Dear Laundry Room Book Angel

I don’t know who you are, or if you’re one person or several.  But for the past few years, I’ve benefitted from your castaway books.  Of course, that’s what I assume they are as I take my pick of the delicacies and scurry back to my nest. 

My friends tease me that I’m stealing books.  “I found a great book in my laundry room this week…” 

“You mean you STOLE a great book!”

I’m careful not to be greedy, but always happy when I seemingly get first pick of the stash.  I look them over carefully and choose one.  Upstairs, as I wait for the washer to do its work, I think of one or two others I probably should have grabbed and beat myself up.  Half an hour later, I scamper back down to put my laundry in the dryer, hoping against hope that the other book is still there.  Oh god, please don’t let anyone else in the building be doing laundry and also interested in reading about Blind Tom, the 19th Century slave musical genius ……

Over the past four years, I’ve found so many wonderful treasures in The Basement Bookmobile.  One of the first was Ha Jin’s Waiting.  A novel I’d heard about, always thought of reading, and then one day….there it was.  And it was brilliant!  I still recommend it to friends.

Though I work full-time, I go thru several books a week.  Even when the A Train’s running express, that still leaves me at least 25 minutes to read on the trip to Midtown.  I do buy new books when I can afford them, love the convenience of Amazon.com and admit that The Strand is my favorite place in NYC. 

But nothing beats The Laundry Room.  It’s a wonderland of surprises!

A few of my favorites over the years:

The Portable Dorothy Parker

Heirloom:  Notes From An Accidental Tomato Farmer

Joseph Campbell’s Myths to Live By

Rape of the Nile:  Tomb Robbers, Tourists, and Archaeologists in Egypt

The Egyptian Book of the Dead

The Kite Runner

The Illustrated History of New York

The first three volumes of The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency

Strangers on the Train by Patricia Highsmith

Irish Fairy Tales

The Popular Book:  A History of America’s Literary Tastes

Jorge Luis Borges’ Labyrinths

The petit book on Poirot’s Fashion

Essay’s from the Writer’s Workshop

A lovely edition of Rabelais

My gay (and a few straight) friends were particularly jealous when I had Alison Arngrim’s Confessions of a Prairie Bitch in my bag!

And a few months ago, when I was going thru a break-up, suddenly a copy of It’s Called a Break-Up Because It’s Broken appeared as I laundered pajamas stained with ice cream and pizza sauce.  Can’t say it was brilliant writing.  But was a great little friend to have handy during those dark days.

Last week I became the proud owner of The Vanishing Race on the history of the North American Indian.

And then this week you gifted me with The New York Public Library Desk Reference AND The Moosewood Cookbook! 

As a voracious reader, book-lover, and awesome cook!----THANK YOU!!!

For four years, I’ve always loved the mystery of the Laundry Room Book Angel.  And frankly, I still do.  But have been so overjoyed with the books lately that I really felt the need to finally say “thank you”.  Whoever you are. 

You make laundry day a pleasure.  And wonderful reading the rest of the week.

Whether you are one person or several----I am.... 

Gratefully yours,

Bennett Avenue Book Reader  

Crackheads, Confidence and Cat Hair

Let me begin this by saying that I’m not a Crazy Cat Lady.

I have one cat. One.

And the only Crazy Cat Lady-type thing I do is that, once a year, on Halloween, I dress my cat up in a costume and I take a picture of her looking really pissed off.

It’s my annual revenge for a year of hairballs, meowing in the middle of the night, and the piles of cat hair that appear mysteriously on all of my clothes.

This year, she was a skunk.

I laughed. Bessie didn’t.

Tonight, the Yankees won the World Series. I went out to the theatre. Not that I don’t like baseball, I just have a hard time with rabid sports fans. Particularly on a World Series night. They’re like twelve year-old girls who just discovered boys---they talk of NOTHING ELSE. And they’re drunk. Drunk, screaming, twelve year-old girls one Jagermeister away from throwing up.

I decided to pass on the sports bar invites.

The event I attended this evening was a show in Brooklyn at a hip art space in DUMBO called Galapagos. Coming straight from work, I didn’t have time to get all dolled up for a hip art space theatre event. But it’s not like I was walking the red carpet. Just a fun evening of theatre written by one of the fellows from my weekly writer’s group.

I thought I looked nice. Not glamorous. But not too shabby, either. Sure, a bit of cat hair on my jacket, but it was a dark theatre. Who would notice?

I hopped on the A Train with directions in my pocket and confidence in my soul.

