favorite,

"Why do you want to work extra hours with him? He doesn’t know how to read.”

Few things, though, left me more in slack-jawed-awe than one dictionary related incident and a school program director who, I swear, was the  drop dead doppelganger of South Park's guidance counselor, Mr. Mackie. You know, the one with the too tight bow-tie?

I prepared a magnetic poetry-like exercise for the class by printing hundreds of sentences from all different novels and poems onto paper, cut them out into individual words then asked each student to choose ten words to be used in a poem or set of poems.

The only rule: Use every word.

Some were easy words and connection words. Cat. And. The. Hat.

Others I didn’t expect students to know. Ambidextrous. Chthonic. Ineluctable modality of being.

We didn’t have enough dictionaries in the classroom. Those we had were tattered, pages missing and were for far younger students than populated the class. We weren’t able to find the more difficult words I chose.

When I asked the program director for more, particularly more advanced ones, ones better suited to the age group in the classroom, he said the following to me with no irony in all seriousness.

“I would,” he replied. “But my concern is this exercise isn’t appropriate for these students, because many don’t know how to use a dictionary.”

Really? I mean. Really?

Usually, I kept a professional distance and attitude from the administrators I met in the New York City school system. This time, I admit, I was not so polite in response.

What's the problem here?

My students at Booker T Washington showed a level of creativity I didn't see in the students I taught at a nearby private university, a place where students had far more privilege and freedom than those at Booker T. I suspect living beyond any expectation also frees you of the constraints to produce what society expects.

Standing on the other side of the row of desks has its on frustrations. The nature of dealing with administration stifles any creativity on the part of the teachers. You teach to the No Child Left Behind tests. You struggle with principals who care more about walls decorated with pretty things to impress bosses than whether or not 8th grade students can read.

I also quickly realized after teaching in other middle and high schools in NYC that Booker T Washington isn't the worst. They have more resources, dedicated teachers. They are in an area of town that is relatively safe. In four years, I never once lost a student to a beating or to child welfare. Yes, I saw students carrying sandwich bags with crack vials. Yes, I had students with family in prison. One thirteen year old disappeared from class after a couple days when his girlfriend had a baby. Another tore the classroom apart whenever his mother had a new boyfriend.

It is not the worst.

How does one learn in that environment? What does one learn?

Photos by jasonwhite and dcJohn

A Holiday Benefit, Vol. 3: Support Literacy in NYC By Listening To Music

If you plan on being in or near NYC this coming Wednesday, December 16, 2009, there's a musical benefit event that should not be missed. 

My friend, musician Benjamin Wagner will be performing along with a long list of some of the best emerging artists in NYC to support literacy.

Who is this guy, and why am I writing about him?

Benjamin and I met in the halls of 1515 Broadway something like a decade ago. We worked together on MTV News and Specials in a fishbowl of a room filled with computer and video equipment. We had an amazing team of people in that room. Paul Kamuf. Jeff Rabb. Erica Maresca. Robert Mancini. All incredibly multi-talented people, and it was truly an honor to work with them.

We've all since gone in different directions. Benjamin went on to become Vice President of MTV News and works with some of the most cutting edge technologies on the market. Yes, I know, you're thinking MTV -- because that's what we so often think about these 800 pound gorilla companies -- but one way or another, MTV Online was among the first to incorporate live news coverage on the internet, daily news updates and video on demand.

Who will be playing at the event?

Today, even with all his success as a music industry executive, Benjamin is still very much the musician, and anyone in NYC has the opportunity to hear him play along with Rogers, Dunn, Shea, Paula  Valstein, Emily Easterly, Chris Cubeta, Martin Rivas, Chris Abad, Misty Boyce, Ruby Rivers and Emily Zuzik. There will also be a silent auction.

Check out the music video for a preview.

Or download a bonus track from iTunes.

Comprising twelve tracks from some of New York City’s finest emerging artists, “A Holiday Benefit, Vol 3″ is a seasonal charity compilation spanning the delicate (Bess Rogers’ “Little Saint Nick”) to the downright bombastic (Bryan Dunn’s “Don’t Believe In Christmas”) with a dash of holiday hilarity (Casey Shea’s “The Chipmunks Song”) in-between.

Who will benefit?

All proceeds go to benefit 826NYC, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting creative and expository writing skills in students 6-18 years old.

For more information, you can read all the details of the event on Benjamin's blog.

