Nubes Tenues

Lengua: Necesito practicar mi espanol. Durante el ano pasado he lo estado perdiendo poco a poco, especialmente los sonidos y como formar mi boca en una manera para producir palabras comprensibles. Escribir o leer, estoy mas o menos bien. Pero hablar, es algo diferente. No quiero que me digan, -"Te ha comido la lengua el gato?" Que pena, pero pronto hablaremos hermanas, no?

Poland

Mex/j/ico: I was reading today about how Mexico "got" its name. According to one person's perspective, a mix of an already-existing word/name, imperialism, and habit, resulted in a name that was a little off for both the named and namers. Like learning your immigrant Grandmother's last name was once a long, jagged, beautiful Polish name that she changed to a monosyllabic, blunt, unassuming name. She lost her name to gain what? The majority can now pronounce it, and at what loss for them? And her children and grandchildren: do they accept the name that no longer connects them with their ancestors, or attempt to override both society and their Grandmother's decision? A name is never just a name, it's clear, but a history of lies and truths, a direction and misunderstood signals, an insistence that naming something makes it real, valid.

Papers: I've spent the last few days at my parent's house going over every document I've written, printed, or received since maybe my birth. It's been a relief in some ways, finding so many words that I no longer need to be trusted with. It's been a burden, too, because of the sheer volume and my slightly lingering packrat tendencies. Also a bit shameful, looking back on old writings and silly ways I used to waste paper; I used to be a terrible speller. And it's also been exhausting, reliving countless years and memories through ink and pencil, like I've been reading my own biography for 3 days without a break.

Tuesdays: My Grandma has friends she eats lunch with every Tuesday. She also plays euchre and gambles with several of these ladies, from what I gather. Today, my mom and I went as well. The group praised my mom highly for her pie-making abilities and traded their own methods for making crusts. I appreciate the elderly so much for making the simplest facets of life a wonderful topic of discussion, interaction, and weaving conversation.

Down deep

Ellis Island: Years ago and generations back, my family passed through this little island, their thoughts and fears I can only imagine in a thousand ways. Although my own time spent on this island was brief, I did manage to learn a little about immigration in the U.S. Also of interest, I discovered that the words bum and bummer come from the German language and hunky-dory from Dutch. Strange how our extended ethnic heritage can reach into our daily, personal household language without any conscious recognition or recollection.

Statue of Liberty: Loved, glorified, over-priced, propagandized, replicated, battered, weaved deep into the American consciousness and that of people around the world. Based on the museum at her feet, you'd think she was the most sacred symbol of democracy ever to exist and perhaps you'll believe it, perhaps not. I was particularly interested in a brief paragraph within the statue's history that mentioned another potential vision of the statue, one of a fierce woman with a steel weapon and a flag. Naturally, folks were frightened by this idea and stood solidly behind the passive, benign, receptive image, a waiting beacon. Rather than demanding freedom and democracy, she awaits it patiently, lighting its path, waiting, waiting. Is she still waiting?

Movin' On

Boundaries: New York City is far too big for me to wrap my mind around. Even if I never come back, I will think of it often. It will become like an enigmatic stranger for me, I'll look for her in familiar and strange places. Or perhaps like a long-lost childhood friend, who I'll wonder about but will only find in a small dive bar in a rural Michigan town. Oh, this city, what will become of it and what has it made me. Like I told a down-trodden friend last night, "when it comes to questions like these, time's the only answer."

Direction: Now I am heading for Philadelphia for a few days. Due to my skewed, NYC-perspective, now all cities that I once thought were large and imposing seem village-like, Kalamazoo seems like an unfamiliar name on a smallish dot in Minnesota. And Petersburg? I doubt that it even exists. When I get to Mexico and come back or move on, all places, my sense of time, my sense of space will be distorted all over again, for better or worse. Or perhaps, it doesn't matter at all. It's like a game or a distraction, I suppose.

