The Neighborhood of Makebelieve

Side note: The Tea Lounge, where I have

blogged since I moved to Brooklyn, is closing

tomorrow. My heart hurts. I am now drinking my last

mango ceylon,

spending my last evening on this

squashy couch,

listening for the last time to Sigur Ros

among other low house melodies, while the rain quietly

falls.

This weekend, we pretended that our stomachs could stomach four courses and our sanity could be queued by endless refills of red and white. We pretended that our wallets split at the seams with Benjamins, and poured them into the wallet of Anthony Bourdain with shouts of pleasure. We pretended that Nina was Mary Poppins with her bottomless purse, and that cheese was a wise choice for dessert. We snuck through a drippy, dark alley and pretended time had rewound to the prohibition era, and spoke easily. There, we pretended our coffee mugs were full of coffee, that there were not bottles within our paper bags. A man thought we were pretending when we told him we were best friends, had grown up together, could answer any minuscule question about each other without skipping a beat. We pretended we could write, do 50 push-ups barefoot, and speak to South Carolinans with a perfect southern drawl. "And hand in hand ... we danced by the light of the moon." We pretended that kayaking would be the best form of here-to-there, that Meg and Tom were by our side, that our conversation would have no beginning or end. We made ourselves believe that the rain wasn't falling and boarded a boat to Governor's Island. In the Admiral's abandoned mansion, we pretended to be ghosthunters and pretended we weren't scared - until our goosebumps rose to their maximum levels and we thought for a moment there was no way out. The mist on the water made the Statue and Ellis and Manhattan dreamlike and figmentary. We pretended there was water in a grass-filled moat and child-witches hanging ribbons and DVDs from the branches of trees. We could not stop questioning reality. Finally, with another river crossed and our feet firmly planted in Cobble Hill, we were greeted by Improv Everywhere, amid thousands of passers-by, holding leashes led by pretend dogs. We said goodbye, pretending that Christmas [the next time we'd see each other], wasn't too far away.

One Year in New York

As of yesterday, I have officially lived in New York for the duration of one year. If I were to give a speech, as if given an Oscar of Survival or something of the like, I'd thank the following people/things:

Robbi Strandemo and a lopsided U-Haul. Bagels and cream cheese, the F train, and coffee. Joe Dietz and Jeni Kittleson, and serendipity. Phoebe Stein and her entourage, and the Onion. Emmanuelle Chiche, Jamie Welford, Landon, Anouk, Julien, Elsa, and crepes. Michael Mejias, Jennifer Kelaher, Maja Nikolic, and the cozy couches in Writer's House. Maggie and Whitney Draughon, and higher knowledge. Trader Joe's. Lindsay Quilling, Greylen Erlacher, and Bleecker Street. Chardonnay, pinot grigio, and Brooklyn Lager. Mark Steffke, Blitzen Trapper, and my iPhone. Kerry, Pat, Paul, Joanne, Colleen, and Teddy Mattingly; Gianni Georgi, and January Mattingly. Carrielee Loeffler, and boots (full of beer and feet). Dave Eggars, David Sedaris, Lorrie Moore, John Pipkin, Michael Scott and James Sawyer. My mom, my grandma, my aunt Kathleen, and whiteangelwings. Winter, snow, seasons. My incredible extended family: aunts who listen, uncles who support, cousins who high-five and eventually (Web Schelble) move here. Linda and Jason Steffke, good chats and Family Guy. Elena Santogade, Rachel Horowitz, Janelle DeLuise, Clifford the Big Red Dog, and Harry Potter. Missoula, Snow Bowl, and dangerous weaponry. Ashley Reinnecke, Boston, and Monsieur Bobby Ball. Bridget Schigoda, taxi cabs, and Wrigley gum. Nancy Anderson and the US Postal Service. The Decemberists! Iron & Wine! The Avett Brothers! My kitchen floor! Karin Skare and Lauren Buckowsky and inner-jazz. Italy, Ia Atterholm, Sol deSwaan, Akiko Media, Rockyung Lee, and Thananchai Pandey. Dr. Elizabeth Stein, and modern medicine. Tara Tierney, and New Balance shoes. Bridges, rivers, islands, people. Maureen Daly and shared pasts. Christine Holt, rooftops, tears, and indescribable cravings for everything. Nick Reiter and the Hi-Line. $20 bills. The Cobble Hill Cinema, the Tea Lounge, Court Street. Peter Nordby, Maine, love, and pain, and then close-distant contentment. Hannah Gaedtke, Caitlin Crary, and Edward Cullen. The Brooklyn Promenade. Lydia Kutko, Jessica Kim, and the Big Apple Badgers. The Dakota, and Yoko Ono. Sebastian Corby, an in-love best friend, a speak-easy and Chinese Children. David Van Ofwegen, James Kuypers, and the Comic Strip Live. Dewey Beach, Delaware, and the one and only Brian Poole. Mike and Dayan Ingui, and red and orange walls. Maren Monitello, Rebecca Shapiro, and Midwestern accents. Netflix, The New York Times, Smitten Kitchen, and Google (of course). Loneliness, happiness, livelihood, positive energy and my lungs. Marc and Kelly and my eclectic step-family. Email. Avocados. The Brooklyn Food-Co-op, and eucalyptus.