“A Holiday Benefit, Vol. 3″ Release Party / Charity Concert
Wednesday, December 16th 8-11pm @ Pianos
158 Ludlow Street New York, New York 10002
(212)-505-3733

And hey, when you go, please tell Benjamin I say hello, then let me know how it was. I would love to be there myself.

I Ate New York!

New York may no longer be my home, but it's still the place my stomach and taste buds go for adventure. There's no where I've been on the planet that serves up such an amazing array of authentic, unique, gorgeous food options.

Our three days there, I think I ate more than I've eaten in,  
well, a really long time. But it was there, and I knew I wouldn''t be back for a who-knows-how-long, so I wanted to squeeze in a bite, even just one taste of everything.

I mentioned a few of my favorite NYC food places in a June post for World Blog Surf Day -- which I'll be participating in again come this October 31 -- but actually being in New York, visiting friends, choosing places for lunch, dinners, deciding on gifts to take to friends, well, let's just say the palate opened wide.

Day one, we stopped at H&H Bagels for lunch just before arriving at College Residence on 110th street. I lived in this building for two years before Noah and I married, and I know the area well.

One block away, across from Saint John the Divine Cathedral on Amsterdam Avenue, you'll find the Hungarian Pastry Shop. This place fills with Columbia students and is a local haunt for many well known writers, poets, philosophers and artists. There was one guy, a regular, who, after his coffee and chat, stretched out on the seat by the front window for a nap. I bet he's still there today.

The Hungarian got mediocre reviews on Zagat's, but clearly those people have no souls. Either that, or they don't know what to order. My recommendation? Ask for an almond horn and hot chocolate. The chocolate arrives unsweetened to be perfectly complemented by the sugary crunchy cookie.

Two doors down from Hungarian lives V&T Pizza. It's old school, simple straight forward pizza, and it is wonderful. I'm a pizza purist, so I prefer without toppings, but I can occasionally be persuaded to go for eggplant. It's similar to Sam's Steak and Chops on Court Street in Cobble Hill.

Warning: You don't go to either place for ambience. Unless, of course, you're looking for grungy interiors, badly lighted and worn out. But if you want the best pizza -- neither sell by the slice -- this is where you'll go.

And if you happen to be in Cobble Hill for pizza, head a bit deeper into Brooklyn on Court Street to Monteleone's. We went there to pick up dessert for Rosh Hashana dinner at Aunt Jane and Uncle Cliff's .This is the place that made me realize I do, indeed, love cheesecake. There's plain, chocolate, chocolate swirl and Italian varieties.

Unfortunately, Monteleone's had already closed by the time we arrived, so we swung from Brooklyn to the East VIllage to Veneiro's. Their speciality? Canoli. The best. I repeat, the best you've ever had. Unfortunately, again, canoli must be eaten fresh or the shell gets soggy. We asked the women working behind the counter which cake woudl transport best, and they immediately got the owner on the phone to consult with us. We chose one tiramisu cake and a ricotta cheesecake which we immediately put in our cooler surrounded by ice.

Then we made one last stop before hitting the highway. Two dozen bagels at H&H. We chose H&H, thought, mainly because it's kosher. In truth, I prefer the bagels at Absolute Bagels. If you go early enough in the morning, the windows fog from bagels boiling in the back, and every baked good in the store is hot. The place itself doesn't look like anything special, but if you're ever in Morningside Heights, do stop by.

That was all the damage we could do in three days, but there are so many other amazing places in this burg. The Tea Lounge offers a huge assortment of teas. Apricot Floral is my favorite

Fa'an has amazing lychee martinis. Ghang Thai across the street serves the best Thai food of the area, arguably best of the city. Koreatown where even a simple bi bim bop is heaven. I spent many a late night in college over coffees at Tom's Restaurant, known mostly from Seinfeld, but also Susan Vega's Tom's Diner.

Then of course, there's D'Amico coffee (also good deli and exquisite hot chocolate in winter). John's Pizza, and Magnolia Bakery, two Lila birthday traditions for the years we lived there.

Billy's Bakery. Peter Luger. Sahadi. Katz' Deli. Odessa bar and restaurant. Fairway. Teresa's. Grimaldi's and the ice cream store across the street by the water. Yonah Schimmel's

Yes, New York City. Lots of aggressive people, but great food. Is there anything I forgot?

