Part Five: A View From A Kitchen

A View From A Kitchen is a series on what meets our eye when we look up from our dirty dishes or half-full coffee cup.



Cowboylands

I don't often sit at my kitchen window in the morning with my coffee--if I'm imbibing caffeine I'm either writing, working at the latest editing gig, or catching up with My Private Coney and other blogs. What I will do is when stuck on a scene, or tired from squinting at commas, I walk restlessly through my apartment, and I will stand at my kitchen window and look out, catching the drift of the clouds, the look of the newest green shoots on the garden below, the cheery red-headed whatever-they-are birds at the feeder on the fire escape. It's my way to leave my body and get some peace. To fugeddabout myself.

Seeing sky is crucial for me--just as I feel closed in by something, panicked or unhappy, a scan of clouds or blue blueness or the distant Empire State Building keeps me, well, nicer. Note the new fucking condo to the left, which cut into my sky. MY sky! Anyway, at least it's a light color. If I squint my eyes, it looks like a desert bluff.

The growing garden below. I pretend to be God and make flowers and plants grow where I want them. There's a stray cat down there sleeping because he has sex nightly. Go forth and multiply, saith the Lord.

The birds also cheer me up--some kind of sparrow that's scrappy but melodious, with a bright red head that becomes almost fluorescent red in the summer. Writing, a compulsion, can be dismal or incandescent, but it's solitary. These birds remind me there are beings who exist, happily, to eat, drink, and fornicate. Amen.

Part Four: A View From A Kitchen

A View From A Kitchen is a series on what meets our eye when we look up from our dirty dishes or half-full coffee cup.



Smoke and Gaslight

I like to call it the mystery window. The cut of my apartment house limits the full view so I can only get partial views of people coming and going. It actually helps with the imagination. A quick glimpse of a sleeve or an echo of a voice can tell me which of my neighbors are walking out on their way to who knows where. Or if I see the rake of my neighbor propped against the opposite wall, I know that spring is here and she is about to replant the garden with a skill and mastery perfected over 50 years that I could never get right. Kids running a hundred miles an hour as they race to the center of the courtyard bounce by as I sit at my kitchen table.

One of my first memories moving into my home was of the bright stream of sunshine that starts as a peek through the blinds in the early morning, gradually growing till it spills into my living room. Light in other parts of my home doesn’t radiate that way. And it is a welcome start to the day as I race out to whatever surprises await me once I open my door.

Sunday Memories: Part Three: A View From A Kitchen

A View From A Kitchen is a series on what meets our eye when we look up from our dirty dishes or half-full coffee cup.


Florence

What possessed me at 9 or 12 to snap square pictures of our home?

But a brief moment and quick snap of a mundane occurrence now remembers how Florence practiced her cello in the kitchen by the old radiator in front of the view that looked out on tougher projects and the playground under the old bridge.

Part Two: A View From A Kitchen

A View From A Kitchen is a series on what meets our eye when we look up from our dirty dishes or half-full coffee cup.



City Of Strangers

The kitchen itself is amazing, but the view is not.

Part One: A View From A Kitchen

A View From A Kitchen is a series on what meets our eye when we look up from our dirty dishes or half-full coffee cup.


JANE

I've looked out my windows for eleven years and watched piece after piece fall from the solar frame. Some hung on by rust alone but withstood a guy with a metal saw who tried for a day to cut them down. The buildings behind and to the left of the panels have grown by two illegal floors, one shut down and leaving hanging streamers of blue tape and open windows, the other legally required to demolish but still renting unimpeded.

The tragedy is that the flock of pigeons no longer wheel and swoop in to roost on the cross-bars, too many predators in the sky. One day last summer there were an unbelievable five hawks circling above, barely visible.

When that structure comes down I may have to leave, it's the last abstraction in my view.

Sunday Memories: All Roads Lead To...

A rare destination, once in a while my father would shepherd us over for one small piece of a cannoli.

The pastry is still utterly exquisite and now I can go as often as I want.


Caffe Roma Pastry‎
385 Broome Street
New York, NY 10013-3961
(212) 226-8413‎

Sunday In The Park With Springtime

The kids fed the pigeons.


We fed ourselves.


The daphadils attempted surival


And while the men gambled below, yet another fight scene for yet another student film got rehearsed.

It Was Our New York

All four of us from different corners. Still, even if the streets barely look the same anymore, the feeling of returning home to landsmannes words pouring out most of them 'fuck' and crossing wherever we want against the light at Olympic paced charges that were barely a stroll in our childhood neighborhoods.

