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Friday, May 26, 2017
Friday, May 26, 2017 9:20 a.m. the sun is out - I'm giving myself only a short time this morning - the German word that is coming to my mind for the way I feel, is "verunsichert" - sicher is secure - unsicher insecure. Feeling insecure about what I am doing - how to tackle a problem like getting my apartment into the condition I think it should be. I have always found ways to get help, and hopefully will again - still with advancing age - what is the expression - mole hills? become mountains. Postponing becomes a mode of life. My renewed driver's licence arrived - good until 2025 - when I'll be only 93 years old - should I live that long. Alas already now I feel some trepidation about driving, driving as rarely as I do. Unsicher! Approaching once again a major holiday - Memorial Day weekend - once upon a time dedicated I believe to fallen soldiers - it has become the inofficial beginning of summer, beaches open and this year, so my television news tell me, millions and millions of Americans are travelling, more than ever before. I have always avoided travelling on holidays but then cannot help but feel a bit left out of all this family frolicking. Of course innumerable visitors descend on New York city where I am already and many festivals are scheduled. While no longer walking as I once did I am still blessed with a painfree body - a great blessing, I am aware. May venture later to my library and my park. - braving our crumbling public transportation. All the best for all of you, Marianne
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Thursday, May 25, 2017
Thursday, May 25, 2017 9:35 a.m. it is raining - a few lines of poems in my mind: il pleure dans mon coere- not sure I am getting this right - it rains in my heart - did not get around to the blog yesterday - I wish I knew how to write poetry about my feelings of uncertainty. Trying to remember how heart is spelled in French. There are those days when words flow - make me feel good - then days when they don't flow. The sun did come out yesterday afternoon and as soon as i had left the house - it was 3 pm. by then (I had made it earlier to the Polish church but still have the lunch in a container - watched the Polish TV and gathered that also Polish people had gotten killed in Manchester, confirmed reading the NYT earlier) - anyway my phone rang and L.P. said she'd meet me briefly at Washington Square Park. She always thinks I have such a great life and I think she has a great life. She talked of an art show in Chelsey, the present center of the New York art scene. Huge galleries in old commercial buildings, I get there very rarely. She keeps much busier than I do. A man passed by whom I know from the CW - I have mentioned him earlier - he has hording problems. This is now the NYU area - New York University - at the end of the school year students put so many good and costly items on the side walks, I have also had other friends who cannot pass them. Rick had stored a pile of them in a church, now declared a fire hazard, he was carrying large bags to an antique store and tried to interest me in some. Soon I was alone, listening to a band playing and feeling lonely amidst masses of people. Later I sat for a while with the friend on my roof. Listened. Finally listening to Deanna sing - much better attended yesterday than the week before. Her friend David came and sang a song that I remember Robert G. singing - bothered and bewildert am I - I tried to picture Robert - it all is so long ago. Enough muddling for one day. Marianne
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Tuesday, May 24, 2017
Tuesday, May 24, 2017 7:45 p.m. back in the computer room - returned earlier today from Sag Harbor - always a bit nostalgic. Yesterday I wrote about my days at the beach. Then too I was writing in the mornings - never really have come to think of it as my work life. Never quite got i t off the ground. It is evening now and I am tired. Just a few words for today to say Hi. Not quite sure when I'll get to it tomorrow. Marianne
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Monday, May 22, 2017
On Monday, May 22, 2017 10:45 a.m. rainy day in Sag Harbor - yesterday brilliant sunshine - reading the Sunday Times on the sidewalk of a cafe while B. was in church - these days more and more wondering why I am doing what I am doing - still my Sunday ritual of reading the paper now goes back - decades? - and while a lot these days just puzzles me I still find this and that interesting me. Later was the concert in the old Whaler's church reminding you of days past in what was once a whaling village. Their oil providing energy? Save the whales was big in the 60's, some have been saved because off Cape Cod people still go whale watching. Here they are long gone. Also music from centuries past, asking for great skill to be played, a lot of time to be spent practicing. One of many settings where I feel out of it, observe, watch, my thoughts wandering. Later B. gave in to my wish to drive to the ocean, the Main beach in East Hampton where I spent so many hours - diving into the waves, also observing and watching and then still pondering my "work life" - hardly furthered by sitting at a beach - covered area, benches - looking at the people on the sand and out on the ocean. Nevertheless glad for life having offered me this time. It was chillier yesterday than I had thought, watching young men playing volley ball, remembering myself playing volley ball. Old folks activity, Tomorrow back to the noisy city and my life so different from life in this idyllic village. Wondering what is in store for me. Did just scroll through Facebook and did come across so much activity of people I know. Marianne
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Saturday, May 20, 2017
Saturday, May 20, 2017 close to 7 p.m. yesterday 90's, today 50's - just a few quick lines - I'm enjoying my time with my friend B. spent some lovely hours sitting on a bench by the bay here, water and sky, stories, a great combination. The house here is lively, soon supper. Tomorrow will be a busy day, church - B. ringing bells - later a concert, you may not hear from
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Friday, May 19, 2017
Friday, May 19, 2017 10:15 a.m. going on 90 - an official heat wave - tonight to go back into the 50's - am about to take short trip - no idea what to take - am known for being a nervous traveler - like to get much too early to any mode of transportation I take - then always do find there are others just as early as I am. Of course cars have the great advantage of running on your own schedule - probably one of the reasons they have so taken over, basically to our disadvantage. Then you can load them up with anything you can think of. But cars too have given me reason to be nervous. Nevertheless I am always happy to travel, not getting into a rut. By the way yesterday I remembered where I said flout - I actually meant float - floating through my life. Not very much time today, got to be by that bus a good while before it leaves. Could get stuck in traffic on 3rd ave going there, you never know. Well, somebody has turned on the air conditioner in the computer room - good for the computers. It is almost brand new, compared to the air conditioners in my apartment that have been there forever - I never use them - only my friend when she comes. The dentist yesterday - attaching more firmly what I call my decoration teeth - they do look very good - no word about possible other solutions. Buses very slow. Almost 5 p.m by the time I got to the hawk bench, Nabil on hos post with the large camera, not saying a word. Lincoln making a reaapearence, comfotable in a canvas chair by the pond, with his huge camera and his bicycle with a cart attached to it - a lot of equipment. He too does not say a word. Then a pigeon landed on his telescope and two other photographers took countless pictures of the pigeon from every angle - will they perhaps carefully study all of them and one may appear in some publication? Or on utube. Who knows. Birds fascinate. Take minds off Trump. Bruce came and we talked a little about Trump. Once there was theater called of the absurd - now we have plenty of it. My friend texted would I come to the mass - walking from the bus station on 8th street to 3rd street, also a couple avenues over, has become a trek. Never imagined walking could become so strenuous. No idea what the priest talked about - so much in this world I will never understand. To the roof that I expected to be packed with Chinese - only one sitting at the far end and all the fancy new green furniture. Do they all prefer air conditioning? It was windy - wonder, will they appear again like in previous years? This morning early to the eye doctor - he says mild - what did he call it - in eye done last, continue with prednistone drops another month - come for one more check up - he says just a precaution - so I'm not entirely done yet. Inflammation. Words come with delay. Stop. Get ready to leave. Marianne
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Thursday, May 18, 2017
