December musings

December 19, started...December 22, completed

December and the holiday season, already half over. There is an anxiety I associate with the end of each calendar year; a feeling that there is no turning back and that the past is moving farther away. It's this last idea that sits heavily especially as memory starts to pale and what you remember loses the nuance of the experience.

I am sitting in a Starbucks at the corner of 73rd and Broadway looking out at a row of trees that have been wrapped in bright white LED lights; so white the color is almost silver. As late afternoon sets in, the trees are brightening. It's the week before the winter break for most NYC independent schools and the last few days left for Christmas shopping. Lots of shopping going on.

It's the sixth Christmas since Gregory died and still he is in every holiday step I take. Buy, don't buy... spend the money, don't spend the money...turn on the Christmas playlist...put out the creche...make sure there's enough wine... These things swim around in my head as I move through the season. It feels so different with no one to confer with, no one debating the exact gift for the girls. A long way from our traditional midnight run to Toys R Us when we used to check out the hottest items and get angry over the separation of boys' and girls' toys. That shopping trip always led to arguments over whether children would be happier receiving toys or clothes or other more enduring playthings; signature dolls, wooden toys. It wasn't always that Gregory loved the little bake ovens and doll houses and all the things the girls would see on TV and exclaim, "I want that!" There was the year when Gena was the only child and he and Christopher bought a wooden rocking horse in the City and Gregory carried it home on the hour-and-a-half subway ride to Queens. Or the time he insisted that Kathryn needed a horse of her own and Splash, a neighing, rocking spring horse, took up residence with us. But those efforts quickly got embedded in family schedules and collective enthusiasm for advertising and we were swept up in the mad dash for Cabbage Patch Dolls and Lullaby Ernie and Chatbot. Gregory was the grumpiest in anticipation of the holidays, but the happiest on Christmas morning if the girls were playing with something new and exciting amidst piles of ripped off wrapping paper, the one unique wrapping we saved for Santa to use.

It is the third Christmas since Mom died and I feel her energy all through the season. I have images of her at the piano playing Christmas Carols and memories of her choir at Legacy. She made community wherever she went; something I am still learning to do and am not sure I will ever do in the ways that she could. Her socks have become more dear and keep me warm all winter. I finished the sock yarn blanket from all of her half-used skeins of sock yarn thinking I'd give it away; soon it will be a gently used gift.

We are gathering in Rochester this year for Christmas. Georgia and her family will be here and we'll see Ellen's and John's families at Kathryn and Pat's open house today.  Emma is in New Zealand and we will miss her family though knowing they are in the throes of summer helps to ease the absence. Some year we will all be there enjoying the sun and beach. Some of us will eat Christmas lunch at FBH with Dad. He seems to have lost energy for showing up, but is always interested in knowing where we all are. I hope Ruby gets some fun toys so that we can all play with them on Christmas morning, but I'm certain they won't come from PoPo.

A trip to Montgomery, Alabama

We have been in Nashville since Thursday at the Annual People of Color Conference. The teachers and students have all gone home and three of us stayed on to take a bus trip to Montgomery, Alabama for the day. It seems fitting to enter Montgomery in a bus, to honor those who had the courage to hold a bus boycott to fight for justice. The boycott began on December 5, 1955, almost 63 years to the day, and ended after more than a year on December 20, 1956  with a Supreme Court ruling declaring the laws in Montgomery and Alabama that segregated buses to be unconstitutional.

Bryan Stevenson is a lawyer who founded the Equal Justice Initiative and it is EJI that has created the Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration. They also created the Memorial for Peace and Justice a remarkable expression of affirmation and declaration. The walk through the memorial was a slow and measured walk through the collective presence of 4400 people, named and unknown, who were hanged, burned alive, shot, drowned, and beaten to death by white mobs between 1877 and 1950. In the beginning you are standing side-by-side with these individuals who are named on large steel columns. They are grouped within the counties where they died. As you work your way down a decline you realize that at some point you are looking up and the steel columns are hanging above your head.

The entrance to the museum has these words:

"...we remember the thousands killed, the generations of black people terroroized, and the legacy of suffering and injustice that haunts us still....telling the truth about the age of racial terror and reflecting together on this period and its legacy can lead to a more thoughtful and informed commitment to justice today."

Elsewhere these words appear:

We will remember.

With hope because hopelessness is the enemy of justices.
With courage because peace requires bravery.
With persistence because justice is a constant struggle.
With faith because we shall over come.

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.