SUNDAYS IN NEW YORK

We moved to New York City together in the summer of my nineteenth year, madly in love with the city, and each other. Driving into the city for the first time, it was rush hour and there was an ambulance trying to get through the traffic. Everything was moving and nothing was moving. The beauty and pulse of life were everywhere I looked; the buildings, the people, the sky ... your eyes. I believed in forever, and always and never.

 As we etched ourselves into the daily life of Manhattan we created ritual after ritual, giving it all such meaning and importance that every moment was full.

 Wednesday night was pizza (I think Pizza Guy had the biggest grin of anyone I've ever known, don't you?) and videos. Saturday afternoons we took long walks through the city, up into the park, and back home again. At which point it was time for Chinese food, followed by a movie.Can you believe the dedication with which we sustained this? It was like church; "if it's Saturday night we must see a movie",oh God how that could make us giggle. Sunday was grocery day.

 Sundays. It didn't matter what else tried to come up, or what the weather was, or how our health was. It was the day of our weekly trip to the grocery store. Afterward we lazed around the apartment, we didn't go out or have people over. We didn't clean or run errands. Eventually you would cook an amazing dinner. Are days ever that long anymore?

 Our neighborhood was really a neighborhood. Life on the streets of Hell's Kitchen had a charm about it all that I found irresistible. People knew each other, at least by sight if not by name. We had our own names for everyone who we hadn't ever gotten their real ones from...what do you suppose they called us? It seemed like just looking at people could tell you their lives and we read it all like an open book. In less than a year I felt that this place had always been my home.

 Spring in New York is incredible. April is an amazing Phoenix rising from the ashes of February and March; after eons of cold gray slush, biting winds and short days in which you wonder what the sun looked like, suddenly there are buds on the trees and bright blue skies and flowers starting to bloom. The jackets begin to dwindle and there are more people than ever coming out into the world of the city; walking everywhere, window shopping, enjoying the street musicians, people watching and when at home - sitting on their front stoops soaking up life.

 It was on just such a spring day,on our way to the grocery store one Sunday, that we noticed those three men sitting on that stoop.

 My memory of those days is so full of sight, sound and smell....the block our grocery store was on was so classic New York. We walked on the side that the high rises were on and looked across at the row of brownstones, while breathing in the scent of apple pie from that bakery....was there ever a day when we didn't want to splurge and buy one of their pies?

 Anyway, there they were one Sunday, sitting on the steps of one of the brownstones and quietly enjoying the day. I don't remember thinking much of it at first, just a few men sitting together - not even talking - simply being there.

 After that they were there every Sunday. There was no real difference. Oh, as spring wore on their windbreakers came off, and when it rained I didn't remember to look for them. I wouldn't expect them to have been out there, would you? But otherwise they were always there.

 Soon we had names for them, and we were convinced that we knew their lives inside and out. they became a part of our Sundays. A part of us.

  I think it was June before we broadened our horizons and noticed they were next door to Sanders Funeral home. There was nothing about this place that screamed funeral home. It was just another brownstone on the street, so we simply hadn't noticed.

 At first it started as a joke.

"Yep - there they are. Just waitin' to go next door."

 The thing is, they really were just sitting there. Waiting? Allowing themselves the peace of simply just being for awhile...

 Summers in New York can be great. They can also be oppressive, especially in July. You, and everyone else, always said it was August. I'm sure it's July.We lived through incredible humidity and heat, the height of tourist season, traffic jams galore, the stench of rotting fruit and urine and sweat...at some point the whole city reached a boiling point every summer and tempers would absolutely explode.Yet somehow it seemed there was always a cool breeze on the block of the grocery store.

 It definitely was August when we noticed that there were only two of our stoop friends.

"Yup. I guess Joe went next door. Good old Joe..."

 Fall comes to the city, and what there is of it is magnificent. The colors of the trees in the park are like a light show.The breezes become crisp and yell "apple weather" to me. There is always a melancholy to autumn, shorter days and the memory of school starting, that is sublime.We bought our pumpkin from the pumpkin truck people in front of our grocery store and carved the best Jack-o-lantern between here and Nebraska.

 Sooner than anyone ever suspects will happen, the city is flooded with the smell of roasting chestnuts on the corners, windows are full of holiday scenes, the Macy's parade has come and gone and winter vacationers are everywhere. Our little Charlie brown Christmas tree was bought from the tree people in front of our grocery store. Remember the silky richness of the maple syrup they sold? It was too cold for anyone to be sitting on their stoops. We figured the guys were waiting inside to go next door.

 When the Phoenix rose again, there was only one quiet sitter left.

"guess jack decided to quit waitin' and go next door before his wife got there..."

 Our last waiting friend barely made it to summer.

 We had just passed the wafting apple pie scent from the bakery... I was looking up at a plane flying above the buildings. I heard you.

"I guess Vin didn't like waiting alone."

He seemed to have gone next door, too.

 When I think of you, which isn't very often anymore, I think of these times and don't feel regret. Hopefully you feel the same.

 Maybe I'll see you next door.

wow. It's been a LONG time since I even thought about this activity. Huh. Does thinking about it now mean I will write something again someday? Many years ago ago I was really trying to take writing seriously (perhaps my biggest mistake. The "seriously" part ) Anyway, one day I found myself writing this: 

I sat on that step, book in hand, cat in lap, and thought of words to write about that moment.I longed to have someone say "yes, I've been there. I understand that feeling" I long to not feel alone in my experience of the world. I long to serve a purpose, have a meaning, effect someone's life, connect with them.And I am a communicator. Writing makes sense. More sense than all those years spent as an actress....but something stops me.

