November 4, 2018

It was a beautiful Fall day in New York City for the annual NYC marathon. My sister, Barbara, was visiting from Tennessee and we donned our Allbirds shoes, the most comfortable shoes ever, and headed downtown to see the runners and to make sure that Barbara made her first trip to Brooklyn. It was her one request when I asked what she wanted to do while in NY. "I've never been to Brooklyn! even after growing up in NYC." Thinking about it I probably hadn't been either up until the time I left for college.

We got off the subway at 110th and Broadway and walked across 110th to Central Park. It's a wide expansive street especially since they built a roundabout at the northeast corner of the park. We crossed into the park and walked along the Harlem Meer, a man-made lake named meer meaning lake in Dutch. We turned the corner at 110th and Fifth Avenue and found a spot to watch the runners. Slowly, we strolled down Fifth Avenue.

The sound of the marathon is very distinct. It's a cacophony of human and percussive sound. At one point we stood to wait and see if we could catch a glimpse of a friend and ended up next to a young woman. She had great enthusiasm and stamina as she cheered on the runners by repeating one phrase over and over again. We were there 30 minutes and her voice became the backdrop. "Great job, runners!" There was something in the flat, even as it expressed excitement, intonation of the word "runners" that sounded strangely familiar and I finally realized that it was the nuance of the voice I've heard on YouTube videos that play with toys as children watch. My granddaughter is fascinated with these videos and the voice is constantly talking.

Along the way we passed the gate to the Conservatory Garden and decided to step in and walk through the garden while still heading south. The Conservatory Garden is a groomed European garden that in spring is filled with annuals. I can't remember seeing it in its fall colors; very green with some deep purple flowers appearing here and there. There are two promenades that are beautifully landscaped under an arch of trees and lined with benches. We walked down one and turned the corner at the end to return through the other.

As we approached the second walkway I needed to re-tie my shoe and stopped to perch my foot on the first bench. I had mentioned to Barbara as we entered the garden that I had a friend who was a volunteer in this garden. It's through her that I had learned to appreciate the care and attention the garden requires. She is always with me as I walk through this garden, sharing its beauty. Sadly, her son had died years ago and she had spent many hours of the years that followed volunteering in the garden. As I tied my shoe I noticed the plaque on the back of the bench dedicated to "Our beautiful boy." It was Christopher's bench.

There is no way out of the park on the East Side during the marathon so we continued walking through the park heading west and got on the subway at 86th and Broadway. We got off at the first stop in Brooklyn in Dumbo, Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass. I'll take this moment to say that I have always thought of Dumbo as the section of coastline that is between and under the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges. In describing it to Barbara I know I said, "Dumbo. Down under the Brooklyn Bridge." Looking at it in writing it is a nonsensical statement. DUBB is not DUMBO. I stand corrected and it may explain why we had to walk a distance to get from Dumbo to the entrance to the foot path of the Brooklyn Bridge on our way home.

We ended the day with a quick bite to eat, a walk across the bridge and the subway ride home.

A beautiful fall night, dinner at Indie with Harvey, and Lincoln Center filling up for the evening. Joshua Bell comes on stage and The Red Violin begins. Philharmonic Hall is darker than usual because it's movie and live sound track night; one of my favorite concerts.  Early in the movie a young child in an orphanage, played by Christoph Koncz, is discovered. He is a violin prodigy and heads off to Vienna to learn and play and perform. He looks about 6 years old. The movie is a beautiful story centered on the journey this violin takes, ending up in an auction house. Secrets are revealed as the violin changes hands and all the while Joshua Bell plays whenever the red violin is played.

There is an announcement as we re-enter after intermission for the audience to stay seated through all the credits and music out of respect for the artists. The credits are long, but perhaps not any longer than the ones we often skip as they get to all the last details of the production. And then the conductor picks up a microphone and says that Joshua Bell would like to play an encore on a 17th century Italian violin, made during the same period as the red violin. Bell returns to the stage and then he takes the microphone and announces that he has a special guest who will play with him. Christoph Koncz, now 20 years old and the lead violin of the 2nd violins in the Vienna Symphony, has come to NYC for this opening night performance of The Red Violin. They perform a quick, fast and flashy duet and then leave the stage. A cherry on the top of a spectacular feast of music and cinema.

I am heightened as we begin another intense week of thinking about discussions and events coming up at school. As I replay some of the scenes of the movie and think about the secrets revealed, I realize that the only dark-skinned person featured in the story is the person who holds the secret. He enters as the expert, respected and in charge, but leaves as the one who has played a trick under the gaze of a white community of wealthy auction attendees. There are only a few Asian people in that crowd. Is this another message of bias on the screen to feed our already deeply embedded biases about black people? Do we suspect him of wrong-doing and watch him carefully because he stands out in the crowd? Or do we admire his success against many odds and then have our expectations fulfilled when he falls into wrongdoing as we might be socialized to believe should be no surprise?

Keeping a family together

Emma's dissertation was accepted last week and approved for oral defense on October 31st. All I can think about was how proud Gregory would have been. He loved that she went to Cornell. He wanted to know more about her research. He knew she would follow her dream and finish the degree. I wished that he could tell her himself.

I have been thinking a lot about how families are held together; how they continue to grow so that family comes first and that we don't take family for granted. But also, that we don't forget that family will not be surprised that we might expect more from them even without constant contact.