Thursday, May 18, 2017 ten minutes to ten. the temp to go to 92, the dentist expecting me at 2:30 p.m. - in my Thursday Thoughts I just sent out I described it at feeling rattled - wondering how well is this world still holding together, how well is my life holding together - our lives,so much depending on computers - and here I am sitting in front of one of them - as Jane put it long ago: Marianne is talking to her computer. I am finding myself lately falling asleep more, sleeping more, having dreams I vividly remember, interesting, not upsetting - the sort of dreams that would be nice to relate to an interested parter in the morning and do a bit of analysing, what do they relate to. My sitting here in front of the computer is a luxury - to have people in your life to have people in your life to whom you can talk, an even greater luxury. Obviously also my teeth are a lot on my mind these days - in the fall a solution seemed on hand and now my dentist does not want to talk about it, leaving me puzzled. Walking has become strenuous, I don't know what to wear, what to eat - it feels like I am flouting through the days and I guess I am. Wondering, are there measures I could take to keep my energies from waning or just continue, as I have in the past, accepting that they wane from time to time and then, thankfully, rise again. Disapproved of by people who do not want to deal with someone less lively at times, and more lively at others. Bluntly telling me they refuse to deal with it, Unpleasant. Sometimes I also do ask myself why I don't read what is called profound books - philosophy? - they spoke to my grandmother without any formal schooling or what we call education - they did not speak to my mother or me with formal education. Most of them have been men. Of course what always comes to my mind is that while German, Germany, produced these great philosophers - and then sank into the deepest abyss of horror. So - to a few of my not terribly profound contemplations - often the computer underlines a word in red and I try in vain to figure out what is wrong with it and let it go. The Polish church - it speaks to my nostalgia for the slavic country where I grew up - on a large TV screen I can watch Polish TV - all kinds of landscapes that make me homesick for the Europe I left. Actually later in the day my friend was telling me of a Polish family and their struggles of living part in Poland, part in America - part of their children having become Americanized, the youngest 16 wanting to stay in Poland and the struggle of finding affordable housing in today's New York. It is jets that now make all this back and forth possible. Then I did head for Central Park, tedious bus ride or not, a place next to the taciturn man with the large camera - I had vaguely remembered he came from a mideastern country, Beirut in Lebanon he yesterday confirmed, He posts his video on a site I never heard of, www.pbase.com/nabil - and he had been in the park since 10:30 a.m. documenting what is happening in the nest. Another livelier man was also documenting, I sensed a bit of competition between them. We talked a little and he spke of forgetting Arabic - but the little I know I think French was the language of the upper classes. Several Lebanese have come into my life lately - all do say what a beautiful country it is, great beaches, mountains where you can ski - then of course Beirut was destroyed and many left. Those who could. I took out my notebook, found an essay I had written on anger, wrote a little more but packed up at 5:30 and headed downtown. The friends with whom I stayed into the night are dead. 5th Avenue packed with huge buses, amazing that traffic moves at all. Still I was home in time for the 6:30 ABC world news - the turmoil in the White House and then a scenario of guards of the Turkish embassy beating up protesters - Erdogan visiting with Trum - a wild scene. Tornados. Waiting for a call from a German friend to go with me to hear Deanna sing - but thee friend called and stopped by, German friend called to say she was too tired, by 9 thee friend walked me over - she did not stay, Deanna very poorly attended, disappointed I had not come earlier. The musical gigs - tough. So much going on in New York, also Deanna plans to be in her house in the country this summer - restaurants expect a certain amount of consumption to make a room available - I have a $4 sangria - not much consumption. She was singing her heart out for a few women, then one of the women sang, a lovely ballad of not seeing dangers ahead - at last Deanna's friend David came, a singer she admires and he sang Gershwin. The night was brought to an early end. Now, off to the dentist, will try to make it to the park - no idea how the day will end - tomorrow at 8 a.m. last visit to the eye doctor, later bus out of the city. There are many moments in each day I cherish - I know I have an amazingly good life - never planned for, it happened - only hope and pray for it these days, to end also on a good note. Hear too many tales of lives ending on terribly dissonant notes. Marianne
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Wednesday, May 17, 2017
Wednesday, May 17, 2017 9:30 a.m. Summer! Temp to go to 86 today, 90 tomorrow, then cool off again a bit. On Friday I hope to leave the city for a few days. Friday morning at 8 a.m I am to see the eye doctor for a last time - done with eye drops and the cataracts. It is a strange experience to go from seeing everything in a haze to this bright clarity - meeting somebody who suddenly looks dreadfully old - and looking at myself in the mirror and looking a lot older too. Still I am glad I have done it. Life ahead of me is a question mark - summers have become a question mark. I want to get out of the city - and then again there are those shaky teeth that may necessitate returns - I want to drive, also do feel a bit shaky, I want to be with my sons, and that is complicated and there have been times when I felt a lot lonelier away from New York and my New York routine. I very much want to get back to Vermont and New Hampshire - as I have been saying short walks have become long, short drives too have become long. It's warm. It's hot. That is New York. Pictures of horrendous tornadoes inland, a whole trailer park flattened, luckily we don't get those. Hurricane season is starting and an occasional hurricane - Sandy not too long ago. can wreak havoc. The greatest havoc these days going on in our government - reams and reams of commentary - also a big question mark: what will hap;pen? Hard not to be nervous. Still I had a very pleasant day yesterday. My friend had made a delicious pea soup at CW - her mind was on the young son of the Iraqui returning to Iraq. His first flight - into much greater question marks than my life is. What will expect him there? We all can worry and do so little. I had decided on an early trip to my library. I do take the bus these days, the stop moved from 9th Street to 10th Street - any reason? - and then you stand there looking at the standing buses at 8th street, a man started talking to me when one bus turned on the lights, saying they are just teasing us - often true. But the bus came and we sat across the aisle from each other and talked, made the ride go fast. The librarians are so friendly, greeting me by name, I returned one memoir and picked another, by Saul Friedlander a holocaust historian whose name I have seen - born 1932 in Prague, hidden during the war in a French Catholic school, becoming a Catholic, his parents died, later in Israel, no more a Catholic, France, Germany and finally California where he lives now - and he begins this memoir writing about memory loss. He has been a very successful man, still I find in these questions relating to identity also questions I ask myself. Prague were my formative years, German my native language and later the inadvertant study of "Germanistik" - over the years many significant German friends, to this day. Since 1956 an American citizen - having blamed the Germans for their lack of opposition to evil - trying to join Americans protesting evil committed by their - my? - government. Browsing through the latest New Yorker not finding much of interest - an endless story of two lesbian women fighting endlessly about an adopted African child. Endless legal ins and outs. Skimmed it and left to enjoy the sunshine in Central park, heading for the hawk bench. Once upon a time such a lively scenario when the chicks were flapping their wings high above 5th Avenue - yesterday one man - vaguely familiar - with a big camera, video mounted to it, he said he would later study it all on his computer. Not very talkative. I could with my bare, new eyes make out the chicks scrambling in the nest but turned to my book to read. But then a woman close to my age, Joy, I had never seen her, sat down next to me and we started talking. After a while she shared terrible experiences with bloodpressure med - fainting one summer day. She had been a medical researcher and confirmed my uneducated suspicion how dangerous those pills are - yet, scared of strokes, we take them. I wonder why not more is getting written about it and as you know endlessly berating myself fot not having what it would take to confront the matter. She is now taking the lowest possible dose. Quick bus trip downtown - woman driver racing through changing lights - I commented on her fast driving and she said: I have to pee so badly - so that is how you get a fast ride. Dinner nibbling on odds and ends - call from thee friend - one of the women coming