it must happen all the time

Have you ever seen the movie Harold and Maude*? Happiest sad movie ever, maybe. I think. I'm not sure I really got it, but I do like Cat Stevens.

***************

It must happen all the time; the official population of New York City is 8,175,133.

Ted and I were waiting to take the elevator up to Julianna and Ed's for a Saturday catch-up party. Summer night, circle skirt, bottle of wine. We were waiting there with a lady and a puppy and when the elevator on the left finally came, there was chaos and doors closing on people and when the practical-looking nurse lady and the neat, older gentleman with the round glasses finally got out and decided which way to turn (toward the service entrance, not the main door), we had to flatten ourselves into the notch of the elevator on the right so they could wheel the stretcher away. And, pressed against that elevator door, we widened our eyes as we realized the sheet was pulled all the way up.

The lady and the puppy were still processing, but we got in the elevator. By the time we got to the sixteenth floor we were in fits of nervous giggles because sometimes big emotions come out all wrong at first.

And we had a party. We ate and laughed and celebrated and played with the puppy and forgot about it for a while.

~b





*Harold and Maude was made in 1971 and is full of awesome. It's only 90 minutes long and it's streaming on Netflix, so I suggest you just watch it for yourself.

thoughts on the way to work

“Remember when that pigeon was pecking that other pigeon?”
“Um. . . yeah. . . .”
“Well, first he was walking around on the dead pigeon then he started eating him. . . .”
“Yeah, that was pretty gross.”

************

I sidestepped a furry patch on the pavement. It was a rat, most likely, before an unfortunate moment-- minutes or hours ago-- in the street where Clinton meets Houston.

I heard a long, loud list of angry obscenities across Spring, but didn’t turn my head, concentrating on Jack Johnson’s and Cat Stevens’ brilliant scoring of my walk to work.

Last night I saw a naked man roller-skate onto a stage-- more of a circus ring, really-- and my first thought was just, If I’d ever taken time to try to imagine a naked man roller-skating, that, I think, is what it would have looked like. . . . the physics, at least, if not the mohawk.

I’m just a drop sometimes, part of an underground stream capable of running up stairs before spewing onto the dirty sidewalk, eyes down-cast in order to avoid dead rats and dog poop, but, when happening to glance up, desensitized to the postcard skyline.

I don’t get asked for directions as often as I used to, but when I do, I can usually give them.

I’m not a New Yorker, I want to shout at the tourists in ugly sneakers, the bums, the F train, the three-hundred-dollar tee shirts, myself. I’m just a little girl from Georgia: witness to shooting stars so bright they must have landed just on the other side of the azalea hedge, where we should probably check in the morning; possessor of black soles, unable to recall the last time she wore shoes; creator of potent perfumes, made with the finest combination of macerated petals, sticks, dirt, and plastic-hose-water; explorer of magnolias, with rooms, big like houses; beneficiary of the night-time lullaby of frogs and crickets and the occasional train whistle.

I could be a New Yorker, most days.

I can believe it until I hear the whine of a 4- or 5-year-old child, sharp and whining, demanding of a parent or nanny that they not walk, but take a cab to their destination.

It’s a voice you’ll hear again in 15 or 20 years. It will be walking in front of you, having an indiscreet mobile conversation about an ex-best-friend’s recently acquired STD or at the next table over, discussing a mother’s most recent rehab attempt and failure. It will sound angry, even when it’s not.

It’s a voice I feel sorry for, making me wonder, In a place with no dirt driveways, where do you learn to ride a bike?


~beatrix