And last, but certainly not least: the future, which New York has already so generously given me.

District City

I was surprised by the capitol building - I had been reading Lorrie Moore's A Gate at the Stairs so my brain was in Madison mode. Spun backwards in time, possibly because this time of year I always get nostalgic for school, I was taken back to the long stretch of East Washington Ave., gazing down at Wisconsin's capitol building. For all I knew, I could have been on a street called East Washington. That was one of the first things I noticed about D.C. : lettered streets. Eli later told me that the letters run north and south, the numbers go east and west, and the state-named streets go diagonal.

"A trifecta grid," I deducted.
Eli looked at me and smiled, always charmingly agreeable. "Indeed."
I'm not sure how this fit into the trifecta grid, but on the outskirts heading downtown while I was still on the Megabus, I saw two signs notating criss-crossing streets: NEW YORK AVE. MONTANA ST. I smiled.

Upon arrival at their adorable apartment, Caitlin, Eli and I went out for a midnight walk to see those monuments I had heard so much about. We zig-zagged our way to the White House, which glared beautifully of it's name--but was significantly smaller than I'd imagined. We discussed whether or not presidents switch bed frames and mattresses when they move in...then stolled on, to the Washington Monument, a stately phallus encircled by quiet-flapping American Flags where we took pictures of our silhouettes against the white brick. Gazing approvingly at Abe, we decided that our eyes were larger than our feet, and it was 2:30 am. So we snagged a cab, ate some Whole Foods cereal, and called it a night.

Awake at my stiflingly normal Scholastic morning hour, I slid off the enormous blow-up bed and headed to the living room. There, I lounged with Stella, the cat who, with her deep eyes and stretching paws, silently convinced me that he was the reincarnation of Marshmallow. Running my fingers through her fur, I was taken back to some of Marshmallow's greatest adventures and his momentous life. My mother had rescued him from a crotchety, abusive man whom I've always pictured in my mind as the male version of Cruella DeVille. We received him and his Bigglesworth-esque being with Mattingly love: the sort with unmentioned intensity -- love in the way people love sunsets, fall leaves, and stars -- an appreciation that renders one wordless. Marshmallow was of a different realm, that we were sure of. He ate catnip and tripped like an 18-year-old Madisonite on mushrooms for the first time, escaped out the door to find adventure, returning with more knowledge of my yard than any of us had, along with about 17 burrs. We frequently gave him haircuts that made him look like he'd just been electrocuted, but his ugliness only made us love him more. He had a hold on us, perched on my dad's armchair-watching him watch TV, sprawled out on the end of my daybed in the late-afternoon light, asleep under the tree on December 25, peaceful as the snow piling up outside.

Eli woke me from my reverie with Stella, instructing me to shower up, bagel up, and get out there! After a stroll through Georgetown, which reminded me of a combination of Cambridge, MA, and Newport, ME, Caitlin and I took our D&D coffees to the docks. We laughed at our spontaneity, strapped on our sea legs and boarded a kayak on the Potomac River - ignoring the ambulance which had just rushed off with a man on a stretcher who had just capsized in his kayak. Battling imaginary sharks, non-imaginary currents, and flimsy biceps, we made our way down to the backyard of the Lincoln Memorial, where we snapped photos and giddily talked about boys.