to the CW had died. 65. Found dead in her bed. She always had made a flamboyant entrance wearing large showy hats - Portuguese background, had been in theater - in the park so many people have died, at the CW since I have been coming. Then my friend went to the Tuesday mass - priest talking at great length about some bible passage. I do miss the peer counceling sessions I attended and often was asked to lead when everybody got a chance to talk about what moved them. This was in the days when I lived with Paco - he liked to watch TV I found it more interesting to listen to people's stories and how they struggled with moods that we have little control over. The years I hung out then with the squatters I lost track of those groups and never found one again. They do operate on principles similar to AA (alcoholics anonymous) and one called itself ; Emotions anonymous. AA meetings are all over the place and I do have some friends to whose social life they are crucial - and no matter where you are, they are ubicuous - but the Castholics prefer their mass, though I have been told some also go to AA. It is never spoken about. In any event, she came later - she had been over the weekend with her family and there is a lot to talk about. My involvement with my family is so minimal - not by choice - but - that is the way the cookie crumbles. How is that for an expression. Off to the Polish church - my mosaic of settings - park? tempting - Deanna singing in Wednesdays, a German friend back from Florida may come. Communication - I remember the thought that went through my mind yesterday - perhaps this here blog has become my major form of communication. My daily form of talking to an unseen audience. Is that why millions have taken to facebook? The Long Loneliness is the title Dorothy Day gave to her autobiography (before everything became a memoir) - so many of us seeking ways to deal with our loneliness. Adios. Marianne
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Tuesday, May 16, 2017
Tuesday, May 16, 2017 9:35 a.m.A sunny day - temperatures going up. Words said to us that we remember - the daughter of Paco, Elena, saying to me: Marianne, why don't you wait for people to call you. The telephone. My mother got her first telephone when she and my father - they were divorced by then - were evicted from the villa in Graefelfing. a fancy Munich suburb, a lot of it built up in the 1930's for members of Hitler's party. The Tramplers had gotten two adjacent villas on the edge of woods, a ten minute walk from the railroad station. While we were still in Prague, in the fall of 1945, my father had made an exploratory trip to Munich with a young doctor. A sister of his Bavarian mother lived with a daughter and a grand daughter, Nelli, in a working class neighborhood and their house had been spared in the bombing. Small as their apartment was they gave hospitality to my father and his friend. My mother had stipulated she needed woods to recover from the horrors of the war - I assume my father found his way to Graefelfing. After 1945 the Czechs were evicting all German speakers - a lot of it based on a 1938 census where people had checked off German as their language. These people for the most part were packed into railroad cars, allowed to take what they could carry and shipped across the border mostly to what became West Germany and there camps wer set up, called DP camps for displaced persons. In America an act was passed to accept some of these people - and I got in on this act in it's last days - the bureaucracy had worked so slowly that suddenly when the act was abound to end quickly some people wer still scooped up, I among them. It must have been on this exploratory trip that my father also made it to Graefelfing. Earlier I used the word evicted - expelled is mostly used. Since both my parents had been in concentration camps we did have a somewhat privileged status - we had to leave but were able to secure a railroad car for our possessions that we shared with another couple and that ended up on a side track in Plannegg, one stop beyond Graefelfing.. There it stood for several weeks and no one broke in - theft under Hitler had been very severely punished - not of course the whole sale looting in occupied countries. My motheer credited my father with very little - still, only now thinking about it I realize how much he really did - stasying around until I left protecting me - being a quiet and loving presence - his severe fault not having the skill of earning a lot of money. We moved into one of these Trampler villas but they did not allow us to have a telephone. The state allowed them to evict my parents when housing again became more plentiful - my father found a room in Graefelfing, where he later was evicted again - a spiral leading to his death. He never in his life had a telephone. My mother found a lovely one bedroom apartment on the outskirts of Munich, Nymphenburg, with a ten year lease and instantly acquired a telephone- she was 56 years old. She loved the telephone and made extensive use - overseas calls then prohibitively expensive. I got my first telephone around the same time, 1956, when I got married. I too loved the phone and still do remember how much Paco disliked my long conversations when we were in the small apartment on East 6th street. For the longest time he had no phone in East Hampton and when somebody called him, his response was brief. And now - here I am with my cell phone lying next to me and not ringing - upstairs my land line, little used - and I debating with myself, should I wait for people to call me - should I call them - realizing there are people who appreciate my call and not calling them often enough - the dilemmas telephones can cause. Added now the communication by texting, email and then people stay in touch by facebook - many people do seem in constant touch with family - mine so sparce - and so I find myself looking at my ipad, iphone, land line - contemplating them all more than using them. Yesterday I met up with a young friend - she lives in Berlin and is the daughter of a long time friend - she left messages on my old answering machine but could not be reached herself because she said getting a sim card here was complicated - anyway yesterday morning she reached me on my iphone here, came to my apartment - but was quite distracted by making decisions what still to show her Italian friend with whom she had come and who then came later - being the perfect tourist guide seemed to put my friend under some stress. I fondly remembered earlier more relaxed more meetings. We ended up eating at my favorite Ukrainian restaurant that she and her friend enjoyed. We also came to speak about her somewhat famous father who is now in his 90's - there is so much to find out about people. German stories, involving the war - in 1945 her grandmother lost her husband and a son almost at the same time. Stories, stories, endless stories - with many of my German friends there was for the longest time much we could not talk about - almost all my German friends that I can thin of had had parents who had been on what we called "the other side" - and I think all of us do struggle a life long with our German past - events that forever will remain incomprehensible. Now every day incomprehensible events are being added and only hoping the relative normalcy of our livesd will hold a little longer. Now I remember the story that a little more than hour ago caught my attention - a young man from Long Island who ended up with Alquiada (spelling?) in Asia, then was arrested and came to work for the American system - eyes on my watch, I should stop. Finished reading last night the memoir of the terrible childhood it took the author into her 40's to find the most complicated ways to survive - well, it held my interest. Distracted me. I did not call anybody - while thinking: Whom should I call? Finally send a few messages from my ipad - that it has taken me only a year to figure out how to do. Getting terribly old. Marianne
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Monday, May 15, 2017