Sunday Memories: A Cup Full Of No Memory

It's not the cup reminding me of the home I thought I was going to share with a promise of marriage.

It's not the cup reminding me Florence never went beyond Grand Street with her dreams.

It's not the cup reminding me of my own diaspora.

It's not the the cup reminding me of the shot in the dark at the possibility of new.

It's a new cup with a cartoon character I rarely saw as a kid who lived in a neighborhood I've never been to and all it reminds me of is a wonderful friendship that always opens up into doubled over laughing so hard while stumbling through the hell of words often referred to as the Joy of Writing.

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: MY PRIVATE CONEY / HER NEW YORK ON THE BLOG INTERVIEWER

Mike Thomas, of The Blog Interviewer was kind enough to invite MY PRIVATE CONEY PRESENTS IT WAS HER NEW YORK to answer questions about the blog and about blogging in general.

Thank you, Mike!

Luke Wouldn't Have Been Invited To The Tea Party But He Would Have Been Welcomed Here

On a rainy, cold Sunday afternoon in Williamsburg, strangers trundled down a staircase to the Sandbox's very comfortable basement, and ate mint jelly candies and unsalted popcorn while sitting patiently through technical difficulties. It was worth it. Because for a couple of hours we all felt hope for our country.

Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.



Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man.



But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.



Capitalism: A Love Story

Hope Springs Eternal

There are new eyes looking out of Florence's windows. I mentioned that when I was a kid, the trees in the park below always let me know when Spring was coming. The tenant wrote back that she knew Spring was coming by how many more people were walking across the bridge. Oh, have times changed. When we all lived there, no one walked across that bridge.

The trees outside the windows I have lived in for the past 34 years never really tell me anything until it's summer and much too late to get excited. So the heralding of Spring has instead become that roller coaster of volatile weather - hot! cold! warm! cold again!

A chilly walk on 103rd Street the other day changed all that when I saw something I hadn't seen since I was a kid.

Flowers. At least what passed for flowers on the Lower East Side. Spring.

Sunday Memories: Zing Zing Zing Went My Heartstrings

This was before video games. This was before the internet. This was even before James T. Kirk appeared in the horizon on the Starship Enterprise.

And since we didn't have a television, excitement had to be found where ever we could find it and what better place than public transportation. The subway had that front car window, as good as any Coney Island ride. But if you were on a bus, you had both the window and the chance to pull the bell. A ride with sound effects! Couldn't be beat.

Then somewhere along the line they modernized the buses and those long cords begging to be yanked so the bells pealed like a Sunday church disappeared. Now most buses had subtle strips that only rang on the first request, thus sparing the bus driver from going batty from constant dinging all day.

And then today in the middle of a lovely meandering down Fifth Avenue on the M5, I looked up from my window seat only to see a cord. With a little sign:

Pull
Cord
To
Signal
For
Stop

The Primary Reason We Are A Democracy

"Most people don't vote in the primary," the young candidate observed. "Candidates win with only a small group of people voting."

And yet in a crowded room filled with a medly of New Yorkers, plans were made to change all that, person to person, word to word, handshake to handshake.











previous posts on Reshma Saujani: Stepping out and Then Stepping Into

Reshma Saujani
http://www.reshma2010.com/

Poetry In Motion Without Getting On The Train

Her poem 'nocturne' adorns my door, confronting me every morning before I leap from my safety into the world outside to give up my bullshit and attempt the integrity Florence died in vain for.


nocturne

only in the greatest need of peace
will you be able to resist
those whose motives lack beauty

our island is punished by winter:
beneath the snowfall we linger, our tongues buried in silence

There's a kind of suffering that requires a stage,
a play,
a monotonous soliloquy
about extravagant vices;
finally in act five, scene one
Truth enters disguised as Manipulation

in the absence of contentment
this world can not continue
and the end will not be
some great crash
(or some great class)
but a mute isolation of spirit

to heal ourselves
we will repair another's wounds

slumber in darkness
until a dream opens
your eyes
your bed was covered with shame once
but now it is quilted
with a passion for empathy

- Susan Scutti
octoberbabies.wordpress.com

Sunday Memories: Ode to Food - Part 2

I didn't know where Florence kept the sugar in our house. And there certainly wasn't any honey. She had been once again ahead of her time, and during the golden era of sugar, fat, and pre-packaged everything we were forced to eat fruit and vegetables and other G-d awful healthy food. Soda and any kind of cake was relegated to Friday night at Gramma Sophie's house in Knickerbocker Village.