At the next stop, a scary old black man (yes, that’s the Politically Correct term for this guy) got on the train and sat down next to me. For some reason, crazies and crackheads always seem to find an open seat near me. This guy was both. Even before the train pulled out of Penn Station, he began talking to himself in a constant stream of angry non sequiturs that involved the U.S. education system, a roast beef sandwich and eighteen hundred dollars. He concluded his ranting every so often by yelling out, “Fuck the White Man! AND his women!”

None of this seemed to be directed at anyone on the train in particular. Though he did occasionally refer to the group sitting across from me of four lovely, middle-aged African-American women on a shopping spree as “my niggas”.

The ladies did not look pleased.

All in all, he just yammered away discussing how the roast beef sandwich didn’t have “no nothin’---just roast beef” and bragged about this mythical eighteen hundred dollars he was carrying around…when suddenly, I felt his head turn in my direction.

And then, somewhere around Canal St., I heard a cackle. A cackle which turned into a guffaw, which was followed by a spit-take so violent that, had he decided to use that eighteen hundred dollars to purchase a pair of much-needed false teeth---those pearly whites would have shot across the train as he yelled out:

“DAMN, white girl! How many cats do you have?!?!”

All eyes on the train shifted to me. The white girl covered in cat hair. Information pointed out, quite loudly---by a crackhead.

How the Crackhead Killed My Confidence. A chapter in my new book. A playful turn on Rudyard Kipling: “The Just So-So Stories”

Yes, I have thousands of these confidence-killing stories. Like the time I was about to break-up with my boyfriend and felt lousy and was at my waitress job on New Year’s Eve. The Broadway theatre next-door was doing a show. I stepped out the side door to have a cigarette, take a mental break from work and try to internally put myself back together again for a lonely New Year’s Eve when suddenly, a middle-aged couple standing in line for the theatre next-door slowed down to check me out . The wife, after careful inspection of my person, leaned into her husband and said audibly, “No. She’s nobody.”

I requested to go home early that night.

Or the time I was eleven and was in my second year of piano studies at The St. Louis Conservatory. I was performing in the mandatory monthly recital.

Bach’s Invention # 8 in F Major.

My first time performing Bach in public. I was nervous, but I knew the piece. I sat down at the piano, started strong, then fumbled about twenty measures in. According to protocol, if one couldn’t recover, one was supposed to take their hands off the keys and start again.

I did this. I fumbled again.

I took my hands off the keys and forced myself to take a really deep breath. I closed my eyes. Thought about the piece. Knew I could get thru it. Took another breath, and then put my hands to the keys with confidence.

Just as I started to play, someone’s father in the front row “whispered” to his spouse, “She’ll never make it.”

I heard it. And I didn’t.

Only after the Conservatory Director (who’d also likely heard the remark) paused my performance and gave a little speech about how newcomers to Bach often get nervous and this causes them to increase the speed of the tempo to the point where the performer can’t keep up with their own hands…

Yes, I did get thru the piece on the next try. But let’s just say that it took me at least a year before I was willing to give Bach another whirl.

I suppose I could have come back with a snappy comeback on the train tonight. Something like, “Yeah---I might have some cat hair going on here. But at least I’m not a crackhead!”

And then, while I was being stabbed, people on the train would forget all about my cat hair.

Or maybe not.

Headlines in The Post the next day would read, “Crackhead Stabs Lippy Cat Lady”.

The New York Post would hack into my Facebook page.

Bessie in her skunk costume on the cover of The Post.

Nothing I had ever written would be acknowledged in my obituary. My Mom (keeper of my meager archives) would laminate the “Lippy Cat Lady” front page article and spend the next fifteen years going from South County Mall to South County Mall searching for the perfect frame at Frames Or Us---never realizing that it’s a chain and they all have THE SAME FUCKING FRAMES!

But I digress.

Confidence Killers, like serial killers, can be anywhere and anyone. They can be a crackhead on the train or somebody’s dad. And, like serial killers, they seem to have no conscience about their actions. The middle-aged woman who looked at me standing outside the restaurant door with my tea and cigarette certainly must have realized that I heard her say that I was “nobody”.

She just didn’t care.

As I went thru my mail today, I opened another rejection letter. Well, not exactly a rejection. More like an “only accepting queries thru a WGA signatory agent or lawyer at this time” letter from a certain unnamed production company.

A few years ago, I would have seen this letter as a Confidence Killer.

But today, after having survived SO many Confidence Killers (including an imaginary stabbing on the A Train)---I see it for what it is…

A call to work harder. To keep working and not give up. To brush off that cat hair, laugh at the silly crackhead---You so silly! And move forward.

They say that what doesn’t kill you, only makes you stronger.

Okay, that’s a lot of bullshit.