Monday May 15, 2017 9:25 a.m. alone in the quiet computer room - not yet affected by cyber attack - scary stuff, considering all that is based on computers these days - my typewriter needs cleaning - but still there is paper and pen and I do have carbon paper and could make copies of what I write. All the things in my memory - a man who I believe was what we call a holocaust survivor - at some point I did exchange a few words with him, He was a longer, popping up here and there - and he typed extensive letters to the nyt, filling pages not leaving any margin anywhere, of course non were published but he attached them to a lamp post on the corner of 7th Street and Avenue A. I glanced at them occasionally. Also a form of publishing. I have not seen him in a while. Odd days. The mother's day - I heard some statistic of a billion dollars spent on mother's day gifts - and another story comes to mind: Robert G. graduated from Stuyvesant high school in January, 1946, he was 16 years old and had been admitted to a state university in the Midwest - Minnesota? - that informed him at the last moment that it was filled up with returning solders on the G.I. bill - and impatient to get away from New York he went to some small school in Potsdam,N.Y. His Protestant mother had raised him Jewish - or tried - in Potsdam he fell in love with a Christian girl, their Christian minister and was about to join that church - his mother very upset - when, on mother's day he was running across a street to a florist to have flowers sent to his mother, when a fast car hit him, broke both his legs and changed his life. In his mother's Protestant religion there was a God who punished any disobedience. A mother's day story. I have always been among those who detested the commercial aspect of the holiday - in Europe it was on another day than here, I ignored it and propagated altogether it be ignored. In one of the memoir reviews I read yesterday - also about a mother doing terrible things, she agitated against mother's day, her son said and yet, was most appreciative when her son called her on mother's day. So, I was waiting for my sons to call and late in the day found an email on my ipad that I am slowly learning to use - one year after buying it. Still those mother's day vibes wer all over the place - from all sides it was coming, Happy mother's day - my friends were busily celebrating their mothers or being celebrated, not one of the called me - then sitting on the bus going to Central Park, my cell phone announcing a text - Happy Mother's day - no name, a 603 number, I text back, who is 603? - Carrol Greene comes the answer. The most vexing - if that is the right word - texting exchange follows - how much he misses me, how he wants to visit me in New York, how he might go to the Philippines to get married - Carrol - my New Hampshire backwoods car mechanic who for years kept my jealopies in great running shape. I wish I was a better writer than I am - reading essays by 18 year olds I find their writing so superior to my writing - the Greene family in New Hampshire are such characters - only in America? It was my New Hampshire friend Stephen W. - I met him in New Hampshire - who discoverd Carrol on his way to the little air port that he used for his one engine cessna. The Greenes are an old family there, Carrol ownes acres and acres, that he covers with cars he buys at auctions and he is in trouble with the local government because these masses of cars are not ecologically sound. In New Hampshire to this day it is legal to drive an uninsured car, Also there are many rural pockets of poverty - and social ills - yet cars are so essential - both farmswhere I stayed were seven miles from the nearest store and the nearest I can get by public transport - an expensive bus - is Concord, twenty miles away from where I want to be. Once upon a time a railroad did run through the township, the rails have been removed but the tracks are still there. Carrol supplied the neediest of the needy with cars, they paid in small installments. I may have been the only customer he ever had who paid him in full, in cash - I most loved a 1998 or so Mercury Topaz for $500. We spent hours together on a hot July day, surrounded by mosquitoes - in an incredibly messy space, taking off all four wheels and replacing the brake pads and making other improvements. Everything worked on this car - in 2007 I wrote it over to Stephen when we drove to the border of Tennessee to say goodbye to his mother - then ddrove back in a day to Vermont - the car did great. I never saw it again. All, long, long stories. I did get to Central Park - was greeted by many more: Happy mother's day - in the nest of the hawk three hatchlings - many telescopes on them - I came to sit next to a Bruce, a professional - a huge camera on a tripod, hooked up to video, in front of him a large ipad recording the video and posting it on face book and possibly also elsewhere - he invited me to watch the action with him on his ipod - that I could do sitting back against the bush with large white blossoms. There was action in the nest galore - Stella, an old timer at her telescope reporting with great excitement - both parents coming and going, bringing food, the little ones fighting over the food. It is a scenario I've been watching since the 1990's - alas so many of my fellow watchers have died - I never had seen Bruce before. Then he showed me on his iphone that the predicted rainstorm was to happen in 10 minutes, huge down pour - I rushed to the boat house. found the last free chair under an umbrella on the patio, it rained a little, I read the nyt book review and when I saw the sun shining returned to the hawk scenario - there were several familiar faces, Carlos, great enthusiast, great photographer, he sends me emails, the 1931 fireboat Bruce - I hope I get to ride it - I talked with Eleanor - then did see a really threatening cloud hidden behind the bush - in front beautiful blue sky - I rushed for the bus, caught a #2 and while on the bus it poured - and stopped raining when I got off the bus. Ate the rest of my delicious Polish food and waited for a friend - she is the daughter of a friend and lives in Berlin - she did not come but a little while ago called on my cell phone and will come to my apartment at 11 - I said I would be there. Another evening that I spent reading - the book review - memoirs, memoirs, more memoirs. I tried my hand at it - was accused of navel gazing, indulgence - sadly never had the skill to get tham out "on the marketz' - still do continue to marvel at all the things people reveal these days and I am glad for it. I also long have enjoyed documentaries and more and more are made and if only I was a bit more techno savvy I could watch them. Again - I also would have loved to make one. Once again ending of the note on gratitude for this here blog - I'm enjoying myself writing it - I hope some readers enjoy it - and hallo Carrol, I vividly remember my last visit - three years ago? - have not though too often of you, thank you for thinking of me. Adios
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Sunday, May 14, 2017
a cool, sunny Sunday Morning, May 14, 2017 9:32 a.m. computer room open - but a man sitting at "my" computer endless studying New York maps - unmoved by the fact that I would like to use "my" computer. I'm so used to being here alone!. Now three of them are there, distracting me. It did rain all day yesterday. At noon I ventured to the Polish butcher on Second Avenue between 8th and 9th street - when I moved to this neighborhood in 1973 there were so many Polish butchers - o.k. the man using "my" computer finally left - I asked him what he was looking for - how to get to Central Park! - he had found the most complicated ways of getting there - he was happy to find out from me a simple way) - well, another Chinese just arrived - one sitting right next to me watching sports in Chinese) So, talking of the last Polish butcher left - fresh sauerkraut in a barrel, huge loaves of Baltic sour dough bread, to hold it you would have to stretch your arms out wide - a pound I think costs $10 - any Polish cold cut you can think of, on Saturdays now they set up tables with cooked Polish food - I got meat balls, cooked sauerkraut, kasha (buckwheat) - a grain that grows in mountainous soil ) and also some cheese blintzes a potato pancake - enough for me for three meals - and started eating as soon as I came home. Chinese sportswatcher next to me wanted some paper and pen - which I of course have - but he could only tell me in sign language. Amazing how people can live without knowing the language of the land - have no desire to learn it. Oh well. Then I got into reading the nyt - Trump, Trump, Trump - in many ways I'm happily amazed how he can be, and is criticized in the strongest of language - yet it continues to feel frighteningly incomprehensible how this man could have become the most powerful man in the world. We are all holding out breath. I came back to the computer room - much of my human contact today is by email. Letters, yes letters - when did they begin to play such a large role in our lives? Come to think of it, the history of mail is fairly recent. We do remember the Troubadures who were oral trsansmitters of stories and of news. Actually literacy - a woman who helped me with my children, Mala, was born around 1910 into a Jewish orthodox house in what is now Poland and her father forbade the female children to be taught reading and writing. The Jewish museum in New York once had an exhibit called "ein bintel brief" in high German it would be Ein Buendel Briefe - a package of letters - millions left Europe between 1880 and 1914 - letters gained such importance in people's lives - and also in my life, an emigrant, immigrant, myself. My phone just indicated a text - Joanne Kennedy from the CW texting me Happy Mother's day - I texted back, Thank you Joanne the greatest mother of them all and the go to for all needs a very happy day for you Marianne - Joanne - a fascinating woman. I don't think I have ever mentioned her - we have watched each other over the years, there never has been a time when we would have sat down to a one to one conversation. She was born into an observant Catholic family in California, close to 50 years ago, lost her mother at an early age, studied law for a year or two and then joined the Catholic Worker in Los Angeles. Some years in Iowa and then - New York City. A beautiful woman, incredibly capable and hard working - in many roles. She is the mother of two whom she keeps close to her and she also has become a center of the Catholic Worker. The other day when I was shocked at the price of my eye drops, out much valued local pharmacist, Carmine, said to me: Go and ask Joanne. Aware of how over run with requests Joanne is I have until now only briefly asked her a question or two. Once when I got a phone call that was a scary scam and she assured me it was a scam. There are more and more of such phone calls now. In any event, we all call her amazing - and just now I was amazed by her text. Still briefly to yesterday, and literacy - it rained, and rained and I did not feel like going out of the house - but there was a book. I had been at my library and picked up another memoir - A life abbreviated, I believe is the title - a daughter's lament about - a dangerous mother. A mother who had a daughter hoping to create for herself a life long companion. The real suffering she caused her as a child. Once again a book that did distract me, absorb me for several hours, make the evening go by. Being a child, being a parent, an endless topic. But enough for this morning and this disjointed here effort. The sun is shining, I will eat my Polish food - skip Jane's Catholic Worker brunch that is so late now - 2 p.m. - I do want to get to the park - they do talk of a thunder storm, so be it - but I expect the hawk scene to be lively today and want to check it out. Marianne
