November 26, 2007

It is unseasonably warm here in New York.

If nothing else there is (and will always be) the common bond of weather. It’s always there in the background, the topic of so many conversations, the easy ice-breaker. All comments always echoing the same thoughts: it’s so warm, can you believe all this rain? And the wind, my god the wind...

But whether the weather New York stays the same, and sometimes all you want is to get the feel of it the way the tourists do - this being a city of nothing but lights and excitement and possibility. Because once you’ve lived here a while all that can start to fade. It becomes just a place where you live, where you commute to work and come home and make dinner and go out for drinks with friends. So that’s why sometimes I like to walk down 5th avenue because it reminds me of how New York looks through outsiders eyes.


I walked down 5th avenue and sat on the steps of St. Patrick’s Cathedral among the hoards of people and watched as they passed and I hugged my knees against my chest, (not from the cold) but from the rest of the world.


A middle-aged Italian couple sat down next to me, he had a map and she, donning a tan fedora, jeans and knee-high boots sat beside me and started smoking a cigarette. They were trying to find somewhere that I couldn’t understand, and while I cursed the fact that I took Russian in high school, (and that the wind took her smoke directly into my face), I wanted to go where they were going, I wanted to venture off with them, strangers who couldn’t understand.


She finally finished her cigarette with one last heavy drag and left it on the steps in her place. They must have figured it out finally, a destination, because they bounded right towards an empty cab and hopped in. The smoke still lingered in her absence and I thought about them as people and where they’ve come from and what their lives must be like. I’m sure they’ve had some tough times, (we all have) but there they were still, figuring out places to go and bounding towards taxis. That’s what I wanted to do at that moment, I wanted someone to come up to me with a map of where to go and take me with them, lead me by the arm into a yellow cab that would take us somewhere I wouldn’t have to think at all.


The wind picked up and the smoke from the fading orange ashes burnt out. That’s it. Sometimes it takes just being next to someone you don’t even know to make you realize the things you need to figure out in your life. I realized there on 5th avenue (and what other avenue in the world could afford such clarity!?) that I needed a map or a plan or a speeding cab or all three. I watched more people pass, cameras, necks tilting back so they could see the tops of the buildings, perhaps even the clear sky, all thinking: it’s so unseasonably warm, isn’t it?


The bells of a distant Cathedral started chiming Amazing Grace. I felt myself start to drift and the people passing now were just feet, just shoes, boots and sneakers and high heels. I watched them pace by, left right, left right, all with a plan or a map or a destination. They had it all figured out and I needed that too (don’t we all in a city so big and life so confusing?). Yet I remained motionless on the stairs, arms wrapping tighter, because I realized (the way you realize things on 5th avenue) that I am not a tourist. I am not passing through. I am here and so is New York, and the lights and the excitement and the possibility all just simply shift the longer you remain.


The weather here doesn’t make any sense, but then again nothing makes sense anymore. I sit directionless (and what is direction anyway?) as the bells ring in the air louder and echo over and over again how sweet, how sweet the sound.

November 20, 2007

Thanks for being so difficult.

Everyone talks about this time of year as a calendar opportunity to give thanks, and I don’t quite get it. What I figure, year after year of people talking about all the traveling they have to do, the traffic, the annoying family members, and the fact that The Today Show has both hosts reporting from traveling hotspots: Meredith in Atlanta Airport and Matt downtown at Grand Central Station, only proves that all that really comes with this holiday, is stress.

And here I am having panic attacks about cooking a five-course meal. Are there even any turkeys left in Manhattan grocery stores? I wouldn’t know, because I haven’t even started shopping yet. And that’s the thing - throughout all of this, sold out trains and delayed planes and a turkey at 350 degrees for three hours – it is seemingly only after overcoming these obstacles that we’re supposed then come to a spiritual clarity of thankfulness.

Whatever happened to being thankful that things were easy? Perhaps this kind of bitter clarity can only come from living in a city where everything is, all of the time, difficult - difficult with money, with living, with commuting, with meeting a decent man. So why should I spend the day slaving under the false pretense of thanks? Well I’m not this year. This year I’ll eat my turkey not thinking about thanks and pilgrims and those cut-out cardboard turkeys in the shape of a hand – no, I’ll just enjoy it and this city and how I've made it this far.

By all means New Yorkers should do this more often. The smart ones have figured it out and won’t be leaving the city tomorrow. They’ll stay up late, like me, and walk over to the west side and watch them rehearse the parade and blow up the floats. They’ll look at the day once removed knowing in their hearts what everyone has yet to catch on to - that giving thanks just once a year, and going through hell to get it, is highly overrated.

November 13, 2007

The secret is not in the potatoes.

The word tradition comes from the Latin word traditio which means "to hand down" or "to hand over."

