Sunday Memories: In The Happy Cacophony Of A Visit...

Thirty-six years later,  conversation still bubbled forth, not one corner of the universe that didn't invite colliding curiosity.   So, like explorers launching into uncharted territories, we launched into ideas and thoughts, experiences and questions.

Yet, out of nowhere... it wasn't a constellation.  It was more like billions of threads weaving together a tapestry from long ago, and in between words and private thoughts those days reappeared.  Our conversation was the only thing we had left of the L&M diner on the corner of 10th and Second...

...the one where they took their then itty-bitty daughter every Sunday, so much so that when her aunt took her once, the daughter knew exactly what and how to order...

...the one where I, with a 17 year old's knowledge of cooking and the sudden care of an adult life, new to this apartment, that painting on that wall then, retreated daily to the diner's counter and ordered lunch and then again later in the day dinner specials, asking for family and home served in a plate and watching the owner and cook's strong burly arms place food down before me, his faded blue number tattoo dancing before me as we both sought solace.

A Slight Summer Fun Delay of Sunday Memories

Due to a lovely night filled with memories, Sunday Memories will be posted a bit late on Sunday.


Meanwhile, enjoy the new summer look of Jupiter. 

Some say poodle, but we say lion.

Elisabeth's World

It may be a different vista than the one Andrew Wyeth's Christina looked upon.

But Elisabeth's gaze, looking back or looking forward, is the same.  A uncertain wonderment at a landscape that could become many things.

Will the hotel buy the building or will the lease be renewed?  Will the block stay a working block of mom and pops or become another obituary in a vanishing New York? Will the studio survive or will it become another casualty to the diaspora of artists leaving for kinder land?

Will, for just a little bit longer, this stairway still lead us with uncertain wonderment to a landscape that could become many things?

Unconditional Love. Unconditional Everything.

This guy I once dated said libraries were for poor people.  I should have broken up with him then, but fear of loneliness can make one quite stupid.  If only I had gone then to the library and taken out books on self-esteem....

The library was where Florence took us instead of synagogue or church.  It was as cherished as Town Hall or Carnegie.  It was as sacred as the Met Museum.  It was as intimate as home.  

The library was a haven from chaos and a secret passageway to knowing stuff stupid people didn't want us to know.  I learned about where babies came from and where Nazis went to (not on the same day, though).  I listened to music I had to hear but couldn't afford.  And each time I took out a book, I felt like it was Christmas, Chanukah and my birthday all rolled up in one.  I still feel that way.

These days trundling down to my neighborhood library or the one uptown, I see the 95 year old former Rocket still doing high kicks to the check-out guys and then scooping up her weekly stash of books. 

I see neighbors from next door and from down the street picking up movies for the weekend. 

I see tons of babies and little kids bursting like fireworks because they are headed into story-hour.

I see people who can't afford laptops have access to the world. 

I see the elderly have company and a place to go to read the day's paper. 

And when I can't bear another wall to my own words, I see a quiet, safe space where I can keep writing.

I see my city, my life and my home.

The library has made sure democracy is for all of us, not just those who can afford an education, a laptop, or literacy.  And yet, a proposed $43 million budget cut is being introduced that would decimate what is already a beleaguered institution.

Click here and fight back. Fight back against stupidity and short-sightedness.  Click here and fight for a world where, no matter how much you have in your pocket, you are entitled to knowledge.

Sunday Memories: The Arrival of Summer From Sears & Roebuck's

I really couldn't tell time for... well ...  like a really long time.  

So, to marked the passing of what I couldn't read, I did like plants do or what my cat does now -- by time, by light, by sound, by wind and, in my case, by the leaves on the trees in Sheriff Park.

As the trees got greener and the smells in the air weren't of radiators and cold, wet wool, I knew, just knew there would be a knock on the door and our version of Santa Claus, the United States Postal Delivery Man would appear with the holy grail of wonderfulness - a Sears & Roebuck box.

And without fail, at the very last possible second of the very last possible day that demanded I wear a sweater and my sturdy, once-a-year oxfords from Kaplan's on Clinton Street, that knock would come.

Behold. Summer and my Sneakers had arrived.


***
Additional postings:

Florence's sneakers walk the talk


Home and the love between Jupiter and Rags (r.i.p)

Another Visit From Another Her New York

Ilona

The Face Beneath The Hat

By Chelsea Dreher

Before an unhappy marriage

Before a baby and two lost

Before a holocaust that would

Erase all hope

Ilona had possibilities.

New York had 34th Street

Ilona had her studio 

Forgotten places

Misplaced people

Tragedy in faded photos

An old woman

Wrapped in a blanket

Holds a piece of cardboard

"Heartbreak-Please Give"

***

Ilona came to New York from Hungary in the late twenties.  As soon as she saw the city from the boat, she wanted to go back to the vineyards and mountains.  She lived in Harlem with her brother, Herman and made paper flowers on the Lower East Side for $4 a week.  This led to a career as a designer with a business card. Heady stuff for an immigrant single lady.  Famous hat makers used her handmade flowers on hats and gowns. She was my mother. 

She married, gave up her 34th Street studio and had me. Our little family moved to the Bronx where there were parks.   I moved to the Village when I was seventeen.

-- Chelsea Dreher

Rain Encore: ... and Dancing in the Rain

Originally posted Thursday, July 30, 2009

 
It wasn't that I had forgotten.  It's just that I hadn't had to remember. But there she was, a little girl jumping and giggling and running and shouting in Wednesday's downpour.

When I was young and it poured humongous cats and dogs, Florence would send me out in maybe rain boots, maybe sneakers to play in the storm.  I'd race around the empty courtchyard and jump and dance and skip and stick my face up into thunder and wind.

As of her decline deepened, the months and months and months turned into years and years, and to pass the time we would watch Singing In The Rain over and over and over again.  The blessing of dementia allowed it to be an exciting revisit, one she didn't realize had just happened the week before.

Today, quickly snapping a picture as I futilely raced against getting soaked and miserably wet, I wondered if her quirky idea of playtime came from that passionate dance Gene Kelly did when he realized he was in love.