Trying to Take Advantage of the City

No, this picture isn't new. It's a couple of years old and I'm waiting impatiently for it to recur. These flowering trees are near the Shakespeare Garden in Central Park and they're magnificent ... when they finally bloom.

Meanwhile I've been trying to stick to my goal of going out and enjoying but the city -- well, the weather -- has been fighting against me hard. Yesterday was cold and rainy all day, although Saturday had been nice enough I spent four hours out and about. Then this morning I took my camera and thought I'd go into the park from the post office. It was cool but sunny as I walked to the P.O. But after a short and efficient [glory be!] transaction, I went out and found the clouds had moved in and the wind was brisker and, like a whipped dog, I tucked in my tail and headed for a bagel shop for a "toasted, buttered sesame and small black." Ah well, my heart was willing but my good intentions not reciprocated. Maybe tomorrow.

Taking Advantage of the City

Well, no, the lilies of the valley aren't up quite yet. I'm dreaming. Soon, soon. This morning I walked through Central Park and saw that the forsythia are tinged with gold; just a couple of warm days and they should be clouds of sunshine and the other flowers will follow soon.

When I knew I was going to leave the small, pretty upstate town where I used to live and come to live in terrifying NYC, I made a habit of walking along creek-side path that was the long way to the center of town but very pretty. I also made a point of driving home when I went into the city, not on the usual highway but on two-lane country roads some with wonderful vistas over the rolling hills.

Now I have just decided I will spend my last month living here trying to take a walk every day in Central Park or Riverside Park, going down beside the Hudson past the boat basin. And I'm compiling a list of places to be sure to visit while it's easy to do: Already there are two events I want to attend at the Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art.

I want to go to the Brooklyn Museum and see the Chaillabot [I'm sure I'm misspelling that] and whatever else is there. If I get there on a nice day I'll combine it with a walk through the Botanical Garden which is next door.

I want to see the Bonnard at the Met and also the Korean drawings and go visit my favorite statue of Horus in the Egyptian area and Rosa Bonheur's Horse Fair and some of the other Impressionists -- that's a day long visit.

I want to try to get to the Conservatory Garden when the allees of flowering trees are in bloom which I hope happens before I leave.

I want to go to MOMA one free Friday evening to see whatever is there.

I want to see the Museum of Arts and Crafts at its new home at Columbus Circle in what was the Huntington Hartford building which has been redone.

And I want to go to the Whitney because I like the building although so many people don't like it. [I don't feel that way about the Guggenheim. Yes, an architectural masterpiece but I've so rarely seen exhibits there that I like]

I want to have lunch at my neighborhood Chinese restaurant frequently because I know good Chinese food is rare outside cities -- yes, Boston has a few good restaurants in its Chinatown. However fried clams can make up for a lot.

All that and actually sort and pack too? Egad. Can it be done?

The Heavy Handed Chinese Government

Today's news is that South Africa will not allow the Dalai Lama to attend a so called "Peace Conference" that is a part of the promotion for the World Cup games next fall. Desmond Tutu has refused to attend if the Dalai Lama is not allowed to come but South Africa is adamant, noting in the news that they have "excellent relations" with China and don't want to jeopardize their prosperity by offending China.

Meanwhile China has sealed off Tibet, cutting off internet service, in some places shutting down cell phone service and filling the streets of Lhasa and the few other cities with military vehicles, snipers on top of buildings and a military state of affairs. Bits of news and even a few short videos have made their way out. Go to
http://tibetblogs.com/modules/feed/ for lists ofn the latest available information. It currently includes a smuggled out video of torture in the prisons -- not a new video but one only recently available.

When I was in Tibet a young man in a tiny shrine room in Norbulinka [the summer palace in a garden at the edge of Lhasa] stood watching the door as he told his pain at being unable to live freely and asked that I "tell people in America Tibetans want to be free." I have been trying to do that since then and think of him every time I write a blog like this or talk to people who know almost nothing about Tibet and the destruction of it's culture, the intimiation of its people.

Time for Good Sense and Humanity

For eight years I have despised Dick Cheney and all he stood for, most especially for his home land security paranoiac destruction of civil rights. He criticized Obama for wanting to close Guantanamo and for saying waterboarding is torture, saying the security of the US is in peril because of Obama's stands. And happily today I read that Obama said in rebuttal that we could be far less secure by making the entire Arab world hate us for our unfair practices. So many already hate us and many with good reason; they hated us before 9/11, they hate us more now that we have been so arrogant, imperial and generally paranoid about our security.