Photo Courtesy of Roger Karlsson's Flickrstream

Picturing Beautiful Women Out Dancing at Balcarce

They talk about Salta as a woman. Salta la linda, they call her. You may also meet her friend, Cerveza Salta Negra. A gorgeous dark beer and again I am in love.  Perhaps I wouldn't be quite so enamored with this thick, chocolately beer if I didn't live in the city. But I do and I am.

Here, you see her reflection in the window of a nightclub in Balcarce.  Balcarce is to Salta what the East Village is to NYC (minus the riots), Smith Street is to Brooklyn (minus the Brooklyn House of Detention), Elmwood Avenue is to Buffalo and what East Atlanta Village is to Atlanta.

Sundays, during the day, barricades block the street to traffic, allowing local artists to set up shop. Here, you'll find some of the most chic and varied restaurants of the city. There's even sushi, truly surprising in a place where asado, fiambres --platters of meats, cheeses, olives and the like -- and empanadas reign. Saltenos and visitors flock to this bantam weight, but growing, neighborhood for a drink or dinner.

My night culminated at one of the many Balcarce night clubs dancing to reggaeton - note, originated in Panama - with Damien, our latest couchsurfer from Australia, and Amelia, Paola and Daniela, Salteno couchsurfers, The night, I must admit, is a bit of a blur as we celebrated the imminent departure of Amelia and Daniela, sisters, for Israel by drinking bottle after bottle of a very sweet, fizzy wine.

Picturing My Child Playing in the Dirt

This is one big reason why we left Brooklyn.

I was tired of telling Lila she couldn't play in the dirt. Dogs shit and pee there. I was tired of having to watch her constantly. You never know who is haunting playgrounds and parks. One park in my old neighborhood has a rule that childless men weren't allowed to hang out, even just to sip a grande and read a book.

I was tired of finding fun things to do indoors and having to plan specific trips so Lila could be in the great outdoors. That is, Prospect Park, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden or the American Natural History Museum. Ok, that part was pretty spectacular, but still, an easy, safe place for Lila to play right by our front door feels so much more comfortable.

So when I peeked outside one afternoon -- I still can't help but going to check on her -- I found Lila quietly making mud pies with friends. The taller girl on the left is Victoria. She lives next door and showed up later that night at our house, ended up staying for dinner. The other girl, I don't know.

This in NYC might well label me a bad parent

Picturing San Telmo, Buenos Aires

Looking back to the summer, well, summer in the southern hemisphere, that is. Noah, Lila and I got up one Sunday morning in December, one of our first days in Argentina, and ventured south to Plaza Dorrego for the San Telmo fair.

Block after block of street closes to traffic and opens to painters, jewelry designers, musicians and tango. It truly puts the NYC street fairs to shame, with perhaps the exception of the NYC Food Festival -- which is coming up May 16th and 17th -- and Atlantic Antic.

This photograph, taken by Lila, comes from one of the many stalls in Plaza Dorrego. Don't worry yourself to arrive too early in the day, though. In true porteño style, the festivities begin later in the day and carry on until late.

I'm Sorry. I Love You, But I Just Can't See You Anymore

Today, I sat in a park off Avenida Libertador waiting for Pat, founder of Pan American Whole Health Alliance, Sunday evening, she and a group of others will walk through Almagro handing out pan dulce to homeless people. I had planned to go, but since I'm taking Lila to a pena to dance, listen to music and meet other kids, I may not be back in time to meet up with the pan dulce group. So I met her this afternoon to make a donation.

Patt told me to be there "1pm punctual," meaning, I think, don't show up the standard Argentinian hour late. I know she's busy, so I was there two minutes early. She wasn't. So I sat under this tree to read and wait.  

,A perfect breeze and cool shade calmed the heat of this hot summer afternoon, leaving me content to sit quietly watching. The area surrounding the park, Recoleta, fills will tourists, cafes, prix fixe lunches that always include a glass of wine. There, I watched the people in cafes drinking coffee and the others laying on the grass eating panchos.

I love this part of Buenos Aires. Museo de Bellas Artes sits just around the corner. We visit there quite often. There's a great modern section, and right now an exhibition called Approximaciones by Jacques Bedel offers some really beautiful works. They're all plastic and trash bags but when the light hits these large framed pieces just so, you suddenly see beautiful sunsets and ocean.

Behind Bellas Artes, you find the parks and just behind where I sat, the artesanal markets, where you can buy anything from beautiful hand knit sweaters to strawberries. The market is open daily, but it's best to visit on weekends when all the artists come to sell.

