Y sigo pensando

A heartbreaking song from a movie of a book about love.

Airborne Nostalgia

{Penny Lane} After shoving my carry-on into the overhead bin, squeezing my Timbuk2 under the seat in front of me, letting the skinny, big-sweatshirted girl into the window seat next to me, making sure my seat belt was securely fastened, my seat back and tray table was in its upright and locked position, I popped in my earbuds and turned on Shuffle.  Of course, "Weary Memory" turned on and I was forced into airborne nostalgia.  I took a deep breath and closed my eyes to hide the tears.  When you fly west from New York to Wisconsin at night you chase the sun, so the sky stays periwinkle the whole time.  When you fly east from Wisconsin to New York you chase time, and an hour escapes your life, leaving no trace and leaving you an hour older without living it.  Why is it that airplanes make me so nostalgic?  It's always in this space between places I have been and will be soon that I think the clearest, that I feel closest to epiphany?  It must be the altitude, the thinness of the air, the hours that escape into passing infinity.

On this particular journey east, I thought about how there's an infinite number of things that one can learn if they just open their eyes and ears to their surroundings - especially when those surroundings are new, or out of the ordinary.  I learned that it costs almost a thousand dollars to stuff one deer head.  That the earth's water table has been dropping for the past few decades.  That a "45" means that the bullet inside the gun is 45 millimeters in diameter.  That if there is a motor on your boat, it must be registered, or the DNR will come at you like bats out of hell on a sleepy Sunday afternoon.  That everybody's happy in the fast-food restaurants of Antigo.  That deer ticks are the really bad Lyme-disease ticks and wood ticks aren't so bad but their abundance this time of year is bewildering.  That face cards have different personalities.  That my sister-in-law is an avid ATV extraordinaire.  That if knots in wooden ceilings are stared at long enough, they turn into animals.  That one way to unclog a pond is to throw a stick of dynamite in it.   That Robert Pattenson is actually of British descent.  That the unassuming, unyielding hospitality of a childhood friend is absolutely priceless.  That long walks in the drizzling, mid-western rain are worth it.  That I dish out platefuls of sarcasm, but can't take it.

Cupcaking in Williamsburg

There seems to be a general obsession for cupcakes in this town that I wasn't fully aware of until last night. It's like an underground clique, that only the true lovers of small cakes wrapped in paper are abreast to. I attended a Cupcake Contest at the Union Pool tavern, where white Christmas lights dangled above 60 different types of cupcakes, their creators, and quite a few mingling voters. Flavors ranged from chocolate-rum-coconut to PB&J to bacon-mashed potato. Voters paid a dollar for a ticket (some bought many tickets to support friends) and the proceeds went to a local soup kitchen in Williamsburg. Weaving through the hoards of white cardboard boxes full of deliciousness, I found my favorite: coconut carrot cake with, of course, cream cheese frosting. As voters taste tested and the sky grew darker, the din was raised a bit - not because of the amount of PBR in people's bellies, but rather the amount of sugar pumping through everyone's systems. Hysterics ensued. The winner (I was too sugar-high to remember what the flavor was) won one of those Kitchen-Aid electronic mixers in a big white box almost bigger than she. After the award ceremony, (which really was no more than a dude standing on a chair shouting the runners up and winner), the happily full voters came down from their sugar rush and, crashing, returned to their cozy apartments.

My New Girlfriend

In movies, when people move to New York, there always seems to be this magical montage of everything all at once - wheels splashing through puddles, cigarettes departing hardened lips, blurred colorful lights, tower after tower after statue after bridge after sweeping air shot of a certain park... I'm not saying these things aren't New York - they all are in their own, mass-individual way. New York is a great actress in thousands of movies: charismatic and sad, shiny and drab. You can't take your eyes off her. I had the feeling like I was meeting a famous movie star when I drove the U-Haul over the Verrazano Bridge on that foggy night in September- my heart beating fast and my words all a-jumble.

