Prose Poetry

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I Heart NY

“I was in love with New York. I do not mean ‘love’ in any colloquial way, I mean that I was in love with the city, the way you love the first person who ever touches you

and never love anyone quite that way again.”

—Joan Didion

Tonight. Right now. Right this minute. I miss the streets of NYC. I miss walking block after block. I miss the bar, the restaurant, there, right around the corner. I just plain miss walking. I miss Broadway, Amsterdam, and Columbus; Third Avenue, Houston, 8th and 4th, the way 79th St. becomes quieter and quieter the further West you travel, all the way to the River.

I miss (gasp!) the subway; the monogamous way it had of being there —anytime you needed it. I miss the way people connect with just a glance, a groan at the subway conductor's voice over the loudspeaker. I miss the way people say "This is what you wanna do. You wanna take the..." in that aggressive, fiercely protective tone whenever talking to a non-New Yorker. Tough love, and a loyalty that is anonymous precisely because we’re all in this together.

I miss cracking the window in January as I swelter in the steam heat emanating from the broken radiator. I miss the quiet during the first snowfall. I miss the way Central Park smells in those last days of March, with its wet ground, slippery rocks and buds barely visible in the ground. I miss the days in late April that begin with a jacket and end in a t-shirt at the first happy hour spent around an outdoor table. I miss the rooftop parties, the cherry blossoms, the Boathouse, and the Summer Concert Series.

I miss the way steam wallows out of manhole covers and the construction workers with their steely jaws and crooked smiles. I miss the smell of grilled meats at street fairs and the spontaneous gatherings around street musicians. I miss the bistros open until 4am and the way you could sit on a stoop and shoot the breeze until dawn.

I miss the Met, MOMA, and Lincoln Center, the Joyce, and City Center. I miss STEPS and Broadway Dance; Ailey, Graham, and Peridance. I miss the randomness of it all: getting your portrait sketched by the man seated next to you on the subway. I miss the hurried pace and the way buildings conspired to give you shade or a Western breeze. I miss the gusts of frigid air bursting from a stores' open doors in the middle of August.

I miss my friends. I miss hugging my family. I miss all of you: everything about you, NYC.

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BIG EMPTY SPRAWL CITY

"Los Angeles gives one the feeling of the future more strongly than any city I know of.

A bad future, too, like something out of Fritz Lang's feeble imagination."

— Henry Miller

I have been trying to love it. No, really, I have. But the Sprawl-City makes it so hard... It's just that I'm tired of her forbidding ways. All these streets that lead to dead-ends and never take you home. The boulevards that are like spider webs; the ones that seek to trap you in the middle of the intersection as you wait for the split second reserved for your left turn; the one just before engines rev up to your left and the light flicks to red. I am weary. Her traffic has made me so. Her freeways, not so much much connected as tangled, layered one upon the other. Cars idling, inching, revving, screeching. All that traffic. At any time of day; on any day... Like that Saturday I took the 10 into the 405 into the 110 at 3pm. Bumper to bumper. Everyone territorial; guarding the inches of space between themselves and the next bumper, that sliver of road on the other side of the dotted lines. "No, you won't come in, I say! Not on my watch!" an echo reverberating between the hills, the Santa Monica mountains, the high rises on Wilshire Blvd.

A city built image by image, moving images, Hollywood and all its make-believe; watch the artifice amble on Sunset, Melrose, in Beverly Hills, Bel Air, in that Mercedes, this Jaguar, a Bentley. The car you drive matters when no one can see your face. Your car is your avatar, another self, the vehicle to drive the image home. Race, race, up the avenue, gotta make the audition, get to my shift, my nail appointment. Soccer moms, school buses and beat up junkers. All in a row on Pico, Olympic, or Venice Blvd. A city of stories. I can't see your face when you cut me off... so I think "what an a*hole!"...

Thing is, I couldn't see that you had just now, thirty seconds before it would be too late, spotted the sign for your exit, and that you now needed to cross four lanes in order to get to it in time... A city of scenarios; we imagine what others are thinking, feeling, we have to; we never speak. And stories help when all you have to see are lanes of broken concrete, potholes, buildings, and more concrete; walls, guard rails, off-ramps and bridges. You wonder if that seam, there in the middle, was caused by some tremor or earthquake; you feel the edges dig into your right tires, wonder how many of those you could drive over, doing 75 before your tires gave out?... But I digress... No matter what I do, Sprawl-City feels cold under all that sunlight; impatient; unforgiving; pushy; selfish; entitled; narcissistic. A city of vanity: "me, me, me"... Abyss after abyss to be filled with validation, recognition, respect. Hey you, could you please just acknowledge that "me" standing before you already, there in that car, at the light?...