Across the street, I saw what looked like the trunk of a tree, but it couldn't possible be. It was enormous. I couldn't imagine a city tree grown to that size. So I went to investigate. And yes, it was indeed the trunk and enormous roots of what looked like a magnolia tree snaking through the ground.

Now that's the kind of tree I want Lila to grow up with. It's perfect for climbing and hiding. So much to see and explore. I've never seen a tree like that anywhere in NYC. In btween the roots, there's enough space to climb in and hide, or curl up and sleep. The branches would be perfect for a fort.

Then I noticed the garbage piled up between it's fingers, and since this is a public park, it's dirty with dog urine and certainly no place for Lila to keep her fort.

So relaxed, so content, so cool and calm... Beep beep beep beeeeeeeep beep beeeeeeep.

That was a car alarm jabbing through my head, making it impossible to think. Then I notice the contruction clanging in the background. And the small pool of water by my feet. What's in it? I'll never know.

Oh yes, I remember now. This is a city, like any other city.

I suppose part of me hoped I'd absolutely fall in love with Buenos Aires and I'd never want to live anywhere else. And I do find it endlessly charming, but in love? No. I'm done with cities.

Where crossing the streets here is easier, but you have to brave four lanes of traffic in two different directions often with no walk signal anywhere to be found. As in NYC, I remind myself that the drivers have as much of an investment in not hitting me as I have in not being hit. Not so much because they care about my life per se, but because you know what a hassle it would be with insurance, medical care, and the general angst of hitting and possible killing another human being? Who needs it?

New York City will always be my first and only love as a city, but I can't do it anymore. The noise and smog make it impossible for me to think or breathe. I'm tired of looking out my window and down to more street and pavement, hearing my neighbors every move and waking to the sultry sounds of metal clanging.

When we first left Brooklyn, I often visited Overheard In New York, partially because it's pretty damn funny, but mainly bc I was homesick. I'd picture that street, or building or park. So many of the quotes come from Barnard or Brooklyn Heights. I remember seeing some from Houston Street where I worked four summers in a row for a writer and her husband, a painter.I don't really go there so much anymore. I don't miss you like I used to, NY. 

Tomorrow we leave for Salta. First, a twenty hour overnight bus ride. The seats recline so you can sleep, and they serve dinner and breakfast. (Mind boggling that a bus ride includes food). Then at some point after arriving in Salta, we'll decide if we're staying.

Yes, New York, you will always be my first love. The only city I will every truly love. But I don't like who I am when I'm with you. So yes, I'm so sorry. I still love you and probably always will, but you're not good for me and I can't see you anymore.

Landing Softly With A Bump

We're here. Finally, after more than six months of planning, thinking, figuring, we're here.

Yep, We're here. I have to keep telling myself that, because most of the time, I'm not sure where I am.

Our flight here took us through Miama, Panama, Bocas, Costa Rica, Lima and then finally. Here. There were at least three sleepless nights and one-almost missed flight in there, but it was great fun.

Buenos Aires is sort of a bizarro New York. Every new place somehow reminds me of a place I used to go. Or a sort of melange of places. Palermo is like the East and West Villages melded with Park Slope. Recoleta reminds me of parts of downtown Manhattan. Even the smell brings back spring mornings in the city. The odor of concrete, cigarette smoke and exhaust, but here whisps of baking bread and roasting meat creep in as well. No one makes eye contact. The streets are lined with London plane trees. Cabs everywhere, as well as everything you could possible want and need right outside your door.

There's culture shock, for sure, but it's more from spending time in Central America and then coming here to this bustling metropolis. Here, I'm immediately comfortable because it's a city. I know city. Country is far more confusing when you can't just step out your door to find food. Only here, everyone speaks Spanish, the people look a bit different and the empanada's are much better.

I am also painfully jetlagged. Without an alarm, I wake at noon. My entire self feels heavy and I feel like I'm walking through water. Until around 11pm, when I wake up and am ready to go.

Slowly, it's hitting me. We're here. I don't know anyone. I don't know my way around. This place, so familiar in its citi-ness, completely overwhelms me; it is enormous. I haven't felt this way since, well, since I moved to NYC.

Now If You Could Just Release Your Grasp From My Pantleg

I went to NYC for Halloween weekend to finish the translation with Ali. It was a wonderful weekend.  The perfect mix between work, seeing old friends, parties, dinner or drinks, and time alone.  

