GRACE IN A MOMENT

The trains are louder than I remember.
Deafening.
Cover your ears.
The stations are dirty.  I had forgotten.
And they smell of pee–so I am told, having
no sense of smell myself.

And then.  On the train.
A sudden burst of music
Unexpected.
Latin.
Not deafening but just right.
And I remember
My love for this place.

MADISON HOUSE

It’s gone. It was merged with Hamilton House in 1953 and moved to a new location, the old buildings of both settlement houses destroyed as part of urban renewal, their history now  forgotten. So when I went to the current location to see what I could find out about my father’s beloved Madison House, there was not much to be told.  Too long ago.  A history long-buried or entirely lost.

The little I know:  my father, born in 1913, 105 years old last month if he were still living, often talked of his youth at Madison House. I believe he learned about writing and painting and dance and theater there.  And I think there were dances and other social events at the various settlement houses, at one of which he met my mother.

The woman I spoke with at Hamilton-Madison House said that when founded, Madison House was for Jewish men and Hamilton House was for Irish and Italians–probably based on who was in their neighborhoods.  But my father never made it sound like Madison House was a settlement house exclusively for males. So, who knows?  She did say that Madison House had a camp–camp Madison, of which they were quite proud, and a camp song, which was silly, but of which they were quite proud. She also gave me information on an archive on settlement houses located in Minneapolis which might have records, although she felt they probably did not go back that far.  A starting place perhaps, for another time.

THE WORLD TRADE CENTER

I walked from the Bowery to the World Trade Center site. Trinity Church was quite affecting–it is located quite close to the site and had fed and let firemen, etc., sleep in its pews while they were working.

The pools or fountains, as I might call them, placed in the imprints of the buildings are very affecting:  very deep, very square fountains with very deep, smaller squares in the center of them, with low, flat tabled walls around the rims, containing the names of those who died.

What is not affecting, and even rather repulsed me was the Oculus. Purportedly meant to look like a white dove of peace–I guess one could argue that from the front it does in an abstract way–from the sides and back, it looks aggressive–like missiles, or like it wants to stab the sky with multiple pointed objects.  Inside, the ceiling’s architecture looks like a bleached white modern version of the arch of a Gothic church. But what is housed inside is a shopping mall.

I might find this architecture, inside and out, anywhere else, interesting and perhaps parts of it beautiful in its way. But, there is a tremendous disconnect between its intention to make it look like a dove and its construction  And making the inside a shopping mall reminiscent of a church, in this context, makes it an homage to capitalism.

Not happy to begin with.  I woke up with my eyes feeling scratchy and heavy-lidded despite the antibiotic ointment applied overnight.  And THEN–while I’m trying to eat breakfast–a dark flash darts from under the refrigerator to under the stove. And I am inwardly shaking.  I don’t know whether I can stay.  I’m exhausted to begin with.  I don’t know what to do with myself here.  I need my “home” to be a place I can return to for refuge, a place I can flop down and rest, not a place I must flee every day and stay away from as long as possible.  (Also, my designated room still has a closet full of stuff piled into it and no real room for even the few clothes I have brought with me.  I had to remove someone’s shirts hanging on a hook and pile them on two bags full of materials in order to have a place to hang my towels.  Also, someone in the house smokes somewhat.  I’m told there’s an air purifier in the room that I can use.  But it is half hidden under the bags of materials.)

What to do?

At first, I felt like just packing up and going home–my real home. Or, maybe stick it out for a week to see a few friends but not the originally planned month. A friend suggested I go up to Columbia and see if they have rooms of rent posted that I could move to.  I did, but it ultimately did not make much sense to spend days looking into something that might not be any better or even available.  Hotels at last minute could have bedbugs–one reason I wanted to rent in this fashion to begin with.  Just had not counted on mice and possible smoke.

And when I went to Starbucks to drown my sorrows and fears in a chai latte and lemon pound cake, I couldn’t even get a seat, had to carry it with me.

