New York Thoughts

New York December 19 2009


 Reflection:

The US regions have their primal energetic rhythms. For me, "home," where I feel right in tune with the earth's energy, is definitely that little stretch of coast from New York eastward. Interestingly, my best friend in late childhood and early adolescence was a girl from the Bronx who spent her summers and school vacations with her grandparents a block away from my house in Padanaram. I visited her and her family in the Bronx a couple of times, and we had the GREATEST adventures together, roaming all over the city on the subways. I fell in love with New York when I was 10!

Those memories have come back during the last two trips I've made to New York, and I've realized how, between those childhood explorations (riding the subways -- all the lines -- from one end to the other, to see where they all went, for instance, or spending days at a time pretending to live at the Cloisters, or creating and acting out detective mystery adventures in the underground passages under Rockefeller Center and Penn Station...,) childhood family day trips to New York around holidays, trips to New York for evenings out during college years, and the time I spent there with Ellen (with whom I got acquainted with the Village for the first time), I got to know the city from the close-to-the-ground perspective one has as a child.

Going there now not only strums regional chords in my inner being, it resonates with memories from different periods in my life. Today, when Harry and I were in Penn Station, the sight of a remnant piece of the old original Pennsylvania Railroad brass stair railing, dusty and dilapidated, amid that totally rebuilt place, reached right back into those childhood memory stores -- Oh yeah, that belonged there -- instant recognition!

Apparently, adventurous older children in New York in the 1940s and 1950s did have the run of the city. Ellen told me about riding the subway to visit all the different museums, and how she spent days, one after the other, staying in a Japanese house that had been built in the Natural History Museum as an exhibit, pretending she lived in it. Another friend told me how, at the same time in his childhood, he would find the majestic ocean liners at their berths in Chelsea. On days when they held “open house,” he would go aboard, and pretend he was on an ocean trip, enjoying the liners’ luxury. Or he would go into the sumptuous hotels and stay quietly in the lobby, absorbing the feeling of luxury and privilege. He said if kids were quiet, they were just allowed to stay.

New York obviously captures the lively imaginations of children, as it also provides excitement and stimulation to adults of all ages. Even those who live in its more prosaic neighborhoods, where people are squashed into tiny walkup apartments, have access, via the buses and subways, to all its wealth of experience. So many wonderful adventures are available at very low or no cost – concerts at schools and churches, food from sidewalk vendors, magical store window displays, the skating rink and giant Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center, the great parks, with their trees, cafes, and open air events, the Farmer’s and holiday open air markets, Greek neighborhood diners, classes and groups at community centers. The city offers a profusion of sights and experiences to all who walk its sidewalks. Its scenes and its history seem larger than life – we feel as if we’ve climbed the beanstalk and landed in the giant’s house in the sky, with its magical inhabitants.

Since Ellen’s death, I’ve come to admire all the more her willingness to move across the country with me, to live in non-New York places. It’s interesting to speculate how things would have turned out had I, instead, moved to live with her in New York. I think I could have been persuaded to do that. She was ever the sophisticated, worldly-wise New Yorker, open to new people and new experiences, and she ended up missing New York dreadfully. We could not have moved back to her wonderful 13th Street neighborhood because of the dramatic price increases of apartments. And she didn’t want to settle for moving back to Brooklyn, where she had spent her youth and which we then could have afforded (this is true no longer!). So we didn’t move back.

I now understand more deeply the reasons for her New York nostalgia and her abiding love for her native city. I know that part of my enjoyment now of New York visits is that I find her echoes and footprints in the city places that she loved. My mind resonates to moments we shared there, and to stories that she told me. A part of her New York nature became a part of me as well.


Poem: Inner Child December 8 2009

Is there a hidden child in me,

Lighthearted, silly, ticklish?

A little one who giggles at a moment’s notice,

Stops in awe to contemplate a dandelion --

Perfect orb of snowy seeds in starlight,

Melts in tears with every sadness – feelings on the surface?


She gets up, smiles gamely, brushes off, and

Launches once again from every fall,

Eager for the world, the gift of life and love,

And every playful, fascinating moment.