I have been trying to love it, really, I have. I've been waiting for her to inspire me; prompt me to say I judged her too quickly. I keep looking for a spark to ignite my soul. I keep wanting to feel grounded; anchored; at home. I thought there might be some peace in all that void; some sort of thick silence to enwrap and soothe me. All that light, these naked sunrises and seductive sunsets; they seem disconnected, in a world apart; like on a coin, an absolute obverse of the scenes below. Driving along, it's as if you keep chasing their horizon, never arriving, just getting closer and closer to the rows of concrete, the metal gates, the bumpers ahead; trapped in the web of the Sprawl-City. One day melting into the next, into the Big Empty.

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JOY

Lately, whenever I sit at my desk for longer than necessary, the hummingbird comes. His chirp short, squeak-like, sporadic. Calling me to order, pulling me from the screen and the paper; from the book, or the coloring. Drawing me towards the window, the open front door; to spy him, find him below/in/on/above the branches; through the leaves; to spot him in midair. Wings spread in a shimmering explosion of color. This one, green...Blink and you'll miss this little creature. Blink and you'll miss his fleeting birdsong. Blink and you'll miss the wanderings of joy.

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A KNIGHTS-IN-SHINING-ARMOR KIND OF MORNING

7:15am: my car Tabatha sputters as I pull away from the first red light after exiting the Freeway. The yellow Engine Power light-thingy lights up with a foreboding DING!... The engine sputters, resists and groans, inching up Crenshaw Blvd. as I beg it to make it to the gas station on the corner of Venice. The car obliges me. Phew! I stop the car, pull out my manual. Fumble through the pages; scan all the gibberish through the maze of icons and vague recommendations. Cross my fingers. Say a silent prayer. Turn the key to start the car again. Now the red battery icon appears next to not one but two yellow lighted icon-thingies. The car stalls. Try again. Stall. Try a third time. Stall. Tabatha is definitely having a pouty tantrum. I take a look out the window. Unsavory characters of the male persuasion are eyeing me sideways; it feels like a bunch of zombies from the Walking Dead getting ready to swarm the car. I decide not to ask for help. Try the car again. Stall. Not so silent AAAARGH...

I resign myself and call AAA. Jesse answers. He sets me up in the most reassuring voice I've heard from a customer rep in a long while. I then call my dealership where Odell from Service patiently listens to my long-winded, meandering explanations. He calls me Ma'am and tells me he'll "be there waiting" for me when I arrive with the tow truck. Before wishing me a "better day", Jesse from AAA had quoted 30 minutes. The truck arrives in 10. I'd barely had enough time to call school to tell them I might need coverage. Eduardo the driver takes a look. Tries the car, gives it a lot of gas while in Park...

Hallelujah! Tabatha starts up. Eduardo is clearly gifted; a miracle worker of sorts; a wizard I'm sure. The magical man tells me I should be able to drive it, that service is needed but nothing is broken. He then offers to follow me up Crenshaw in case I break down –at which point he would give me a tow. Sigh of relief. I proceed. Pushed forward by the morning rush-hour flow of traffic; pulled by Tabatha's hesitant purring, I lose him and the huge truck. I reach 3rd Street, make my turn when my phone rings. It's Eduardo; asking me if I'm ok since he didn't see me on the side of the road... I'm fine I tell him as I pull up to the school's parking lot.

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LITTLE DITTY

Was driving yesterday, through the maze of traffic, crowded surface streets and freeway lanes, and thought of this little analogy... It's a work-in-progress but here we go:

I associate drivers who signal, but don't go through with their lane change, with emotional unavailability. They promise to do the right thing, to act in your best interest; brazenly take your piece of mind away as they wield their crossed signals; claim to think of your needs, pretend to strive for clear communication. They mean well, but never quite deliver, focused as they are on their own path, entangled in their own struggle through the traffic maze.

Then, you have those who signal after they started changing lanes, or those who drift(!) into a lane at 70MPH... I think they are more like the 'playahs'. Selfish, indecisive, arrogant; thinking that half a conversation (or none at all) is sufficient in order to share a stretch of road with you; hubris-filled as they assume you are dazzled by their driving 'skillz'... But enough of the riff-raff, their hot messes and shenanigans. Let's talk about the REAL gems of the road...

I'm talking about the drivers who signal well in advance; enabling you to decide whether to make that damn right turn or change lanes to avoid waiting for their left-hand turn. They are the patient, and generous ones who wave you into their lane because they noticed no one else would, stuck as you were behind the bus/garbage truck/lane closure. These are the drivers who share the road with you, who seek to balance their needs with yours. The ones who understand that it's through the language of signals and consistent/reliable behavior that you can both trust. To then surrender to the steadied pace; weaving in and out of each other's lanes, but still moving forward; the journey now more frolic than commute.

They are the keepers, the redeemers of goodness, the reward after the battle through the city streets. They are the rare ones; the gems prompting you to yield; the people you embrace, weepy-eyed and with deep gratitude.

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