A Birthday Blob for Sidney

"This was a townscape raised in the teeth of cold winds from the east; a city of winding cobbled streets and haughty pillars; a city of dark nights and candlelight, and intellect."--Alexander McCall Smith

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There were few days in my childhood finding me shivering. Those were un-airconditioned times with starched school uniforms wilting by seven a.m. Imagination was my coolant. My two favorite ways of beating the heat were reading novels set in Scotland, or at least the north of England, and lullabies. Lullabies in song or poetry. I still can hear the thrilling opening of Wynken, Blynken, and Nod like an evening prayer. Often when I drift off to sleep I catch the strains of, "Fourteen angels watch do keep." In high school, I accompanied a friend, June Till, whom I later called, "The Songbird of the South." She sang opera arias, hits from musicals, and sentimental Irish favorites such as, "Down by the Salley Gardens." I have listened to many a soprano since but none has moved me as much as June, so aptly named. What I liked best out of all her repetoire, though, was a lullaby: "Sleep, little dream prince of mine." When Sidney was born, it was a natural thing for me to write something similar for her. The 5 syllable pattern is whispered. The chorus (7 syllables) is sung.

8/21/03

Flowers crowd jetties.

Sidney is sleeping,

Dreaming of plum trees. 

Peaceful angels cradle thee,

Heart and hand in tender care.

Huskies, tabbies sing goodnight,

Warm hug-locks from gentle bear.

Dreaming of roses,

Sidhe Izzie sleeps.

Fog drifts in the yard. 

Peaceful angels cradle thee,

Heart and hand in tender care.

Huskies, tabbies sing goodnight,

Warm hug-locks from gentle bear.

Stars illuminate;

Jetties are dew-clean.

Sidney dreams of swings.

Peaceful angels cradle thee,

Heart and hand in tender care.

Huskies, tabbies sing goodnight,

Warm hug-locks from gentle bear.

Photo Credit: Snazzy Daddy

For your cooling enjoyment, I recommend a Native American verse, "Go to sleep, Little Papoose." It has the combination of lullaby and Far North. Already, just typing this has lowered the heat index here. I hope reading it has for you, too.

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...may dreams of Edinburgh bless and calm you...

Twinkie's Chapeau

The Red Hat Society has the right idea: brighten the world with an abundance of fabulous knock-em-out hats. Personally, I'm not the RHS type. Oh, I love red hats (as you can see from the old Clearwater photo) but a large gathering of women dressed to the teeth is not me. It's too many stories at once. When Mrs. Greene gave me all her hats before she died, she told me about her husband having been a hatter and her father, when he was head of the public library in New York City, had often invited Willa Cather to lunch. Somehow her hat collection with its charming, original designs had the aura of handmade finery and literature. I stopped in McDonald's on Sunday for a mango pineapple smoothie and was delighted to see a hat with an enormous flower. The woman wearing it was in a small wheelchair in the back of which was a musical instrument case and a pale cream recorder. She was sitting with a man who in the old days my mother would have called, "Dapper." Naturally, I had to compliment the hat. When I did, the man said, "That's Twinkie." I said to her, "Hi, Twinkie. Are you a violin player?" He answered, "No, that's me and it's a ukulele." I asked, "Oh, do you play mountain music?" That's when I discovered he and Twinkie are local celebrities. Out came a folio of hand written sheet music, demo cd's, photos, a brief history of gigs, and a YouTube address. Over the years, I have given away all of Mrs. Greene's hats with their message of beauty and optimism. How she would have enjoyed meeting Twinkie and would have added a teasing note about my McDonald's/Wendy's/Taco Bell addiction. She exclaimed once, "You and your fast food cosmic convergences! You have the best chance encounters there!" I replied, "What can I say, Mrs. Greene; there are no more Automats." 

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...may blessings find you wherever you stop by...

Splish Splash

It makes sense that I would frequent a small park at Cherokee Place. It is situated by the East River where the boats catch my eye between chapters. I had not tried the John Jay Pool for whom the park is named until last week. Such an inviting fresh air activity! Was I in for a treat. There were several of my favorite kind of regulars--babies learning to swim. One sat on the edge of the pool while her mother recited Humpty Dumpty. At the signal of, "Humpty Dumpty had a great fall," the baby fell into the pool and into the mother's arms. I began to want to really thank this John Jay person.  I wondered who he was as my American History is sketchy at best. I was mortified when I discovered he was a Founding Father, 1st Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (courtesy of George Washington himself), Governor of New York and an abolitionist. Famous treaties and diplomatic missions are attached to his resume. How had I missed all this? Where was Ken Burns to fill in the gaps of my education?? Does he know that the pool was a WPA project in 1940? Those were dark days but some optimistic planners forged ahead. Well, it is never too late for me to learn a thing or two or to express my gratitude. Each time I go to the pool I will recite my own recitation: 

"Thank you, John Jay, wherever you are." 