It was odd not having two other people around all the time to consider before making plans, choices, thoughts. When I was ready, I went where I wanted and did what I desired.

It felt empty at first. Noah and Lila walked me to security, waved and waved as I walked beyond the point where they could go and two minutes later, I was alone. Well, I suppose as alone as one can be in an airport surrounded by thousands of people. But nonetheless, something was missing.

Soon enough, I began to enjoy the extra space, even as much as I loved my nightly calls with them. Lila took the phone, gave me an air hug, then rubbed her nose against the phone for our traditional nosey-nosey-nosey goodnight. “I love you because I miss you because I don’t want you to go and I want you to stay with me,” or some version of that she’d say.

Since I’m almost always with Lila, I rarely hear her on the phone. When I do, I’m struck with how much she sounds like Rebecca, Noah’s youngest sister. Rebecca and I used to spend a lot of time on the phone, mostly when she was in high school and college. Now that we don’t have those conversations anymore, it is difficult to hear Rebecca’s voice when I talk to Lila.

My weekend on 110^th and Broadway revived for me the days when Noah and I lived uptown our first year of marriage and the years before we got married. Halloween, I joined my mom friends in Brooklyn for a post trick-or-treating party. It was perfect. There, I saw all Lila’s old friends, all so grown up and mature, and met their little brothers and sisters, who are now the age Lila was when we left NY.

The same nostalgia poked at me as I walked through Morningside Heights. So much has changed. Grandma’s diner – where Noah and I ate grilled cheese with hot chocolate the night we got stuck downtown without money and had to walk 50 blocks in the freezing snow – is long gone.

Our last few trips to NY have been so unpleasant and exhausting, so it was nice to be reminded how lovely so much of my life had been. But it also made it all the more bittersweet knowing that in less than three weeks, we fly to Argentina and once again have no idea when we will return. If all goes as we hope, it could well be a very long, long time.  

I waded through a NY soup of memory until my friend Levy pointed out I was fighting with ghosts. “Why attach to things that no longer exist?” he asked me. Particularly, I thought to myself, when these memories fill my present with that slight sense of loss. Who needs it? And I tried to let go and enjoy my time.

Noah and Lila met me at the airport where. I saw Lila’s sweet smiling face first. She grabbed me and hugged me and didn’t let go for a long time.

Confessions of Raging Maniac

Few know this about me, but when I drive, I change into another person. I have no patience for stupidity and seem to find endless stupidity on these roads. People who are slow to go when the light turns green make me crazy. If you honk at me without good reason -- and you'll be hard pressed to find a good reason -- you'll hear me spew words that would turn a construction worker's head.

Noah met me in NY and didn't see me drive until a good four months into our relationship. Imagine his surprise to see this soft-voiced woman suddenly turn into Linda Blair. Lila, for her part, routinely tells me "Mommy, it's not nice to call people an idiot" when she's in the back seat.

"You're right, honey. I shouldn't say that."

"You really shouldn't," adds Noah quiety with fear in his eyes.

I am more than lucky that she has chosen not to repeat many of the other choice morsels she's heard (at least not yet).

Atlanta drivers, in particular, make me crazy.

Most of the day -- while people are at work -- traffic moves clearly and quickly. But then, then, the work day releases and thousands upon thousands of people scurry out of their offices into their cars and start navigating their vehicles on the streets with wild abandon.

They horrify me.

"But aren't NYC drivers so much worse?" you're probably asking. No.

See, people in NY drive like lunatics, too. They think nothing of leaning out the window to scream obscenties at a neighboring car. Or swerving from lane to lane just to meet their destination a few moments earlier. But at least with all that, you have this underlying feeling that these drivers know what they're doing.

In Atlanta, and indeed the south in general, somehow i'm not instilled with the same confidence. Example. The next time you drive on the highways here, notice all the skid marks. Now notice the roads are straight, not a curve in sight. There are very few cars on the road as compared to a NYC street any time of day. And the weather is rarely bad enough to warrant the skids and broken tire shards littering the highway.

What are these people doing?

Sigh.

I guess you can take me out of NY, put me on the beach, show me the beauty of Buffalo or the tastes of the south of France and Italy. I may be happy to have left the disjointed, moves-too-fast-to see life in NY, but a part of me will always be a New Yorker. A Brooklyn girl.

I'm kind of proud of that.