Kathryn came down for the weekend and we wandered the city discovering little things and lots of good food. We ended the holiday weekend at the 7pm performance of The Band's Visit, a surprise in the musical world of Broadway; subtle, nuanced, gentle and jarring. It was a story with layers of love and the tension of cultural difference and conflict. In this case a band from Egypt heading to Israel to perform and ends up, through a mistaken pronunciation of the town name, in a small isolated desert town. It was performed in one act and was sprinkled with the humor of humanity and the loss and longing of the heart. Katrina Lenka, in the lead role of Dina, won a Tony in 2017 for best actress.

Among our new food discoveries were Rosemary's in the West Village (a second visit for Kathryn), Tim Ho Wan, a dim sum restaurant in the East Village (the same restaurant Kathryn and Pat found in Hong Kong), Patavini gnocchi bar at Columbus Circle (sadly the Grom line was so long, but happily the end of the line put us in front of this new gnocchi bar and City Winery Barrel Room Wine Bar (flights at $5 a pour for wines on tap).

We stopped at two old favorites to have pre-theater cocktails at the revolving bar atop the Marriott in Times Square and dessert after theater at Cafe Lalo on 83rd Street. 

 

On Sunday we had brunch at Liebman's Deli, one of the last NY kosher delis, with Rosaleen, Dan and Ansel. Monday morning, we walked to Buunni for coffee and an almond coissant before Kathyrn left to drive back to Rochester. So many tasties and our own food tour of NYC. I think this is the first of a new annual tradition along with the Book Crawl.

Times Square, Cofradia des devotes

Looking up in NYC

NYC is a place for wandering. You will always find something remarkable, curious, new. Yesterday I got off the subway at 18th Street and 7th Avenue and started walking east (after heading west and circling a block to reorient myself) toward Union Square. My aim was to get to the Union Square Market.

Beautiful Fall day bringing September to an end

We are closing in on the end of September and the end of the first month of school. My last first month of a school year at HM. It feels like a deep breath; I am in the pool trying to come up for air to see more clearly what is ahead. The water is already wide and deep with possibility, but also with force and energy.

Since moving my dining room table back into the dining room I have been more aware of the piano even though it has been there all the years I had made it my music room centered on the violin. I have mom's piano book sitting on the stand with her list of songs that she was preparing to play at her recital at FBH. She loved waltzes and she loved Fur Elise. As I play them I can hear her singing them and I can hear the clicking of her fingers that sometimes accompanied her playing. My hands are a lot like hers; more likely to land on keys than run over keys; more purposefully placed than fluid.

Deborah has begun to take piano lessons and has purchased a Yamaha keyboard. Now I know two people who are playing on keyboards and am wondering if I should give up my piano knowing there is a good substitute. She said that she wants to play classical music. I have the same feeling about violin. I want my playing to sound like the music I enjoy listening to. It's such a long road from one to the other.

Early Childhood Education and Prison Education: cultural overlap?

Jody Lewen came to speak to students about Prison University Project at San Quentin State Prison in California. She described her own path from HM to graduate school to a PhD in rhetoric and finally landing as the executive director of this project. She started as a volunteer during graduate school and as she described it, "if you follow the things that feel right it all comes together."

As I listened to Jody talk about how hard it is to humanize the prisoner in conversations about what is needed and why programs such as this are important, about the culture of prisons that they need to talk about during teacher training, and about the challenge of helping prospective teachers confront their own personal biases and stereotypes about prisoners, I was hearing so many parallels to my conversations with graduate students about teaching young children. A common thread was the idea of holding ourselves accountable for the ideas, impressions, and assumptions we bring to a group of people who have been made invisible by society or who have been hidden from us behind a deep stereotype.

Jody talked about the gang culture of prisons, but also about the ways in which this Associates Degree program has been shifting culture. She discussed the impact the program is having not only on the prisoners who are receiving an education, but also on those who are in contact with or living among those prisoners. With one in ten prisoners in the program it has great potential to bring about true cultural change.

This conversation brought to mind Carla Shalaby's idea that schools are simply places where we teach children to go to school and that discipline parallels the punitive nature of prison discipline. Perhaps this is true about education as well. Do we need to train teachers in both cases about culture and bias first to develop an educational program that counteracts the forces that impact the human condition of being incarcerated or being young in our society? Do we need to convince funders of the value of educating these two groups of people as a humane and imperative act rather than a preparation for participation in society in roles defined for them by society?

Rochester weekend

Breakfast at Mad Hatter on Friday with Pam. She is researching the history of the delta trying to better understand an area where her father grew up. Two books recommended to her by an employee at the Cotton Museum in Memphis, TN: Empire of Cotton: A Global History by Harvard history professor Sven Beckert and Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How it Changed America by John Berry.

Saturday, dropped the car at Zeibart in Canandaigua for the annual undercoating. Had the interior steam cleaned. The exerior coated to protect the paint. On the way back to Fairport, we stopped at the Pittsford Farmer's Market, browsed the lumber store and bought a piece of olive wood to make a cheese board. Stopped to buy beeswax wraps from a woman who makes them locally, www.Weslee Rose.com. Stopped for a cupcake and coffee.

Visited Dad at FBH and spent some time cleaning up and editing the family tree. We ended up with a list of people he didn't recognize, but as soon as we were done he started to tell me stories. "You should write these down..." He talked about his grandparents and his father's sister who was much younger than his father and who helped raise the children after his mother died. Later in the evening when I returned from picking up the car he didn't seem anxious to get to bed. For a second night he hadn't gone out to change the calendar that hangs in the lounge, a job he's done every days for four years. He said he can't remember the date when he goes from his room where he has a calendar to the lounge. He said he told the woman who made the calendar that he couldn't do it. We went out for the second night and changed the date. Left after 9pm.