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...may the blessings of refreshing water be with you this day...

Daisy Days

The Dog Days. We associate that name with August and what my mother termed, "The Beastly Heat." But July has its dog days, too. I enjoy seeing the innovative ways people embrace it. For instance, at P.S. 183 Robert Louis Stevenson School of Discovery, the playground faces East 67th Street. I was struck happy by the sight of what appeared to be an end of year field day. Picnic tables were laid out with chess sets. The rook, the king, the queen and court were made of a cool icy shade of sturdy plastic. Nearby, there was an oscillating sprinkler throwing water over the players. The children for whom chess might be too stationary pranced and squealed and tried to escape (but not too seriously) the coming deluge. Or, as when attending a Mets vs. Oakland Athletics game, I sat way up on the top row. The evening breezes, the view of the river, the antics of the young fans just in front made summer temperatures drop a few degrees. Perhaps my favorite form of enjoying summer, though, is like Ubu in the photo: a good nap after a few chapters of a good book, especially like the one I'm reading, THE DOG WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD.  I can skip the paper fans and luxuriate in what a friend in Roanoke calls the world's greatest invention--air conditioning. 

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THE BOY WITH THE BASEBALL GLOVE

This is how it will always be for him:

the high clouds, the mild Spring air,

the ball hurtling out of reach

and the feel of stretching

beyond all hope.

When he is old the infirmities will lighten

because of this moment.

All later moments will be measured by it.

He will listen absent-mindedly to

what's important, what's true

on other people's minds.

Hotheadedly, he will disagree,

reveling in argument but

he is not really there.

He is present to another time, another terrain.

He is attuned to the sound of the

umpire's shout, the runners whizzing to homeplate,

the instantaneous deafness

of this impossible catch.

...may you have rest and activity in sweet proportion.. 

Photo Credit: George Page

"East Side, West Side"

I had read about them, the 88 pop-up pianos placed in the five boroughs of New York City by Sing for Hope. I thought it would be a perfect memorial for my mother. I found two in Central Park. It was a misty, almost rainy, day so the pianos were covered but anyone was allowed to play them briefly as long as the tarp was replaced. There were two college-age students ahead of me. The woman was filming the man with her Blackberry. He played one note several times as though he were not a piano player at all which gave her the giggles. Then he sat down at the make shift bench and started the Schubert Impromptu #4. Unbelievable! Then he said I could have a turn. I said, "I'm not following a Schubert Impromptu!" He was amazed I knew what it was. She continued filming us. I sat down and played the Mexican Birthday song, "Las Mananitas." They weren't familiar with it and I said I played it in honor of my birthday. They (as well as two park workers) screeched, "Happy Birthday!!!!!" I left feeling very good about my gig in the Big Apple. My mother would have loved it. She had such dreams for my concert career mostly based on the fact that during high school I played every Saturday night at some retirement hotel and the oldsters applauded generously. However, I played the same three pieces and my girlfriends played a variety of much harder ones. However, they were low on charm and I had big teeth. My smile was always at the ready. I won a talent contest as a result and my mother exclaimed, "You see? You see?" I did see. I saw what she didn't. I was not cut out for Julliard. In the decades following, she was gratified that I always played somewhere--for the junior high chorus, a handbell choir, or a church. She would be over the moon that I can now say I played in the city of her dreams. After watching The Lives of Others, I was impressed that one of the stars, Sebastian Koch, was enthralled with a piece Gabriel Yared wrote for the score; Sebastian, who was not a piano player and wasn't interested in any other piano endeavor, spent hours practicing this piece. I thought watching him in the movie that he was a gifted pianist! He is sort of like me in the sense that he has this one and I had my three. I encourage anyone to learn whatever is a favorite and then come up to the Big Apple next year. This year there were 28 more pianos than there were last year so who can say how many more there will be waiting for you!

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...may you also have the blessings of a little dream come true...