But with all my sneaking into friends' homes and oogling the forbidden fruit in their cupboards or at their tables, I fell in love with that little honey bear. It was a toy, it was a bear, it was sweet. It was all the things I yearned for rolled up in one.

Even now, I'd rather have that bear than a pot of organic honey made by bees who each had their own name.

Ode To Food

Before it arrived, Florence shopped at the Essex Street Market until it was impossible to do so. Then she switched over to the Fruit Man, Chinatown and the expensive organic place, Commodies but only for the olive oil. Her fridge was filled with pots of healthy salt-free food she hated eating.

I didn't shop at all. My fridge was filled with order-up cartons and very little food resembed anything close to how it started out in this world .

Then Trader Joe's opened. A weekly offering of organic bananas to Florence began along with other exciting little things that for a while made food exciting to her again.

And soon after that I was figuring out how to heat things up without burning down the building and trying out different spreads and sauces on semi-burnt food.

These days, there's rarely any take-out containers in my fridge and most of the food looks like how it arrived on this earth.

And there's always organic bananas.

Class Trip

The teachers were snapping pictures. The firefighters were snapping pictures. Passer-byers were snapping pictures. And the kids just grinned and grinned and grinned.

I thought as I walked away their class trip was way better than the one we took in first grade to the police station on Delancey and Clinton. There they showed us the cells and gave us stern warnings.

Sunday Memories: Flotsum and Jetsom

It was one thing for Florence to throw out two shopping bags filled with the letters of the woman who had loved her for four decades, or for me and Adrian to chuck into a private garbage truck two huge boxes of shoes and tapes and baby pictures and books left after an ignoble departure by my then-boyfriend.

These banishings offered an illusion that the time it took to heal was somehow faster and lighter.

But what never quite got thrown out were all those other things collected when part of a duo.

* How a good cup of coffee is made.

* Why Frebreze is bad.

* Who's in 'Who's Who's In America'.

* What is needed to shoot a documentary in Uranium City. In winter.

These virtual knick-knacks faded into the background until something, an errant comment or mundane moment illuminated the clutter from past relationships.

At the end, Florence couldn't remember who that woman was. The name meant nothing. But in a desperate attempt to be there for her and with her, the woman sent a little guitar keychain that played little electronic songs until the battery died. At that point Florence just strummed and soon after that, just clutched it, along with the keys to a home she no longer understood.

The insistence that art no matter what must live once again thwarts the belief that Theater Is Dead.



Because if a quiet lonely empty big bar on a Saturday afternoons doesn't call for someone to put a play on in it, then I don't know what does.

Visit the Dramatic Question Theater's facebook page to find out more about their Bar Series.

Stepping Out And Then Stepping Into

Other than the rare night when the world suddenly changed, recent news and politics and idealism lived in wireless waves. Perhaps it was my electronic version of Florence's life long love affair with the New York Times, but I sought information alone in front of a variety of screens.

Not sure how this happened, but several phone calls by young, earnest sounding people urged me out of my home and into an apartment on St. Marks place to meet a candidate running for something or other.

I couldn't catch the name and honestly didn't care but the adventure of seeing a stranger's apartment was tempting. Of course it also didn't stop me from considering that I might be walking into a dangerous situation so wearing boots I could fight or run in I headed out with just I.D. on me. Old school habits die slow.

There in a new building that piped Michael Jackson in the elevator, in an apartment with no windows because it was sub-subterranean (and I hope discounted heavily in the rent), a young woman in a fierce black but tailored pants suit told a small group of residents that she was running for Congress and wanted our support.

Reshima Saujani either answered questions bursting with concern (the younger ones) or listened to criticism tinged with nostalgia for the days when demonstrating meant something (the older ones). I offered condolences.

But win, lose or draw, to step out of one's comfort zone and into the fray - be it a stranger's apartment, love or politics - requires strength and courage. And for that, gratitude and thanks for leadership by example is offered.

http://www.reshma2010.com/

Sunday Memories: Two! Two! Two Memories In One!

When terribly young there was Dana as a beacon.

And when life required strength there was Veselka's Ukrainian Borscht.

How lucky I am that these days I have both.


***

Dana's profile and other short pieces are:

Tuesday, March 24, 2009
"If I Bring Forth What Is Inside Me, What I Bring Forth Will Save Me"

Tuesday, May 19, 2009
"One Day I Wrote A Sentence"

Thursday, June 25, 2009
GUEST ARTIST: DANA - The Sad Little Crone

THURSDAY, AUGUST 13, 2009
GUEST ARTIST: DANA - Wisdom of the Ages

On A Clear Day You Can See Forever

Perhaps walking down the street or sitting in a diner no one would think we all had great plans and important dreams. After all, all four of us are over 50. We were supposed to have accomplished everything already or given up and been content with what we had.