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Saturday, May 13, 2017
Rainy, lonely Saturday - May 13, 2017 9:30 a.m. - the boxes, the boxes, so many boxes, still on shelves, in all three closets - Molly was there, 10 o'clocksharp - eager to help with boxes. I took off the sheet, prepared trash bags, ready to a major reduction - long, long forgotten what was in them - the one on top, light: photographs - charred in the fire, many stuck together because of the water they had been in - still, familiar faces, moments from the past, a lot of Paco - in East Hampton, at the beach. Pre digital days, pre computer days - it must have been in 1970 that I bought for $30 the Bauer movie camera, 8 mm I believe and in a couple of metal canisters - in boxes! - I still do have a couple of reals of film - scenes I remember shooting during a visit in Canada and then my young children in Karl Schurz park, a park at the East River in the 80's. To see if anything could still be seen, by now the most antiquated of equipment would be needed - super 8 I think it was. For some $200 I had also bought a Bolex projector - and then in early 1973 I had my first break in, in my $92 a month floorthrough on 3rd Avenue off 90th street. My film making over. Not that I could have afforded it on my small check at the American Foundation for the blind. Developing a minute of film cost me $1 I seem to remember. I did not own a still camera until one day a friend by the name of Merle Steir took me to a camera shop and again for $30 I bought a wonderfully manual camera - no batteries - early 1984 - later that summer Merle died in a car crash in France. Merle. He loved my writing and encouraged me to write. His New Jersey family was wealthy and sent him to Harvard Business School to become a business man, but Merle wanted to be an artist. He believed in $30 cameras and shot panoramas with it that he exhibited - this was in the 1960's when everybody was a artist and he wsanted to show how it could be done with little money. He also loved giving parties - and sitting by his window overlooking St.Mark's church on 2nd Avenue I consumed a good amount of Wild Turkey whiskey. Merle was the glue of a group of artist, after his death it soon fell apart. I set off on a still photography spree in 1988 when I came about the East Village squatter scene that fascinated me. First with the $30 camera, then a $100 camera with batteries, allowing me to shoot more footage faster. I do love documenting. I did enter my snapshots carefully in albums with written accounts between the pages, also stored the negatives professionally - and now what is still left is what Stephen W. - thank you! - dug out of the ashes after the fire - a messy remnant. Ken and I used to compare notes on all the wonderful projects we started and lost in fires and also could not bring to completion for lacking funds. So I am setting a small memorial to them in this here, my blog. My still ongoing project! Thank you, all of you, who have been encouraging me and supporting me. Molly was not in favor of throwing things out - the other boxes were heavy and filled with files from typewriter days. My desk on East 6th Street had consisted of a door supported by metal cabinets and most of their contents survived, not in the best of shape. I did make carbon copies of the many letters I wrote - read a few - and actually the second novel I wrote, still in Geneva, 1961, then I based some of it on a stack of letters my boyfriend Arno had written to me on his arrival in New York in 1951. I had carefully collected them in a Leitz Ordner - a German bulky container for documents. Once when he visited me in New York I gave them to him and who knows they may still exist in the basement of the house where he lived in Washington. In all the endless memoirs I read I do find people diving into old letters, old documents - yes, Robert G. had put together many color slides of our life in Geneva, loved the caroussel we had and showing them - I did leave everything with him and his third wife destroyed it. Still photographs we put into albums - there is the suitcase my son treasures where I salvaged a few albums and documents in Vienna when my mother died. My father's hand writing could have been called calligraphy, the small photos from early cameras attached to black paper and in white labelled. Worlds I was still part off. After Ken stored for me 2000 snap shots taken with my digital camera I stopped taking pictures. Now when a tree is falling on a highway somebody already has whipped out a smart phone that also does video, instantly a TV station gets it and I can watch it on the news - well I have signed off - though did love the brief window when I used my second video camera with the small cassettes, now sitting in my drawer. I'm happy I have this here blog where at least I can write about it. It would be very surprising if I still were to look through the charred files Stephen saved - or if anybody would. Still I cannot bring myself to toss them. Dwelling on the boxes. My moments of dwelling on the past. The sun was shining yesterday, the nyt needed to be read, I walked over to Washington Square Park. I do also spend some time listening to fellow oldies - we all have such a need to be listened to. Helga. A German, rather home bound these days, thanked me profusely for listening to her. She got into talking about the German Lutheran church on East 84th street, I have never been there, they no longer have a permanent pastor and have greatly shrunk. In the evening thee friend had invited a Jesuit to give a talk at the CW on prayer. Ignacious, I am familiar with the name - have met by now a good number of Jesuits and yet all in all am very ignorant about them. I listened with interest but could not quite stop my critical inner voices. I do examine my life. I do express my appreciation. But God was not introduced into my early life. We all long for a soul mate - not easy to find - so people make God their soul mate? It is not a solution I have found. Perhaps writing has been my form of prayer. Jesuits of course are all men and for them the order provides a lot of security. They are not what we in German call "Bettelmoenche" - begging monks. They have good and safe houses - they take good care of their ageing members. Much has been written on the topic - by people whose lives have been so much better ordered than my life. My life as I can see now has been an ongoing improvisation. It's 11 a.m. - thirteen hours remain for me in this day to improvise. Will try to do some cleaning, wash my laundry and perhaps return to this here computer to write a letter. Of course I can always write on gthe role letter writing has played in my life. Marianne
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Friday, May 12, 2017