The Why People

I love the little people. My dad didn't approve of the word, "kids." If I said something about the kids at the day care center where the Service Club volunteered, he would correct me with a rejoinder including the word, "goats." Luckily, I think "children" is a beautiful word. And children are beautiful people. I was behind a child on the M15 bus going up Manhattan from the Staten Island ferry. This was one genius of a kid goat! He couldn't have been even three years old but he talked steadily to his nanny (I guess my dad would have made another goat reference on that word) about the excursions they had been on. He said, "Oh, that was when we went up to 77th Street for the frozen yogurt." At first, I thought he was referring solely to special occasions and consequently would know the addresses but, no. He was a running commentary on all sorts of streets. I noticed he did all the talking and never once asked, "Why?" "Why" is one of my favorite expressions from the Little People. They really want to get to the core of whatever they are investigating. I volunteered with children from the time I was in high school and the Why's tickled me better than a sunny day with an ice cream cone. Children can be very courageous, too. Like the two youngsters in DRUMMERS OF JERICHO. This is the story of a 14 year old Jewish girl, Pazit, in band at a Texas high school in a town which  has no Jews."'People get mean when they're afraid they might be wrong. Or afraid they're gonna lose something. So they end up blaming you for what's their own fault.'" It would be hard for me to imagine what she goes through if I hadn't spent some of the Civil Rights years in  Louisiana where I was told I might have to leave school if I didn't drop my "Outside Agitator" posture. The interview with the dean was on account of my having praised a photo of JFK shaking hands with Nat King Cole. Unreal, right? I throw my lot with the ones who speak out and I started young. I told my second grade teacher that I wouldn't write, "Examination" on the top of my test paper because I considered it too difficult for someone my age. I had been a child advocate before but this was the first time I had shown my true colors in public. My reaction to Paola in Donna Leon's book, FATAL REMEDIES, was, "Go Paola!" when her husband, the Commissario says, "'Why does everything have to be filled with such meaning....?'" I like characters like Jane Eyre and Billy Elliot who stand their ground, or in his case, soar in the air, with their convictions. Opinionated? Self-righteous? Judgmental? Take your pick. I stand accused but I don't mind. When I'm told that I should act my age, I have to ask, "Why? And what age are we talking about?" I'm very willing to be kid-age if I'm "The Emperor's New Clothes" kid-age. Often, the going get rough. Nobody cheers. Things get ugly. But there is something wonderfully freeing about trying to right wrongs. There is no failure grade for doing one's best. As my brother put it, "I can't do everything. I can do something."

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...may you speak up today and receive the blessings of tranquility...

Shamrocks in the Menorah

Years ago, I had a friend, Lillian Brunswick, who had grown up in a Yiddish neighborhood. She said her mother never missed an opportunity to celebrate a holiday. Anybody's. At Christmas, Mama decorated a small Christmas tree with as many lights as it could bear and when the rabbi came to call, it was Lillian's job to put the tree on the fire escape while Mama answered the door. On St. Patrick's, the menorah sprouted shamrocks. St. Andrew's would have the little apartment awash with Scottish thistles. Mama was delighted when she discovered Lewis Carroll's "unbirthdays" which pretty much covered the gaps in the holiday year. Unbirthday cupcakes ahoy! She had a heart for the underdog so when I read about Juneteenth in JUBILEE JOURNEY, I thought immediately of Lillian's mother. Juneteenth is honored by African Americans all over Texas as the day, June 19, 1865 when word reached Galveston, Texas that slaves had been freed back in January 1863.
 This week includes Pentecost and Flag Day. I can picture Mama wearing red and making her own special flag with its cross-cultural bonanza of symbols. Lillian's best friend, Geonene Scott, wrote to me in 1981 that Lillian had died after a short bout with pneumonia. Since they had taken tap dancing lessons together in their forties, Geonene imagined Lillian in pink tights and snappy tap shoes doing the shuffle ball step in Heaven. I remember adding to the picture: a sidekick. Lillian's Mama with iridescent wings sporting 6-pointed stars dancing off tiny Irish harps and sky blue menorahs. I let Lillian's Mama guide me every day to make sure each day is festive whether it has a name or not. If no name comes already chosen, I invent one. Unbirthday is good but I lean more to something like Saint Gratitude by the Forgotten Fountain Day or Shoshoni (did you know the word for mother in Shoshoni is Pia?) Friendship-in-the-Hinterland Bracelet Day. 

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...may the blessings of holiday getaways be yours...