But that's utter bullshit and stepping out of two hours of committed work to continue our dreams the possibilities were endless.

"She's A Native New Yorker"

Yuki's bag

We literally met on international ground.

Even though she was being just as polite as everyone else, there was something about her that felt very familiar. I, on the other hand, was not just a fish out of water.I was a big fish out of water and a bull in a teeny tiny china shop - pick two - and it was all I could do to sit still and keep my mouth shut so I wouldn't get fired on my first day of work.

But rushing down a sweeping corridor filled with priceless art and important people, out of nowhere she said, "Have you noticed everyone here is so fucking polite?!"

To which all I could say in a flood of relief was, "Oh Thank God. You're a fucking New Yorker!"

Sunday Memories: Neither Snow nor Rain nor Heat nor Gloom of Night ...Until Suddenly...

None of us really understood that things were changing for Florence.   She seemed as she always had been.

Teaching cooking walking arguing fuming eating investigating practicing devouring life intrepidly…sallying forth into the world as the force of nature that she was.

The rare cracks were easy to ignore.  More often than not they looked like the mishaps and mistakes we all make.

Until suddenly…

This was the first crack I wanted to ignore.

On the corner of 6th Street and Avenue A.  Heading home after teaching a piano student.  Between her and the curb a pile of snow dumped high from the recent storm.

Suddenly she couldn't traverse it. Suddenly she didn't know what to do.

Suddenly she was old.

And then suddenly some young men came up behind her, picked her up, carried her over the mound and gently placed her on solid sidewalk before vanishing into the crowd.

Telling me this on the phone after, she laughed and laughed and laughed about it because the joy of that sudden flight erased the sudden reality she could not longer climb her own mountains.

In The Still Of The Night

"Welcome to my place...."

Just like those long ago days when Florence brought in a crowd to her living room to try new things test old work play just play because it was all that matter...

...here in a walk-up apartment on the upper West Side, chairs were put out...



...food was devoured



...neighbors, friends, strangers gathered...



...and the host welcomed us to a night of music.



Then the singer began to sing...



...all those songs Florence listened to during dissolving afternoons and that very last night.

For a brief moment I was home. Back in Her New York.

Sunday Memories: Stairway to Heaven

This was the stairway to friends' homes. This was the stairway to where art was attempted. This was the stairway to normal get-togethers. This was the stairways to places that sold what we needed to buy to accomplish what we were attempting to accomplish. This was the stairway to what we all struggled to accomplish. This was the stairway that was normal to climb to wherever we were going.

In Search Of Great Hotels

City Of Strangers returned to Hotel 17 and those days of home and haven that had a texture now rarely found in most neighborhoods.

Several weeks ago, walking back from a job I never thought I'd excel at, I saw where I had once hoped to live.

It was called the Pioneer. It didn't look this good then.

My father bought a car when we were teenagers so he could keep his job which had been transfered to Long Island, a place people moved to but didn't work in.

Occassionally we used the car for family outings which produced as much dread as staying home. As the car would bump across Broome Street toward some portal out of Manhattan I'd stare at the Pioneer Hotel sign wondering if I could run away there. Close enough to home that I could escape to the hotel by foot but offering a promise of my own portal out of one place and into hope.

Thank You East Village Corner!

Because of a barrage of spammers I created moderator approval on all comments. I still received comments but made sure they weren't offering to do different things to different body parts I didn't have.

I'm not sure how, but within the last week or so "post a comment" was removed entirely. Melanie of East Village Corner pointed this out to me which explained the total silence and did relieved me a bit of the fear I had grown stale and boring. Perhaps there might be some truth in that, but the lack of comments was due to a technical glitch.

I've corrected this so please feel free to comment, say hello, muse, reminisce, or say nothing at all. And I shall go back to worrying about everything I write and do.

Times Square On Valentine's Day

Everyone was snapping pictures.









Trying, like me, to capture smoke in their hands.

Sunday Memories: The Hand That Fed

Thirty years ago I met Morgan. She wasn't from New York but she moved through my city as its eyes, a witness to its private corners and secret worlds and painful revolution that soon became joyous mainstream. Her hands danced a ballet with her cameras and when decades later I got up enough nerve to pick up a camera my hands danced as hers did. After all, her hands had, for a long long time, been the only role models I ever had.