Friday, May 12, 2017 9:20 a.m. sunny, still cool a quickie - came to computer room at 9, closed - staff busy with the bazaar - the large "yard sales" when enormous amounts of good are displayed in the street for sale - I went downstairs to remind security to open the room and a man came quickly. At 10 a.m. I am expecting Molly and have taken under consideration a project - looking once again at the boxes that I filled in 2000 after the fire with papers Stephen W. had dug out in the ashed of my apartment - most still soggy - I had rented an SUV and took them to my son's house where they landed in a damp shack - then with help from Stephen transported them to his solar house in New Hampshire - we spread them out, then put them into boxes - then he was about to leave that house and we took them to my apartment here, I did go through them and make a list of what was in them - occasionally have come across that list, at this moment don't know where it is - the shelves began buckling under the boxes and one broke - I remember recruiting somebody in the street for quick assistance - then one of the many seminarians at the CW came and helped, I have stacked them against a wall in my bedroom, covered with a sheet - asked my younger son to take them to his attick, that is not big - in any event - yesterday I met with my grandson in Washington Square park and he told me that after his mother's mother died, his mother has filled an entire room with papers and other things his grandmother had left behind in Boston. Recently they have been reading letters his grandmother and grandfather exchanged in young years - moving and interesting. When my mother died in Vienna we had to deal hastily with her apartment. I do remember filling boxes and asking my son to take them to the post office to send to my partner Paco's house in East Hampton - there was more room than in my very small walk up on East 6th Street. I see my son, a young realist, contemptuously kicking them down the stairs - the postage would be pricey - saying to me, you will never look at these boxes again. How right he was - I left them in East Hampton and have no idea what happened to them when Paco died. It was a total waste of money and effort. Many considerate people wanting to spare their children the unpleasant task of most likely having to discard most of what they have amassed, do some of the discarding themselves. In a few minutes I will start making a feeble attempt - open one, some of these boxes after 17 years - and yes, well, this here blog also has been a feeble attempt to create still a bit of memory of me - every one of us wants to be remembered and our efforts take all kinds of forms - I don't think there is a room anywhere to store what I have been amassing in those 17 years here - and now I better stop and go upstairs. Boxes, boxes, boxes I remember an engineer to whom I rented my 6th street apt one summer complaining about far too many boxes Marianne
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Thursday, May 11th, 2017
Thursday, May 11th, 2017 9:30 a.m. more chilly days, - my dentist cancelled my appointment today and moved it up a week - I live with constant worry about what I call my decoration teeth coming down - so blame myself for starting this blood pressure pill - it was my German once upon a time high school class mate who became a medical doctor who strongly urged me to take such a pill. She told me since this medication exists she saw the number of strokes go down dramatically and strokes are so scary.The other day my doctor told me it is not a beta blocker but a something inhibitor. So many of my contemporaries love gathering information - years ago my psychiatrist friend Edmund was telling me, you are are an ostrich putting your head into the sand - and indeed I am. I've just dismissed cholesterol - don'gt want to hear of it - for the life of me cannot remember what my blood pressure is - some inner reluctance I have dealing with these matters. Admit that I am now paying the price for this reluctance. Fat on my stomach that I constantly read is terribly, terribly dangerous - I lose a few pounds, gain them again - love fatty brie cheese, fatty yogurt, ice cream, chocolate - thank the Gods I don't have diabetes which just about everybody seems to have. Resent greatly my dysfunctional gait - worry about falling, about being hit by all these young people around me speeding on some new gizmo every day - now their skate boards are motorized. Quetching - I believe is the yiddish term for what I am doing. Large part of getting older. Reading the nyt in the morning hardly cheers me up - my once upon a time mother in law Tamina Bilthuis - read one book in her life, Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand and loved it - but she got up every day, turned on a radio station with cheerful music, sang a happy song and cleaned and washed and fixed and shopped and cooked and early on had found a companion, Hanna, who came from her northern region of Germany, spoke her dialect and cheerfully joined her in her labors. Movies have been made about this type of relationships - neither of the two women ever inclined to ponder life in writing. A waste of time! Oh well. Many writers do ponder at length how they became writers and agree it begins with reading. I resisted my mother's attempts to teach me reading - it worried and upset her greatly - then began my school years at six in a Czech school in Prague, didn't know Czech - still learned to read in Czech in lightening speed - there were wonderful Czech books - an only child, no radio, no tv, no phone - my parents worried to death about political events - what pleasure, what wonderful escape became the books, transporting me into magical worlds - it was hard to tear me away from them, with a flash light I would still read under covers at night - writing compositions a delight - later in my life the desire to give other readers the pleasure writers have given me - this here blog a last feeble attempt. Pondering, blaming myself for not achieving greater skills. People critical of you are not hard to find - I have been blamed for being too critical and not expressing it in the best of ways. To yesterday. Off to the Polish church - the round table with the wax cloth and kind, elderly Polish women on the dot of 12 noon with their carts distributing food - they appreciate my dienkuje bardzo pani - thank you very much lady - with a "prosim" - I do like the Slavic surrounding. They put out small containers of skim milk, an apple, a slice of bread with a pad of butter attached, then they bring soup and later - yesterday, a meatball in a lot of sauce, kasha, thinly sliced - I use the skim milk to make instant chocolate pudding, grate the apple for my breakfast, eat the bread later and took half of thelunch home and ate it for dinner. The company around the table varies, an Argentinian mother and daughter - the dream daughter but she says her mother complains a lot about her, the daughter brings the nyt to read, another Latino woman, a Chinese woman - others vary, a Polish man with a young grandchild, yesterday a man lo and behold born in lower Manhattan, at home he said, to people from Italy. His wife, not there yet, he said was born in Latvia - then she came, looking and acting very theatrical, an old thick leather big cowboy hat, a tight fitting leopard patterned short, fitting over black pants - we soon found out how when she was a baby her family had fled Latvia. Her English perfect. People watcher that I am - plenty of people to watch. Stop in the discount cheese store - close to 1:30 before I got home, did fall asleep a bit - such grey and cool weather had to give myself a push to make it to Washington Square Park, always lively. Thee friend came, helped with some chore and brought a movie on Sherlock Homes - or is it Holmes - many Americans have much greater interest in the British than I do - we have what in nyc is channel 13 - public television - from my point of view endlessly showing BBC series - I barely get the name right, Downton Abbey? - then master piece theater, mysteries - my taste goes to documentaries and they also have had some good ones - and while I'm familiar with the name Sherlock Holmes - I could not tell you anything about him. I left after a while to hear Deanna sing - Wednesdays at The Nomad - last Wednesday packed - yesterday sparse audience. Was greeted enthusiastically by John, an avid fan and later also my friend L.P. came - chiding my ignorance of Broadway songs. Robert G., my ex-husband, loved them, sang them, probably would have known and loved all the songs Deanna sings - the gaps in my - should I call it awareness - are enormous. There is so much to know out there I don't know - beginning with the earlier mentioned medical knowledge, British culture and literature - music, I know so little - skim cultural events in nyc in the nyt - stopped going to theater when prices shot up and my budget shrank, don't go to museums, rarely a movie - write this blog to assure myself I am doing something - I have read reams in my life, written reams, listened, talked - my interests went to sociology, psychology, history - love watching people, parks, cafes and also the streets - do go to places where people gather and watch them interact. The evening at Deanna's ended in a love fest - a fellow singer came who also sang, a man, almost all the few of us still left knew each other, embraced each other, loved each other - all cheerful musicians. It was a warm and happy atmosphere. I am glad I came - I listen, try to make out as many words as I can - songs to have great words - and enjoy myself even if unable to label and place the music. Off for a quick soup at the CW - Central Park? long bus ride - Washington Square Park? - for years and years it was Central Park, the reservoir, where two dead bodies we found flouting - now often preferring to rest a bit longer, quick walk - or not quite as quick as I would like - got to run if I want to be on time for early soup at CW. At 11:30 - also very much on time. Happy as long I still can make these walks - my gait making me an obvious old woman, Chucks. Marianne
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Wednesday, May 10th, 2017