Most of our lives, it would seem, are deeply imbedded in tradition. Things have been handed down and given over to us even if we didn’t want them, and now they’ve stuck and have become like so many things we didn’t choose as part of our identities.

Example: I don’t know how many people have had the chance to choose what may be the largest part of one’s identity – their name. No, you didn’t. You’re Marcia or Roger or Nick or Cathy because tradition dictated that your parents would name you. Marcia, Marcia, Marcia, when you longed to be a Heather or Kimberly.

How we celebrate the holidays is another thing we ourselves didn’t choose, but someone somewhere along the way specifically designated things like turkey and stuffing and Santa and cutting down trees to be the traditional ways to spend these times of year.

But what I want to know is - what do you do when these traditio become the traditio of yesteryear? I didn’t choose my name and people always get it wrong, (the equivalent of calling a Laura, Lucy or Leslie or Lucretia just because it starts with an "L,") and I didn’t want to have to choose to be the one to cook the Thanksgiving dinner this year. However things change and at the exact moment I was ready to throw it (tradition) out the window (9 floors up), the thought of a stuffing-less second to last Thursday of November made me start to feel all sorts of panicked.

Of course, in the end traditio persevered (as it always does) and I have to carry on whatever way I can along with it. So, now, I’ve been left in charge of the great undertaking of fitting a 12lb bird into a New York City apartment oven within the confines of a New York City apartment kitchen. "Oh, tradition," I’ve been muttering under my breath with no small amount of gravy-soaked bitterness.

So while it may be too late to change you name (all those monogrammed sweaters...) you can change some traditions enough to make them work for you - despite perhaps, the overwhelming feeling you might be getting at the very thought of having to stick your hand (the horror!) up a turkey’s bottom.


Oh, tradition. I don't think that was the "hand down" they were referring to.

November 8, 2007

It's red, again.

So it's here. Apparently. We've already gained that hour which doesn't feel much like a gain at all (can someone give me a few more, please?) and its dark around 3PM and by 6 it feels as though surely all stores and restaurants in all the city should all be closed and you should be getting ready for bed, poised to start brushing your teeth.

Needless, getting off of the subway today and walking towards the office I was half asleep thinking about daylight and savings and time and how it's all just a stupid tradition that happens every year (and we don’t know why) that we’re just OK with for no particular reason and have incorporated into our lives like the mundane chores of breathing and eating (“Time to turn back time? Oh, right right, just let me finish my coffee dear...”) And speaking of coffee, (as I do frequently), my thoughts of turning back time a la Cher (no one in New York ever seems to notice or care when you sing to yourself in public) were interrupted by bright flashes of red that caught my eye. What? And then flashes of green. People were carrying these colors in their hands as though there were a part of their briefcase or purse or and extension of their hand itself.

Could it be? No certainly it could not be. But then, upon closer inspection of a woman who blew past me, it was The Truth - Starbucks holiday cups are here.

And that's only the cup we're talking about. Around the corner I entered the store in need of my morning fix and I saw (who could help not to?) that the whole store was an explosion of red, with shelves upon shelves of holiday flasks, mugs and other festive paraphernalia. I looked around at all the happy red-cup-holding-New-Yorkers in desperate concern - can't we even get to Thanksgiving first?

Apparently not. It's November 8th and I'm already drinking Christmas Blend (smooth and spicy) out of a grandiosely decorated grande cup! "Pass the cheer," it implores me in white loopy writing. "Bequeath a wreath" it goes on to say, the words peeking out from under the bright green sleeve marked 60% post-consumer fiber. CAUTION: VERY HOT! How about a CAUTION: HOLIDAYS MUCH FURTHER AWAY THAN THEY APPEAR.

And that's the problem. Because holidays aren't always holidays. When you're a kid or when life is just swell, sure, you feel more than happy to "pass the cheer," while drinking from your snowflake adorned coffee cup. But once you get older and things in your life start to fall to shit, you can't help but feel annoyed at the early pressure to be happy. Bequeath a wreath? Are they out of their minds? I just had a man elbow me out of the way while getting on a downtown 1 train leaving me with that look of are-you-serious-we're-all-trying-to-get-to-work-here-too-you-know, so the only thing I'm looking to bequeath at the moment is a fast hard kick to a stomach.

But the truth is I'm not ready to be happy or excited about anything. I just can’t do it. Because the truth is you just can’t be when your life gets turned upside down and inside out and you have no idea which way you're heading. You lose someone you love (like I did), or you lose your job or your boyfriend or the thing you've been working so hard for so long to get, (poof!) and then sitting there drinking Christmas Blend you don't feel anything but the hot memories of a simpler time gone by getting caught in your throat.

Dammit.