I used to say that, when traveling, I would rather have an interesting time than a good one.  So why am I feeling so bereft by this?  So much like surrendering and going home?  Perhaps because I just don’t have the energy for it right now? And because I CAN go home?  But it would be, in part, with a sense of defeat.  Neither I nor my mom can go home to her home again?

While up around Columbia, I walked north to 122nd street and Riverside Drive–Grant’s Tomb, surrounded by low barriers and signs saying “Government property, no trespassing.”  What’s the point? (I remember the old joke riddle:  Who”s buried in Grant’s Tomb?)

I also went into the Riverside church across the street and sat for a while inside with the cool and the quiet.  (It is a very warm beginning to October.)

It was too late in the day to do anything much, so I took the no. 1 to 42nd and Broadway, and walked through Bryant Park over to the Main public library, and renewed my out-of-state library card.  So if I decide to research Madison House there, I have a card allowing me to do so.

When I came home, I asked whether anything had happened about the mouse.  My landlady said she had not been able to get hold of the super–or else she said he would deal with it in the next couple of days?  Or both?  Why am I not clear on that?  But I guess I felt satisfied, in the moment at least, because I said that I would try to stay for a week, and then play it by ear about whether to stay the rest of the month, and asked if that was okay.  She said it was fine, whatever I do.

After that, we had a nice conversation for about an hour about my life and her life, and it was friendly and she said that she doesn’t watch her tv, but I could any time I like.  That her son could show me how to use it. (It’s a large tv–does not look too different from what they’re usually like, so I’m sure, with a remote or two, I could handle it.)  For the moment, I am listening to Rachel Maddow on my computer and can watch netflix on my computer too.  But I think she is easygoing, if perhaps a bit disorganized, and her offer made me feel I can use the living room, not just my room and the kitchen, so makes me feel freer, less confined. (As I told her, I didn’t know what my boundaries were, and had not wanted to overstep.)

So, that’s day two.  My goal:  get some good rest.  Start again tomorrow–go to Madison House.  And explain tomorrow night, why.

Today, not for the first time, I arrived in New York. What is different is that I am renting a room in the apartment of a friend of a friend for a month. My purpose is to: (a) more broadly explore New York’s Burroughs; (b) sketch New York life (drawings); (c) perhaps do some writing here; (d) see friends and relatives; and (d) explore New York writers’ communities.

My mother and father were raised in New York (mom in Brooklyn, Dad on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.)  Mom always wanted to come back to New York, so I feel like, in this month, I am both exploring New York for myself and returning for her–trying, amongst other things, to find traces of her New York, and my father’s New York as well.  We’ll see.

It is interesting to me that my mother used to talk of living in a furnished room–in her case, she was probably referring to the kind of room one would find in a boarding house.  But, in some sense, I too am renting a furnished room.  Doing so in someone’s apartment, even with kitchen and bathroom privileges, feels a little strange.  We’ll see how it goes…

Ursula Le Guin died this year.  And as is my wont, I discover that people are kindred souls when it is too late.

Without knowing that this brilliant person had died, I was reading Ursula Le Guin, Conversations on Writing, with David Naimon.  Here are a couple of lovely quotes from the book memorializing their conversations:

“The interviewers I fear the most are the ones who’ve read what the publisher’s PR people say about your book, along with some handy pull quotes.  They read one of these aloud  and say in a sincere voice, ‘Now, tell us more about what you said here.’… .”
Ursula Le Guin  October 6, 2017

From the section on Fiction:

“Children know perfectly well that unicorns aren’t real…but they also know that books about unicorns, if they are good books, are true books…people who deny the existence of dragons are often eaten by dragons.  From within.”

Naimon notes that Le Guin has “been a strong voice behind the idea that science fiction and fantasy are as much literature as realist or memetic fiction or memoir. and that, at one time, Le Guin had even said: ‘Fake realism is the escapism of our time.’