Wednesday, May 10th, 2017 - 9:35 a.m. sunny - pondering how to start. Yesterday I was leaving for the Catholic Worker - where the friend who does not want to be mentioned on this blog was hard at work. Two big pots with lentil soup were waiting for consumption - one with meat, one without meat and also more food, and a lot of bread. Arriving at 11:25 there are already several women waiting on the side walk to have the house opened to them at 12 noonand I always have felt somewhat uncomfortable passing them - they giving me questioning looks, why I am let in. There is Felton, who has allowed me to mention his name and who also is, as far as I know, the only Catholic Worker reading my blog, enjoying it and approving it. Of course now that I have gone more public with it others may read it too. There are also other Catholic Workers who do have blogs - and if I were younger and savvier but I am not. Felton is a long time Catholic Worker with the history of a true activist - in earlier years we would meet at demonstrations. He still is active. For many years he took charge of the distribution of their newspaper, then wanted a change and now greets the women who come for the Tuesday through Friday noon time lunch and also helps them. He also has set up as a street astronomer. He has many interests and many accomplished skills. Felton opens the door for me with a smile. Walking into the dining room I saw Jane - don't know how she feels about being mentioned - a long time Catholic Worker, as a young woman a companion to Dorothy Day, the founder. She is a woman of many facets - among them an incredible memory. She is staying in touch with French Christine who at this moment is in Paris. Jane suggested she would call her so I too could briefly talk to her. But along came the man whom I am strictly forbidden to mention - but it has been mentioned to him that I mentioned him - I've created an odd situation for myself. Something to write about! Anyway I did follow the not to be mentioned man to the little sanctuary he has set up for himself in a room still called the library and overflowing with books, books, books everywhere - I have written earlier how the CW accepting donations has become a repository for piles and piles of stuff - a flow that a number of people do think should be reduced at least - but those who could make this move are reluctant - as far as I am concerned, a serious problem. "the man" - loves flowers and we sit there amidst books, books, books and flowers, flowers, flowers - and he is a great story teller - one also of his many talents - but it seems everyone wants to tell stories and I am one of the few with the time and inclination to listen to his stories. Also - he has been an enormous help to me in the past. A fiesta in the South Bronx church where life has taken him, once Irish, now Mexican, he described in vivid colors - finally al the religious folk, including him, playing volley ball - I always see things with my inner eye as a movie - the Mexican nuns, still in long robes. On the way out I joined Jane in another space overflowing with "gifts" - you can mention something odd you need and sure enough Jsne will find it among masses of items. She did then make the call to France - all the 14 digits of a cell phone number - Christine answered - walking in a park - I thought of the song Deanna loves, I love Paris in the spring time - and when she turned around there was one of her nine siblings, Roland - all of whom do have high positions - I talked to her briefly and she asked for my German friend struggling with leukemia - so many impressions in a short hour. At 12 the house had been opened to the women referred to as guests, or ladies, close to 60 of them, enjoying the soup on real plates with real silver - not paper and plastic as at the Polish church. Then on to what is called the clothing room - overflowing, overflowing with donated clothing - there is an abundence of so much - but no affordable housing and a "health care" that for poor people involves hours and hours of waiting - the women are well dressed, well fed - and yet their lives have entirely fallen to pieces - no home, no work and good reason to be angry. Often they are hard to deal with. I went home - I have a home! - rested briefly then off to my fancy library - the book's title: Pumpkin Flowers - on a very slow bus trip uptown I had a chance to skim the many pages I had not read yet - the book ends with the soldier now a journalist coming back to Lebanon as a tourist - he had grown up in Canada and still had Canadian papers - no Israeli allowed in Lebanon - visiting a country whose beauty is often mentioned and also the site where he had been as a soldier. A book dealing with so much absurdity. In the reading room a couple of friendly faces greeted me, I skimmed the May 15 New Yorker, always interesting stories - the sharing economy - so much now free lance - everything momentary, temporary - true survival of the fittest - most adaptable, most flexible. Living here in this house that also might, might not, be sold, I do feel the ground under me shifting. In Central Park I sat for a while in a metal rocking chair of the concession by the pond and played with my smart phone - overwhelmed by all the weird stuff coming up - an email from Vienna in January I had completely forgotten about - then I actually sent an email - I only can get to these functions accidentally - and have great trouble getting to functions I want. I walked to the hawk bench, was enthusiastically greeted by name by a man I have long known - no idea what his name is. Far too many people in my life. He said - I'm just back from New Orleans, a jazz festival, I travel everywhere by Amtrak. He is retired from some sort of job that had been secure, has yielded a good pension, he never was married. He also loves boats - had a sail boat for twenty years, still has friends who take him sailing and also has an association with a 1931 New York City fire boat that takes people for free rides in the harbor, up the Hudson and in October to Oyster Bay. Their webside either Fireboat.org or 1931fireboat.org. I just emailed the info to my grandson, perhaps I can interest him and his wife and perhaps they could take me. In Oyster Bay they also do some color water display. The cross of his life is a very disabled brother who lives in Florida, he did tell me about this problem in the past. But he finds a lot of ways to enjoy life. Thee friend came for a while - sad stories of the Iraqui friends in Finland. While they were heading there two years ago I did call the Finnish consul in New York, a friendly woman, who told me then and there how poor the outlook in her country for asylum seekers would be. A few do seem to fare better in Germany - probably the tip of an iceberg. Of course I remember the relative ease of my emigration - though much luck was involved and also there were eight months of "processing" - interviews and interviews and when my army boat finally docked in Staten Island - a strike in Manhattan - the official still disappeared with my papers questioning how a student could come on an immigration visa. I was ready to swim to Manhattan. Of course my mother believed until she died that I would have done much better staying in Germany. Many of my high school contemporaries never married - men had been killed in the war - never had children - and envied my life in America. To this moment I have been able to live with a semblance of normalcy - but now the world is getting a bit too strange for an old woman. Polish church today? Adios, Marianne
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Tuesday, May 9th, 2017
Tuesday, May 9th, 2017 9:31 a.m. chilly days - back in the computer room, fighting endless distractions - lots of things I should be doing in my apartment, if I looked at all the things coming up on the screen I would never begin writing, answering mail from readers - that I much appreciate - then do find, like long ago when I had wonderful correspondences with individual friends - I then for the most part could freely write about things on my mind. These correspondences probably could fill a few volumes - as the correspondences of "known" writers do - letters by. It is already written about how email no longer fills previous functions - though of course now we do read endlessly about much harm and distress caused by emails found in computers. Manual typewriters coming back into style! For years it was 8 or 9 quite random people to whom these here writings went - carefully chosen to be out of New York and not in contact with any one close to me - and actually since I had that wonderful lazer printer right next to my computer I did print reams of them, now sitting in folders in milk crates under what should have been my dining table filled with the stuff I should be upstairs and get rid of it. It was people expressing interest in my writing that led to expanding this writing - and now somehow, without giving it too much thought - true for a lot happening in my life - I began sending it to people close to me - who actually would make up the major topic in my life, but cannot, since they are reading this. The dilemmas we cause ourselves. Early on Ken was telling me that in the most miniscule ways I was creating some sort of face book - but an old techno phobic woman - never had a business sense - found so little in my life to turn into dollars and cents - this here blog after some fashion has become what others seem to post on face book - kind of keeping people up to date on my doings - constantly careful of not stepping on toes - but still stepping on toes here and there. Enough of my musings. In the mornings the clock seems to move much faster than in the evening when I am tired. I do plan today to go for soup