Country Mouse in NYC and Denver, CO:
I needed words, more than photo images to capture certain moments on this trip and I share a few with you.
World Trade Center Memorial: friend Charles Pellegrino used his family pass for his first visit to the Memorial and I was honored to be with him. I had my own special moment.
I saw a young man trying to lay a roll of paper on a name so he could trace it with a crayon. The wind was strong after a snowstorm the previous day. I asked to hold the front end of the paper for him so he could rubbed his crayon over a name. I watched a name slowly appear…Julie….and I didn’t know what to do. It was more than a simple name, I knew that. She was a person appearing before our eyes, a person who was a daughter, wife, girl friend, sister, or mother and I wanted to let the young man know that I knew this. Julie’s name was followed by her middle initial, her last name and ended with “and her unborn child.” I asked, ” Will you tell me something about her?” He choked and couldn’t speak and finally said, “I can’t.” I said “I’m sorry” and put my hand on his and left. I looked at thousands of names and knew each was more than a name.
Charlie followed the name of his friend and a family member with his hand, running his fingers over each letter and said, “It helps to feel their name.”
New York City is also subways.
The Subway
Will I ever become one of them?
She sits and knits without raising her head,
Can she sense by the length of her knitting
When her next stop will be?
Does five inches of knitting equal her stop?
He sleeps soundly like a horse,
His head upright, his hands on his lap.
Clenching a shopping bag.
Is there an alarm inside his bag?
She stares straight ahead
Like a robot in space.
Do I hear a silent ummmmm
Meditating her next stop?
How can they be so relaxed?
He sits, his back straight and stiff.
Ah, is this his first ride, too?
Naah, he’s guarding his Armani shopping bag.
Among the likes of us.
A man jumps on board, and asks
“Does this take you to J street?”
What an adventurer, I envy him.
Occupy Wall St harmonized in
Built in standing ovation:
We are the 99 % fill the air.
I sit there. Anxious, a child whose grip lost
Her mother’s hand.
A New Yorker friend sits across me
To accompany me to Brooklyn
With three transfers. I watch her like a hawk
but the crowd soon becomes a wall between us.
I can’t lose sight of her, I panic.
I must get to Brooklyn.
Ah, I see her shoes between pairs
And pairs of legs. My safety net,
Those tired worn out shoes.
Relax, observe, learn.
I pretend I’m a native New Yorker
Who’s quite capable of knitting
Or snoring before my stop.
I look for signs on station walls
But they run like subtitles
On foreign films.
I listen to “next stop”
But they sound like voices
At airports, all muffled and dumb.
I keep my eyes on her shoes.
When they move, I move.
When they stand, I stand.
Shoes are walking,
Shoes are walking.
She motions me toward the door.
I elbow my way like a New Yorker.
We run, two short distance runners
To the next train.
Denver, Colorado:
On the plane from NY to Denver, I arrived with a blank sheet. I still didn’t know how to begin my keynote address at the Brookdale Respite Care National conference, but it was waiting for me in the Renaissance Hotel lobby. I was greeted by nine large flower arrangements of red anthuriums? Anthuriums in Denver? They gave me moments for pause. My mother grew and sold anthuriums before her Alzheimer’s diagnosis. That night she entered my dream and I had my introduction which caused many teary eyes in the audience the following day.
A young woman working in the Renaissance Hotel gift shop asked to be my pen pal. “I don’t have any friends to hang out with since I moved here from Georgia,” she said, “and I could really hang out with you.” How wonderful is that, to hang out together as pen pals between Denver and Sacramento, two friends with eons of age between them?
The world is still a wondrous place if we look for beauty, kindness and humanity.
Read Full Post »