It may not kill you, but you’re going to be laid up in a crappy hospital with basic cable for about a week and then they’ll shuttle you out as fast as they can do the paperwork because your insurance is lousy and then you’ll pick up your own prescriptions and stumble home to your meowing cat, a hairball and a mailbox full of bills and Netflix picks…

But you survive.

Weaker.

But alive.

I believe the saying should be more like, “What doesn’t kill you… Well…hey!---it don’t kill ya…”

That’s pretty much it.

And if you were hoping for some words of wisdom from a writer who has been clearly identified by a Broadway TKTS ticketholder as “nobody”…

Damn. I’m sorry.

My bad.

All I have for you is this…

By the time I hit college, I discovered a deep appreciation for Bach.

My compositorial enemy, had become my closest friend.

I was determined to conquer my fear. I added a minor to my curriculum---harpsichord studies. Unfortunately, the sole harpsichord professor at my university was a bit of a letch, to say the least. I’d been forewarned by a friend of mine who ran the classical division at the University Library. “He was having an affair with one of his young Asian students. Watch out for that guy…”

A week later, I showed up at his campus office for an audition and interview. Photos of him with his arm around a young Chinese woman papered the place. But I refused to believe the hype and believed only in Bach.

By the end of the first semester, I’d suffered thru enough uncomfortable comments on my personal life and invites to “after class” sessions from a man who was the spitting image of Burl Ives to practically kill my love for the Baroque quicker than an A Express to Washington Heights.

Over the years, I’ve forgotten about this professor and his Confidence Killer moves---like grabbing my hand and caressing it over the harpsichord keys as he told me I’d never appreciate Couperin until I learned the proper touch…

My point is, nothing anyone has ever said or done to me has killed my love of Bach.

Tonight, I did something I occasionally do when I feel those Confidence Killers knocking at my door…

I dug into my sheet music cabinet (yes, I actually have a sheet music cabinet) and pulled out Bach’s Invention No. 8.

Within a few measures, I focus solely on my hands, let the comments of a crackhead go…and I interpret Bach for my sleeping (yet, still shedding) cat.

She looks up from my pillow and squints. A piece of grey cat hair drifts across the keys.

I simply blow it off.

The piece that slayed me when I was eleven years old---played by a seven year-old...

Bach's Invention No. 8

Time, Souvenirs, and Richard Hell

Writers have always had a love affair with New York City. Only Paris can rival the sheer amount of people who have come to New York to live, love, learn and write.

With so many writers here, readings are plentiful. On any day, at least a dozen readings by prominent writers and authors are taking place all over Manhattan. Even Brooklyn has gotten into the act. They can occur anywhere from a coffee shop to a nightclub to a Barnes & Noble. Most are free or very inexpensive. Sometimes there’s free coffee and cookies. Sometimes there’s a cash bar and a band. It’s the sort of thing most of your friends have no interest in attending. But happily, it’s the sort of event one never feels conspicuous attending alone.

The first reading I remember attending was Paul Krassner reading from his autobiography at a local Minneapolis bookstore years ago. Krassner was one of the early counter-culture heroes of the 60s. Founder of the Yippie movement with Abbie Hoffman, founder and editor of The Realist, a member of Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters and one of the most influential satirists of the 20^th Century.

I had recently read his autobiography and heard he was speaking. Curious, I showed up at the bookstore one afternoon to hear him read from a book I’d already read. I was the youngest person there. A bookstore full of old hippies, anarchists I recognized from the anarchist bookstore on the West Bank, old men who were bald in the front but long hair in the back, Groupies Gone Grandma----and me.

He talked about his youth. The eerie Cold War shivers of the 50s and trying to conform. And then, the insanity of the 60s, when he just gave in to it all. I listened. Enthralled. I’ve always loved a good story. And Krassner knows how to tell one. AND make it funny. I remember thinking the entire moment was so surreal. Here was a man that J. Edgar Hoover thought was such a threat to National Security that he’d tried to take out a hit on him---and he was just a guy with a bottle of Evian and a book.

And we were laughing.

How subversive can you be standing in front of the cookbook aisle?

His angrier, edgier days had passed. But he was still full of fire and delicious parody. Still a voice. You could hear it and see it in his eyes.

That’s the wonderful thing about readings. Witnessing that fire. Hearing those delicate intonations that make a sentence pop off the page and into your consciousness.

There was a book-signing after the reading. In a desire to complete the experience, I got into the autograph line. Running out of there almost seemed rude. It seemed the thing you were supposed to do. I’ve never been an autograph person. In fact, it was possibly the first voluntary autograph I’d ever sought out.

My mother, on the other hand, has always been a bit fascinated with celebrity. Not in a creepy way. Just very Midwestern.

When I was in fifth grade, I made my Confirmation. Our class was told that the Archbishop would be there to preside over the ceremony.