Suitcase

Packing: is miserable. I'm leaving New York with much more than I came with. This city encourages consumption the way a well-stocked liquor cabinet encourages alcoholism and that's probably the top thing, hands down, that I will not miss. What I will miss is the constant motion, the people, having things at your fingertips that you neither need nor want but the sheer opportunity is enough. Strange that these things would grow on me. At the same time, once I leave the city I probably won't miss any of it, will only remember car exhaust making my eyes burn and over-crowded Times Square, waiting for the subway train, or spending way too much money on coffee. I hope, though, that I'll really remember the great people I was able to spend short amounts of time with, the absurdity of Coney Island, the little surprises I would encounter on the street, and late night hookah cafes.

Funnel vision

Nickels and Dimes: Now I feel a bit like a coin reaching the narrow end of a large, yellow, plastic funnel, like the kind you find at the zoo or a children's museum. The coin gets dropped with a mix of excited anticipation and a slight expectancy of disappointment, a balance of fears and hopes that rides along on the textured edge of the coin. Breath held, eyes steady. The great satisfaction comes from watching the coin speed into a frenzied blur, becoming one large ethereal coin hovering for a moment over nothingness before falling suddenly out of sight.

I had no idea what to expect this summer. Now my New York summer is fading and I'm left with a brief encounter with a city that's much like a country, where after such a small amount of time here it feels like you've been chasing minnows for an afternoon or trying to talk with shadows. I'll miss it, just having barely gotten to feel along the edges, but other distances are laid out ahead, and familiar paths will intertwine with new ones. I don't have expectations but high ones.

Pizza Party: I am convinced that there was no better way to leave Democracy Now! but to crowd into the 6th floor office with staff, interns and volunteers and watch Amy Goodman set a slimy, nonsensical pseudo-journalist in his place on corporate-sponsored, right-wing television (Hardball, to be exact).

Salt

Coney Island: I met a German yesterday who had come to New York a few days ago truly thinking that Coney Island was an island and wondering why he couldn't find it on the map. It occurred to me that I had never thought that and I wondered why. They say it's the last year of Coney Island, that a boogey man developer is setting out to destroy the gritty and unique beauty of the constant carnival, to replace it with high rise hotels and clean it up a bit. People talk about it in a resigned way, like they've been anticipating the death of Coney Island the way one waits for an aged and ailing relative to pass on. I took the German there to see what we'd find and we met a French guy there, the 3 of us perfectly in time out of our lack of punctuality.

The neon lights themselves seemed faded and even when we walked directly between the Zipper, the Wonder Wheel and other creaking rides, it reminded me of walking past the fair grounds late at night, hearing bells and screams and metallic voices but being in another place. It was somewhere between a time warp and oblivion, almost that it had never existed at all. Even at 10pm, families aimed water guns at targets, determined to win a stiff, stuffed bear holding a heart, or a basketball. And despite the painful lurches and slams of aging thrill rides, people lined up for their chance to face..what? their fears? their childhoods?

The air coming off the sea smelled thick with salt, thicker than I'd smelled it before in that spot and I breathed in deep. The boardwalk was dark, making it impossible to walk without tripping over the countless boards that were trying to leap up out of the wooden walk way. It was like learning to walk with a limp. I got a corn muffin and a corona and we talked about subtleties in languages and culture and where everyone was on September 11th; everyone agreed that the video looked like a very bad movie, very unbelievable yet apt for a film about NYC.

Q: I've come to love the letter Q. Everytime I see it, lit up in yellow, I feel a sense of familiarity, I've got the stops memorized and I feel safe aboard. Someone in the office, reading a bottle cap, said that the letter Q is the only letter in the English alphabet that doesn't appear in any of the names of the U.S. states. To me, the Q has its own language and when I see it slowing towards me, I understand.