I cannot comment with any originality or great understanding or even emotional passion about what is happening with the economy or health care or other enormous matters. But i have felt passionately about the insanity of our treatment of the prisoners at Guantanamo and about our torture methods -- it has sickened and horrified me. For his humanity in this area alone, I rejoice that we have the President we have.

Caches of Miscellaneous Stuff

Even a small apartment where everything has a place, has little caches of miscellaneous stuff. I have several. I've turned on a mindset that says, I won't save the planet just because I save those socks with the hole almost worn through the heel. This is a luxury and a duty -- in fact a very practical approach -- to moving. I started just now as I was about to get dressed and pulled on a pair of those socks -- 3, 4 years old? -- very nearly all worn through at the heel. No, I commanded myself, take them off, toss them in the wastebasket. Oh, said Miserly Me, they would make adequate dust rags. Fu-gid-about-it, said I, there are worn towels and wash cloths that will serve that purpose.

Furthermore this is a good time to take five minutes, go through all the assorted socks in the drawer and toss, toss, toss. Oh, ouch! That's so harsh! cried Miser Me. Force yourself, I commanded. And so I did. There were singletons stashed in a corner thinking their mates might return from that black hole beyond the drier into which they had been sucked -- out, out, damned sock! And so it went. Believe me, my sock drawer is now a marvel of neatness. A good thing too because flipflop weather is not far away. No need for socks until fall. But in the meantime, I must maintain that neatness after each wash day. I'll do it; I know I can.

There are other nooks and crannies -- oh, yes, I know where they are, I know [sort of] what's hiding there. I know, for instance, there's at least 15 years worth of pennies in Almaden white wine carafes. They weigh far more than they're worth. Just a couple blocks away is a First Republic bank with a coin counter in the lobby, anyone can use it. I suspect I have over $50 of pennies. I've given them to kids by the handful when they came by at Halloween collecting for UNICEF but those copper seem to multiply when I'm not looking. Got to get them out of here. I hardly think the circulation of this hard currency is going to do much for the economy; but I sure don't want to move with the things. I'm on a roll ... it's going to be hard when I get to certain accumulations of papers, but I'll practice on the underwear drawer next and move on to bigger challenges.

Spring is Here????

"Spring officially started 38 minutes ago," said the radio announcer. I looked out the window and saw white flakes floating, flitting, falling. Hello, Spring! When I went out it was chilly but by the time the flakes reached street level they were spatters of rain, no longer white, just wet.

Now as I am typing the newsman is talking about a decline in the number of bird species on Earth and the decrease of numbers of birds in the world. This resonates not only with the beginning of spring but with the book I finished last night, Nadine Gordimer's Get A Life. This is a relatively short novel and especially held my attention because a character is trying to save the Okavango Delta from a plan to build ten dams. Since I was in the Okavango Delta last month I felt I knew a little of the scenery described. Apparently the dam project got squashed, or maybe is on very long term hold. Gordimer's prose is so sure, her narrator is distant and apparently dispassionate but the story is so concerned and her characters, as usual, are deeply involved in large issues so that the personal issues become reflections and extensions of the larger. I've never read a novel of hers I did not enjoy.

Resisting the urge to livei in the future.

This is the first tiny crocus in my daughter's yard in Hyannis, Mass. We were happy to welcome it. On the other coast, in San Rafael where my other daughter works the tulips in front of her "house" excite her handicapped clients no less than they excite her. Spring is coming to those of us in the northern parts and has arrived in the south, as an email from Tennessee told me describing pear trees with dancing white blossoms.

I've just done errands and walked a couple of miles in the sunny 60 degree afternoon. When I returned I realized that many of my thoughts were not about enjoying what I have here and now but thinking ahead to after my move. Thinking of eating breakfast on a patio on summer mornings, listening to birds, and wondering if I would like to get petunias or marigolds or some other flowers in pots for that patio. It's habitual, of course, to think ahead but it's a habit I'd like to break more often than I do.

True there were no flowers and no green at the tips of the twigs on the trees just yet but the street scene on such days is fascinating. Some people are out in shirt sleeves, some still bundled up in coat, boots and scarves. It's the period of often not knowing when you go out the door whether that bright sunshine is going to be warm and wonderful or deceptive because of a chilly breeze. How to dress? However you dress you may well wish you were dressed otherwise. But much of life is like that. Who said we should be comfortable all the time? If anyone did it was the advice of a fool. Discomfort doesn't hurt, whether it's being a bit sweaty or a bit shiver-y.

Every walk now will bring something different. It is time to make an effort to go into Central Park or Riverside Park and watch the changing scene, the trees that bud, the flowers, the grass greening, the people sitting on benches with their faces turned to the sun. it's not time to have summer, first this season, one of the four best seasons we have!