While she's still beautiful and surprising to me every day I live here, she's also showing me her other sides. Her drinking habits and her ugly bits. Her dirty past and the fact that she is physically and financially sinking, the weight of hundreds of buildings along with America's ever-present burdens on her shoulders. But just when I've had one too many pleas for food from dirty hands outstretched, one too many unbearable farts on the crowded subway, one too few friendly acknowledgements on the street, she up and surprises me with an incredible view from a different vantage point, a flirtatious smile on the bus, a $20 bill lying lonesome on the sidewalk in front of my apartment. Just when her dark corners seem to be as dark and frightening as they could possibly be, she lets the sunlight shine on angles off glass paneled skyscrapers at the right time of day and I'm blinded by her glamour, her serenity, her perfection...

When I see her on the big screen, I still get that giddy "look, there she is!" feeling welling up in my stomach.

Marching Bands of Manhattan

If I could open my arms

and span the length of the isle of Manhattan

I'd bring it to where you are

making a lake of the East River and Hudson

If I could open my mouth

wide enough for a marching band to march out

they would make your name sing

and bend through alleys and bounce off all the buildings

I wish we could open our eyes

to see in all directions at the same time

oh what a beautiful view

if you were never aware of what was around you

and it is true what you said

that I live like a hermit in my own head

but when the sun shines again

I'll pull the curtains and blinds to let the light in

Sorrow drips into your heart through a pinhole

just like a faucet that leaks and there is comfort in the sound

but while you debate half empty and half full

it slowly rises... your love is gonna drown

Your love is gonna drown

your love is gonna...

They Stood

My sister and her very significant other came to New York this weekend.  As the temperature rose and heated the concrete slabs of the city and warmed the chilled bricks of Brooklyn, the volume of tourists and locals alike followed suit.  EVERYBODY was outside this weekend.  Our shoulders blazing and quickly reddening, the three of us gave the Big Apple a good how's-your-father.  

The two lovebirds stood in my kitchen, touching the designed metal ceilings and rummaging around for snacks.  They stood at the fence at the promenade, overlooking the East River for a Friday night sunset and jumping through the long rays of light as my camera clicked.  They stood shooting darts at the board at Angry Wades, laughing with Antonio, the stinky Italian who repeated the undeniable fact that "Family is everything!"  They stood 80 feet above the East River, on a stroll across the Brooklyn Bridge, dodging bicyclists and water sellers.  They stood at my desk at Scholastic, smiling at the colors and chatting with the large stuffed Clifford.  They stood on the skywalk above Ground Zero, and talked with a fire fighter who showed them pictures of that fated day.  They stood on the "packed" subway, watching the crazies that I have long ago gotten used to.  They stood in Columbus Circle, snapping upward shots of Trump Tower and saying "no thanks" to the blaze-eyed rickshaw drivers.  They stood in the middle of Central Park, among about one million others.  They stood in front of the Dakota, where we quietly mourned the loss of a legend and learned that Yoko Ono still resides there!  They stood on Pier 17, adjusting their ISO's just right for the perfect picture of bright bridge lights against black sea and sky.  They stood in the middle of Times Square, their eyes eating the lights and colors, their noses catching every odd smell.  They stood at the top of the Times Square Mariott, toasting to the Bright Lights and the Big City.  They stood with arms around each other on the cobblestone streets near the Brooklyn Flea, and soaked in their last rays of New York sun at the Empire State Park.  

Soon, I hope, sometime in the future, they will stand, together, in front of all of us, sliding rings onto fingers and tossing bouquets into my waiting hands...

Neftali Reyes

It has just come to my attention that the most widely-read poet of the 20th century, Neftali Reyes, had a most difficult childhood.  Fascinated by nature, emotion, and humanity, the young boy was weak in the eyes of his father.  His father wanted him to be a doctor or a lawyer.  He made his son swim through massive waves in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Chile in order to strengthen his muscles.  He burned countless notebooks that his son spent hours filling in backyard bonfires.  He never approved of his son's passion.  Eventually, Neftali Reyes went to University and changed his name to Pablo Neruda so that his father would never be shamed by him, and would never know that he was actually writing, and would write, for the rest of his tremendous life.

...Let us look for secret things

somewhere in the world,

on the blue shores of silence,

or where the storm has passed,

rampaging like a train.

There the faint signs are left,

coins of time and water,

debris, celestial ash

and the irreplaceable rapture 

of sharing in the labour

of solitude and the sand...

~On the Blue Shores of Silence, Poems of the Sea~ Pablo Neruda