"Around the Corner"

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 There is a line from West Side Story which sums up one of my little pleasures in life. "Around the corner." I like coming upon an unexpected event, place, or person. I delight in the happenstance of reading a book and discovering the date mentioned is the day I was actually reading. For instance, last Saturday, I started KILLING THE KUDU and cheered when I saw in the opening paragraph, "June 4th." I was reading it on June 4th! On a visit to Nova Scotia, I was strolling down some streets which might or might not be leading to Halifax harbor. I went around a corner and there was a Greenpeace vessel. I was wearing my Greenpeace button! I had no idea the ship was in town, so to speak. I mentioned to Carolyn Meyer I had ordered a copy of WHERE THE BROKEN HEART STILL BEATS  and she said, coincidentally, that after twenty years, she was just informed it was being reissued with a new cover. I came around a corner of a path at Central Park and there was my favorite ballerina, all in white doing her, "still" act. She stands motionless until someone puts a donation in her tin pail and then she does a quick, graceful dance and blows a kiss. I didn't have a dollar to throw in but I blurted out, "It's so good to see you!" as though he were my lucky talisman and she winked. I came around a corner and there at the Pulitzer Plaza fountain were the impressive bronze figures of the Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei (last names first in Chinese). He is currently imprisoned in China for supposed economic crimes which as far as I'm concerned is criminal. He is the son of the poet Ai Qing and that poetic quality infuses the statues, especially the Dragon. The following information comes from the NY Parks & Recreation newsletter, The Daily Plant: Full Circle focuses on the inspiration for Ai's current project: the ransacked 18th-century zodiac fountain clock designed by European Jesuits for the imperial retreat known as the Yuanming Yuan (the Garden of Perfect Brightness). 

...may the blessings of found joys be yours...

The Prettybirds @ Home

Across the way, one flight down next to an airconditioning unit, a pigeon has made a nest. She has sat for several days now. She is so still I didn't notice her at first. Then a larger pigeon came close to my window observing her from the fire escape railing. I called to him, "Hi, Mr. Prettybird! Coo, coo, coo." Unafraid, he turned to examine me which he has done every time we meet. I named the family, The Prettybirds. Then, I added Lester and Lena. There is one egg in the nest as far as I can tell. I'm giving it the name Abe and Abbie if it turns out to be a double yoker.  Why Abe? Perhaps it is because on Memorial Day, WQXR played a theme used by Ken Burns in his Civil War documentary. Oh how it haunts me! Naming has been a longtime hobby. I love the way Native Americans name themselves: Runs Fast as the Wind or Heals Like a Willow. Action names. And how descriptive the ancient Chinese were: August Heaven. Can't you smell the perfume of late summer flowers and hayricks? An ancestor of mine had several children of which my favorite was, "Garden Valley." An early memory is hearing a missionary reading a Bible story in which Adam's job was naming the animals in the Garden. I wanted that job! Very few friends have gone Unrenamed. There is something "chosen" about giving a friend a pet name. At the latest hourly quick-check, Abe and or Abbie have not arrived. I wait patiently to see the little eyes and for the day he will become Flies Like a Messenger or she will become Sings with the Sparrows.

...may the company of beasts large and small be yours...

Since You Asked

My grandson asked, "If you were to pick a day in history you remember well, which would it be?" I thought over my choices: the Cuban Crisis; the fall of the Berlin Wall; the inauguration of the first Catholic president. His assassination was certainly a staggering event as I was on the Judah streetcar in San Francisco on the way to a pre-natal visit when I heard the news. On a brighter side, the first words uttered on the moon thrilled me. However, none of these compared to one day in May. 
   My father had been assigned earlier in the year of 1945 to Jerusalem. Our family was staying temporarily at the American School of Oriental Research, overlooking the Mount of Olives. Dr. Nelson Glueck, an archaeologist and friend, came to the door one day and whispered to my mother, "The war is over." And then he left. She turned to me, her eyes wide, "The war is over!!" I knew what that meant as for the two years previous my dad had been assigned by the U.S. State Dept. to Angra do Heroismo, a city in the Azores where the Army and Navy soldiers made our house their, "Home away from home." I had overheard many a conversation about the "European Theater," the losses of people we had known and I had once slipped onto a plane full of wounded soldiers on their way back to the States. The horrors of war were branded in my mind and remain vivid all these decades later. Being only six, I didn't register the date or time but I remember clearly the sudden optimism, the feeling that now things would be "all better." I remember it was the month of May because that was my mother's birthday month and somehow the celebration became mixed with the personal joy we had. My mother often remarked that Rabbi Glueck's reaction to the news was vastly different from people dancing and shouting in the streets but I felt the same way--
stunned.  There have been momentous days in my life but none have compared to that very quiet announcement by a man who would years later give the benediction at the swearing in ceremony of President John F. Kennedy.

...may the blessings of good memories 

and learned lessons be yours...

Sketch by Halit