Movement

Tornado in Brooklyn: I wouldn’t have known at all that it was anything but a lot of lightening if I hadn’t read the staff email sent out sometime in the afternoon last Wednesday. I woke up just before six am to a very loud pop, followed by a roar, boom and a rumble. For the next hour my room was lit up by near-constant flashes of white light and my windows rattled from the snapping thunder. Rather than disturbing, the storm was soothing to me and I stayed awake to listen to it. Car alarms went off in the street, muffled slightly by a fierce and steady downpour that carried on for about an hour. When I got up for work, I imagined a soppy and cold Brooklyn morning. Instead, it was blazing hot and all the puddles that were boiling up off the sidewalk made the humidity wrap around you like a thick, damp blanket. The metro station was chaos, not a train was running in near all Brooklyn and even in the city, many were down or backed up. A harried attendant pointed us toward the Flatbush 41 bus, a few blocks down, and dozens of us grudgingly walked there together. Already about 60 folks were at the bus stop, one of many along the length of Flatbush Avenue. A bus came down the street, didn’t even slow down for all the people on it. A few minutes later, another one did the same thing. I realized there was no way I was going to get to the city by bus either, at least not in the next few hours. Plus, the bus would only take us to the Atlantic stop, still 2 stops away from where I needed to go and surely the trains would be backed up too.

I started wondering what would happen if New York was hit by a truly terrible natural disaster, instead of a slightly stronger than average thunderstorm. Here were hundreds of people stranded in the city because of the lack of public transportation, and taxis definitely couldn’t keep up with the demand. Thinking about this, I started to walk. I had no idea how long it would take, but I was going to be late for work one way or another and I’d rather be walking than standing at a bus stop watching buses pass me by for who knows how long. The walk proved to be long and probably something that shouldn’t be done in that kind of heat or if you have to be somewhere at a certain time. Luckily, it was just a straight shot pretty much to the bridge and the walk was easy. I found that I really liked walking- I spend a lot of time on the subway and rarely think about all the stuff I’m missing above ground, so it was a good change in perspective. Well, all in all, it took me about 2 hours and the Brooklyn Bridge was certainly a beautiful sight that day. By the afternoon, everything was back to normal, save the fallen tree branches and roofless homes.

Days off: The heat from the storm wore off by Thursday, withering away to cold and rainy and pretty dismal if you ask me. On Friday I forced myself out of the house to meet a perfect stranger and I ended up very happy that I did. We hopped a train to West Harlem to the Hispanic Society of the Americas after a much-needed hot coffee and a break from the rain. The Hispanic Society is a combination of archives and museum and on a wet, freezing day way up in Harlem, was pretty empty. Mostly 17th century religious artifacts from Spain and a few things from Puebla, Mexico were on display. The true enjoyment was in our poking fun at the silliness and creepiness of all things Catholic (a turkey-shaped incense burner? eyeless saints? flying baby heads?).

After the departure of my new Bostonian friend (who left me with a Red Sox shot glass, commemorating her unplanned trip to a baseball game which resulted in her actually beginning to like baseball), I went to the Museum of American Folk Art. It was small and the art was very kitsch and mostly neat, especially the weathervane collection. Yet, I do think that whoever said that the museum mainly serves as an excuse for a gift shop is probably right. Or maybe they thought to try and create some idea of an American culture so that people don't have to actually try to seek it out themselves and instead find comfort in complex quilt patterns and wooden dolls. After the museum, I caught the tail end of an Indian music performance by a dedicated trio in a plaza outside of the Lincoln Center. Yasser arrived just as I got back down to downtown, we meandered through Littly Italy a bit but the cold and long day encouraged us to go home pretty quickly.

On Saturday, I finally visited the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, a serene expanse of green and colored shapes and buzzing wings. I smelled more than a dozen types of roses, made Yasser nervous as I teetered over the lily pad pond, hugged a great and huge weeping willow and followed all types of flying insects in their pursuits. The day was beautiful with a swept-open sky and finally a tolerable temperature and oh, the sun that I’d been missing. We left the gardens in search of halal food and found a West Indian halal buffet on Flatbush. My, sweet potatoes, yams, and fried plantains are really all I need to be satisfied. But the black-eyed peas, salty greens, and corn made me grin ear to ear. Yum.