Although, here I sit now. I have managed to come in the door and sit down at my computer.

I would've enjoyed staying on the step outside, feeling the perfection of my longing as opposed to the imperfection of my writing.

It was an experience of the moment. Even now I am aware of how little I have communicated about it...The way the sunlight drifted through the palm over my head, the flea that resided on Pandora's forehead, the yucky cigar smoke (reminding me momentarily of my father) coming from the guy who goes between the house next door and the artists studio behind my building. The street was only a few yards away, and others were about, yet I felt totally alone. I'm sure it's a warm day out. Headed for hot. I am wearing a sweatshirt.

I am an alien, trying desperately to have a human experience. But I keep stopping and saying "is this it? Am I doing it right?"

And somewhere inside me I have a sneaking suspicion that there are others out there like me...but I'm afraid I wouldn't like them if I met them.Those who try to tell me they're like me meet with my derision: "don't pretend to have the vaguest idea of who I am - how could you?'

How could they? I don't know...How can someone else know who I am when they don't live in my body? and yet this is exactly what I am longing for...someone to identify me for my self.

for if I knew myself, I would know what I wanted. I would know what I had to say. And I could sit down and put it into words instead of sitting on my step, crying at the angle of the almost noon sun and the purity of the black fur in my lap.

My critical voices want to intrude here.

"Is this suppose to be writing? Well girl, there's no continuity, no form, it's rambling and unfocused and even you may not be able to read it because your typing is so bad."

I am resisting the urge to follow this voice's orders and stop this foolishness,.

It is not up to me to know, always, whether something is good writing, or to be shared. I can clean it up later if I need to... I want to be a writer. So I am writing.

I think the problem comes in when I feel I want to be A Great Writer.

I want people to read my work and cry and laugh and be changed after they're done. I want to be God. Yes that's it. I have often said I want to be worshipped. I thought I was joking. But perhaps not.

And yet even the responsibility of management at work is more than I care to have a good amount of the time. Does God have responsibilities?

I am reminded of a line in Illusions by Richard Bach; "The best way to avoid responsibility is to say I have responsibilities"

That's been a koan for me....what are the real meanings in that sentence?

I am somehow not responsible?"

control. Not control.What does any of this have to do with writing?

If I go back to my step I will long to be here "working" longing to be there on the step.

Longing is knowing who we are according to Cooper Edens. Nice thought. Haven't quite got there myself.

Now I'm starting to feel a part of me wishing my boyfriend would call. "I'm working". See? I can! I do! Someone caught me at it... they distracted me, but I had been doing it. Really.

I long to do this until I sit down here, and then the whole world becomes a fascinating temptation. I can't sit here and write about it out there. I'm missing it all if I do this. I should be out there living it, not reporting on it.

But unless I win the lotto sometime soon, no one is going to support me for just doing whatever all the time...

Hey wait.

there's that new age saying :"do what you love the money will follow".

Well?

Of course this means I need to know what I love.

How does one get paid for sitting on a step in the sun, petting her cat and longing to be a writer?

July 9 1996

LISTEN

I remember being a raven and soaring through the skies; the black knife edge of my wing cutting into the blue of the sky as I looked to either side. Beneath me was a small white home with a steep jagged hill in the back. Cars were parked along the side of the house in a unpaved driveway. I could feel the woman inside the house,as yet unaware of the incredible change she was about to experience.I called down to the woman "Change! Change is in the wind, but do not be afraid!" And all she heard was "change". The fear of change so overwhelmed her that she stopped listening. She thought I'd refused to tell her more, but I think she is beginning to understand. I remember being a lizard playing on a patio of many colored tiles, feeling the sun warming my body as I basked on a rock. One day as I frolicked and danced with my friends on the patio, I could feel the woman inside the house in great emotional turmoil. I called out to her "Change is good. Do not be afraid!" That first word made her so afraid she stopped listening and didn't hear the rest. She thought I was holding out, trying to make her crazy, but I think she is beginning to understand.

I remember being a squirrel climbing the tree outside a small white house. The tree had the tastiest walnuts and was such a fun height for playing. Next to it was a pear tree and when the boy from down the block wasn't stealing the pears, I helped myself. No one seemed to mind, although sometimes the woman in the house pretended to be confused. She always looked up when she heard me singing on the top of the railroad tie fence. That's why that day I felt her cry out I called back to her "Change! Look to it! You'll come out on the other side in spring with supplies left over from winter!" The word "change" made her so afraid she turned away from me and didn't hear the rest. She accused me of teasing her, but I think she's beginning to understand.

I remember being the moon, full and bright. I was shining over the land and from a small cleft in a hill, next to a small white house, was a woman who greeted me often. She would stand in the midst of my light and drink me in as if she could hold all of me inside her Self. One day while the sun was still out and I had begun my rise, I saw her upturned face seeking out answers. I called down to her "Change! Hold me close for I love you and change is my way!" The word "change" scared her so much that she closed herself off to me and wouldn't accept my love, but I think she's beginning to understand. I remember being a woman struggling to commit to a path I had mistaken for my destiny. Ravens flew overhead, the squirrels climbed my trees, lizards played on my patio and I drank in the moon as if I'd never be full. And one day in the midst of my struggle I heard the word "Change!" ring out through the air. It seemed to come from everywhere at once and there was nothing more than that single word. I felt so afraid and alone...and I didn't know why I couldn't hear any more than that one word....but I think now I am beginning to understand.