Back on shore, we relived our time in London and Madison (something we do quite frequently,) and licked our fingers clean of Potbelly and memories. We grew somber at the Vietnam War Memorial, the World War II fountain, and the oversized Abe, who seemed watchful to see if Jenny might run through the reflection pool, her long blond hair blowing in the wind.

Haggard and headed home, we decided to have a looksee at the landscape of the White House backyard, where we looked on as Sasha and Malia Obama skipped around on the grass with the innocence that only a Saturday afternoon in Eden might exude. They threw a tennis ball for Beau to fetch and my goosebumps got the best of me. To be them, wow. And I thought my dad was cool.

On the $8 bus ride home, my eyes lulled closed to Damien Rice, my nose tried to ignore the wellrank odor of other passengers' take-out, and my mouth gaped open as it always does on sleepy rides home. My brain remained vibrant, though, with dreams of Ninja Turtles, crazy foxes, and the Watergate Scandal.

Shoreline Saunter, West

DAY 1:

A car alarm went off at 9:27.  I opened my eyes halfway, then closed them again, remembering that it was Saturday.  My head was throbbing with the intensity of 4 bottles of white wine, although it had only been one.  I'd had plans to start this day early, fresh, with a clear head and determined feet.  I sat up, looked down at my bare feet, and saw the two matching blisters that had formed from wearing heels yesterday.  I never wear heels!  What was I thinking, wearing foot-ruining fake fanciness the day before I planned to walk the perimeter of Manhattan?  After thorough consideration of the irony of the notion of beginning a day which would inevitably end with blistered feet, with blistered feet, I laughed aloud and went to the bathroom to throw up.  After chugging water throughout an entire episode of Sex and the City, I stretched.  After eating oatmeal and a banana, I loaded my camera with new batteries, only to find it still malfunctioning.  Settling with the fact that all of my photos would have to be taken with my phone, I tossed it into my bag, strapped on my New Balances, and hopped on the 4 train to Bowling Green.  

Following suit of others who have taken this journey, I began at the southern tip. In Battery Park, the nose-picking tourists waited in long lines to travel over-charted waters to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, smiley Marines passing out American flags, and overstuffed seagulls flew around with the smell of roasting nuts.  I began to count languages, but after 23 I stopped keeping track.

In Wagner Park (of Battery Park City), I found sunbathers, hydrangeas and enormous willows, slow pace and slow peace: a pretend reality.  Nelson A. Rockefeller Park housed pool tables, swings, loud-fighting basketballers, shuffleboard, a much welcomed bubbler, and a kid who almost whapped me with a baseball bat.

 

At the World Trade Center site, I gave two foreigners directions to the crosswalk.  "The World Trade Center had this fascinating opacity: two steel-gray slabs stopping thought." -Phillip Lopate.  Their absence stops thought too.

Hudson River Park is so huge that it must be broken into Piers. [Pier 40] Chewing a PB & J, I listened to two men wax poetic about Venezuela, slapped "free kayaking" onto the to-do list, and witnessed a man meditating with an extremely hairy back. [Pier 45] A man swiftly roller-bladed past playing Once in a Lifetime by the Talking Heads from a boom box on his shoulder, and a long marble wall boasted: "I can sail without wind, row without oars, but I cannot part with a friend without tears."  [Chelsea Piers] A driving range with an actual clubhouse, a golfer looking directly at my chest for more than long enough, and a condom wrapper stuffed into a chain-link fence.  Note: this is where the humming started. Over the Top of Manhattan Helicopter Tours, at only $272 per person--the name speaks for my feelings about it. [Pier 81] New York City Ducks (I thought those only existed in The Dells!) playing old show tunes, I watched as the riders boredly licked their Popsicles and staring westward, probably toward home.  [Pier 86] At The Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum, I purchased a Cherry Garcia Ice Cream bar, which dripped down my leg because I was busy staring at my NFT. [Pier 96] Norah Jones on a bike (maybe!), more willows, a birthday party, an enormous bottle, possibly for messages... 