to the C.W. - in an hour I must sign out. Then do a little shopping, by 1 p.m. ready to close eyes for a while, with a little bit of luck falling briefly asleep - Napoleon it is said was a master of brief naps. Today off to my uptown library, four weeks ago I took out a book trying to read a book again instead of newspapers - the account of an Israeli writer who as a young man was a soldier in a Lebanon outpost describing the utterly senseless dying of young men. Flowers of Pumpkin Hill is the title of the book. My memoir reading. The book is due and must be returned. I will combine it with a walk in Central Park. That's the plan. The trip yesterday. You heard from me from the Smith College library, a large library, Neilson Library, about to be closed for three years for renovation. I had used their guest computer before - on May 21st the library will be closed. My son has been going there to work on a history paper and found a lovely quiet desk at a window and he also has been meeting there with a friend - they found each other not that long ago and realized they had been class mates at an elite public school in New York, actually located in the Bronx, called the Bronx High School of Science. Quite often mentioned. The other man is working on a book and they established a little ritual meeting at the library and having lunch - now by the closing of the library to be rudely interrupted. Yesterday I joined the two at lunch - in Norhampton, places overrun by customers, nice place, the name of some couple, Alice? and ?? - I enjoyed the fish chowder and then my son walked me to the train - I fully expecting a delay - at 2:01 on the minute it arrived. Amazing. Many travellers. Comfortable. Slow. No bullet trains in America the country of cars. I got off in New Haven to switch to Metro North - a fellow traveller knew the schedule - leaving, on time! - 4:42 p.m., soon after we had arrived. On this train the pleasure is that as a senior, read old woman, you can pay the conductor, no fine. For Amtrac my son went though a tedious on line reservation - it was $23 and then $11 on metro north. Metro North at times is faster running express, it was almost 7 p.m. by the time we crawled to a stop in Grand Central. This train goes underground on 96th Street under Park Avenue - 96th street became the dividing line between the Upper East Side and Harlem - for years two worlds - now what we call gentrification is crawling up into Harlem. On Sunday there was a review of a book (NYT book review) trying to explain the tremendous changes this city is undergoing. Not easy. As we were crawling very slowly under Park Avenue from 96th street to 42nd street where Grand Central station is, I was already standing by the door that also is a window and the scenario you get to watch is a scenario totally falling apart, another witness to the neglect of our rail system. At one time actually small colonies of homeless had settled in the crumbling nooks and crannies until they were evicted. But one pleasure for me again is that I get off the train and on a quick straight line walk to my subway, the number 6 train - while Penn stsation is a labyrint and none of the west side subways once I find them take me where I want to go. When long walks were still short I usually walked from the West side to my East side. I had texted thee friend that I was coming, I'm always happy to come home to a friend - in my refrigerator was what last Thursday my older son and I had taken home from dinner at the Ukrainian restaurant - Hungarian goulash and mashed potatoes - I often eat things cold, the friend insisted on heating it (I don't want a micro wave - a pan is fine) and it made a good dinner for me. I like to talk, she likes to talk, we had a lively time. When she left I lay down on my bed, was out in seconds and woke at 2 a.m. again to do a few thing - quickly then fell asleep again until 6 a.m. Among my many struggles is my wardrobe. There is for instance a thrift shop in Brattleboro, Vermont - with a big sign we only take good, clean clothing - and there are women my size there who share my taste in long skirts, long dresses and also tops I like - and not that long ago I would drive there by car and at very low prices renew my wardrobe a bit. Lately I have not been able to get there any more and I realize my denim jumpers are fraying at the edges, and so is a black, very simple linen dress that I bought many years ago in a store around here that of course no longer exists. I never wore blue jeans with holes in them but marvel how now women pay a lot of money for faded blue jeans with big holes and hope that before too long fraying dresses and skirts also will become an expensive style. Pre wrinkled is in vogue, straight hair is chic - once upon a time it was only curled hair - well, it is almost 11 - I've carefully omitted writing about conflicts in my life - stuck to the very neutral and possibly boring topic of trains in America - time to sign out. Adios, Marianne
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Monday, May 8, 2017
Monday, May 8, 2017 9:30 a.m. chilly weather At the Smith College library - yesterday from my ipad - but I don't think it reached the cc - having a very limited hang of it. Yesterday, reading about a writer my age, in worse shape than I am, she said she felt ambushed by old age. That is also how I feel these days - my mother before me hoped in vain to be taken care of by a loving daughter - I never had a daughter. When I was working as an editor in the information department of the Foundation for the blind, people were instructed how careful you must be in helping the blind - and I can see now, on one hand I want to get help, but do refuse it most of the time saying: still I don't need it. Taking a trip heightens awareness of needing help - it is suggested you do everything on line, you are penalized for not doing things on line - impossible for me to handle on line. Help, I say. So, here I am, on a beautiful if chilly Monday morning in a windowless area of the library, with a low ceiling, a sign in front of me 30 minute limit, though the librarian showed me how I can extend it - we'll see. Yesterday morning I asked my daughter in law to show me how to get into writing on my i pad - it is one little icon on the upper left side, supposed to present a pen - it took me one year to find this out. Slow going, indeed. From my grandsons wife who works for IBM I have now one of those felt tips that work better on a touch board than my fingers.I did not write very much - but am glad I know at last. Waking early in Florence, Mass. where my younger son lives, I take a morning walk down the hill to an area where a store gets two copies of the New York Times and a coffee shop where I get some coffee and an egg easy over has reopened - and nothing stays the same. The newspaper people whose major business is selling lottery tickets used to open at 6 a.m., now 8 a.m. The coffee shop with new owners tries to be fancier and is more expensive. Today when I appeared there at 7 I was alone, no more the regulars who used to come. Stories on global production in the Sunday nyt magazine kept repeating how strange the world has become - strange indeed. After a while yesterday my son suggested a walk and behind his house is a wooded conservation area with trails, lovely walking. Years ago when we walked there we met a black bear - now it seems ticks overrun the area. The very first short part was very steep but holding on to him it was no trouble - still I remember my hiking days when everything was so easy and so much fun. It was a lovely walk - and what a range there is in relations with children - I am so grateful for my relationship. At the Catholic Worker women have died who had had children that no longer could be found at their death. How sad. In the afternoon we headed for the Northampton Senior Center - quite fancy, rich community - where the concert I had come to attend was performed for the second time. The close to 50 member choir - Spirit of the valley - hope I got that right, assembles every year early in the year for their May concert, led by a lively woman conductor, Penny Schulz. Their songs included songs from Corsica, from Croatia, Scotland - one singer sang with her 8 week old baby in a sling. It was a joyful assembly and I am glad I made it up here for this event. Now I am facing the journey back - my son reserved on line for me on the once a day train from Burlington, Vermont to Washington, D.C. - the Vermonter - said to be in Northampton at 2.01 p.m. - well, I'm curious. I only take it to New Haven and there I change for Metro North, a suburban train going into Grand Central where I like to end up rather than at Penn Station that now faces disaster after disaster. Tomorrow morning I should be able to go to the computer room and report on the trip. I am taking a deep breath. p.s. the proceeds of the concert, voluntary contribution, were to go to the local food bank - it was announced that one in four people in this area go hungry - I assume many must live in remote areas and either can't drive any longer or no longer can afford a car - life in America is so car dependent - by car of course I would be already long in New York, at a tiny fraction of the cost and effort. In Africa of course rage famines. Strange world, indeed.
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