DAY 2:

I opened my eyes yet again, at 9:27, which I took to be a good sign.  I had given myself a day to recover, stretch out my shins and the arches of my feet, and drink copious amounts of orange tea and water.  I would close the gaps of the West Side of Manhattan, today.  Figuring I wouldn't want to be dipping my toes into the Harlem River and snapping photos of the Bronx across it at the end of the day, I decided to take the A train all the way up to the start, thus coming down the West Side along the Hudson and closing this notebook where I'd stopped the other day.  I ate two packets of oatmeal and a banana and listened to a Savage Love podcast, grabbed a coffee and hopped onto the train, feeling exponentially better than I had on my way to Battery Park.  Delighted that the A goes express between 59th and 125th, I dazed out in an upward motion until my stop at 207th street, the last stop and northernmost in Manhattan.  

Under the Broadway Bridge, large tour boats disturbed the peaceful, brown Harlem River, and a Target was the only interruption in the otherwise project-ridden landscape.  I stopped for a bathroom break at the Dunkin Donuts, where the light turned out on me mid-stream.  My mood erased it immediately.

In Inwood Hill Park, the best analogy I can make to the tippy top of Manhattan in this Eden-esque park is to [for those who are familiar] the Camin's property.  I wanted to bottle the air so I could huff it while crossing Houston Street every morning on the way to work.  I counted 6 different baseball games - the ting of baseball hitting bat was about as regular as the cry of a gull.  A haven that is watched over by the blue-gray grandfatherly Henry Hudson Bridge.

As the trees opened up into river and air, I realized that I was at the bottom of Inwood Hill Park.  A chain link fence opened up into a straight, narrow gravel path which was flanked by two not-so-friendly looking chaps, but I was determined to stay on the shoreline, so I ducked between them.  Along the path, within gravel, shore, dirt, and oak, a group of Jamaican men quietly puffed joints and played poker.  My favorite noise (gravel under tennis shoe) crunched beneath me for nearly a half-mile when a biker passed and shouted "It's a dead end with naked men, you know - I'd turn around if I were you!"  I thanked him and did a 180, imagining that these likely weren't the types of naked men I'd be alright with gazing at.

Then, in The Cloisters, in the very place where I had last seen them, walked Kelly and Mark, on their way to lunch.  It's been a while since Serendipity's webs have surprised me, and I was happy to seem them and offer them a sweaty hug.  They'll be married in 3 weeks, where Pat, dad and I plan to join them in getting down on a dance floor overlooking the Manhattan skyline.

At Riverside Park, the Little Red Lighthouse pointed skyward at the ugly underbelly of the George Washington Bridge, which reminded me of the inside of the whale in Pinocchio.  I noted 3 men swimming and smiled at the thought that, maybe Kramer wasn't that crazy after all!  Then I watched a group of Latin American men playing volleyball and calling each other ese.  All at once I was surrounded by the smell of jet ski exhaust mingling with sweet, burning charcoal, and I realized that although I wasn't with my family this Labor Day, I was with 700 Latin American families and that was okay.  Feeling like a minority brought me back to my travelling days, and those memories alone took up my thoughts for at least the next mile.  My reverie was interrupted only when a man selling pineapple in a bag asked me if I was Russian.

At the 91st Street Garden, where Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks finally meet at the end of "You've Got Mail," I saw the baby blue Columbia Cross Country team stretching.  At this point, my brain melted, I removed my jaw from the cement, and I don't remember what happened in the next 10 blocks.

I will always remember, though, the sensation I got when I saw the Pier I Cafe, where I had ended my first leg.  I'd made it.  Happiness flooded my every molecule.  And now, as I sit on the floor of the 72nd Street C station, (yes, the floor - that's how much my dogs are barking), I can breathe in, tuck my sweaty hair behind my ears, and listen for the train that will take me home. 

 

** For the entirety of photos taken on this trek, please visit http://picasaweb.google.com/lcmattingly/ShorelineSaunterWEST#

Next up in a few weeks: EAST.