For some unknown reason, my Mom went out and bought an autograph book. An actual leather-bound book that had the word “Autographs” embossed in gold on the front.

After the ceremony, we were all standing around the gymnasium drinking Kool-Aid punch when she thrust the autograph book into my hand and said, “Honey---go ask the Bishop for his autograph.”

In those days, my cynicism was silent. Sarcasm bound tightly inside my head. Like a gun I didn’t know how to shoot. Not a weapon to be used on anyone---particularly Mom. And I was shy. REALLY shy. But obedient. So I can safely say that nothing in my life up until that point embarrassed me more than being forced to ask a holy man for his autograph.

I don’t know what I mumbled to the man in the pointy hat.

But he signed it. God love him.

A few months later, the autograph book invaded my life again. One of my mother's co-workers was Rock Hudson’s cousin. I knew who Rock Hudson was. Had seen his movies with Doris Day in reruns on the local TV station. It was a few years before he was diagnosed with AIDS. At that point, he was the aging, but still glamorous, Rock Hudson.

One day, I came home from school and my Mom presented me, once again, with the dreaded autograph book and told me to look inside.

There was my name. And beneath it, something like “Best Wishes. Rock Hudson.”

I say “something like” because to this day, the autograph book (with only two autographs) remains in the custody of my mother. Most likely, in a plastic container full of old IRS paperwork and W-2s somewhere in my mother’s basement.

But I like the idea that it’s there. Reminding me less of the person who signed it, than in the actual circumstances of the autograph itself. Rock Hudson couldn’t possibly have known that when his cousin passed him an autograph book at a family reunion it would turn up as a vaguely embarrassing memory of a young girl in a blog years later.

Last week, I heard that Richard Hell would be appearing at The New Museum on Bowery Street.

I think it’s safe to say that all kids, at some point, think they’re adopted. That disconnect you feel when your parents first knock on your bedroom door and tell you to turn the music down.

I was never a punk. The original punk era was before my time. And I only learned of Richard Hell’s music years after he retired from the scene. But it was exuberant, brash, and just frightening enough to seduce a young Catholic girl from the Midwest. He was one of the founding members of Television and later went on to form Richard Hell and the Voidoids. His iconic look was spotted by Malcolm McLaren who took Hell’s spiky hair, ripped t-shirt and safety pin style back to London and copied it for The Sex Pistols. And his song, “Blank Generation” was possibly the most non-anthematic anthem in musical history.

Hell also did a few acting stints---Susan Seidelman’s groundbreaking film Smithereens being the most well-known. And it certainly helped that he was not bad to look at. He quickly became one of the few rock star crushes I’ve ever had. Of course, my school-girl crush never would’ve worked out. He was into heroin and I was into Barbies. You know how those things go.

By the time I discovered him, he’d gone back to his first real love---poetry.

As a writer, he’s had an amazing success not only as a creator of poetry and novels---but also as one of the few survivors of the punk era who has the ability to chronicle those feral CBGB nights.

So yesterday, I got on the train and headed downtown to hear him speak.

As a museum curator asked the audience to turn off their cell phones, the side door opened and a still-devilishly attractive, 50-something Richard Hell stood bearing manuscripts at the door.

No sooner did he get up to speak, than cell phones and miniature video cameras began popping out of bags and pockets. One girl in front of me spent the entire forty-five minutes adjusting camera angles and focusing the close-ups on her iPhone. It occurred to me that many of them were so busy documenting the experience, they were missing out on the moment itself.

He spoke of the early years. Running away from home to New York City, setting up a printing press in his scrappy downtown apartment, and finally forming his first band, The Neon Boys, with Tom Verlaine.

Hell’s writing is stark and gritty, but seminally romantic. Germinating from Baudelaire. Sprouting into Burroughs. And flowering into Hell.

At times, he’s been accused of navel-gazing---though with Hell, any gazing is certainly a few inches further down. The “Free Love” era of the sixties almost seems sweet compared to the anonymous, drug-laden sex of the seventies. And poets are supposed to be navel-gazing. That’s part of the job. It’s like expecting a reality show contestant not to be narcissistic.

Introspection is perhaps a better word. That ability to look at the world with a sensory microscope and cough up hypotheses with nothing more than a pen. Autobiography is naturally self-indulgent. Hell recognized this in the chapter on his early friendship with Tom Verlaine; noting that whenever you speak of someone else, you also speak volumes about yourself.

At the end of the reading, original Voidoids guitar player Ivan Julian stepped on stage, strapped on a guitar and together they performed Hell’s song “Time” as an appropriate end to the evening. But, as Julian turned on the amp and checked the tuning on his guitar---even more video cameras popped out. iPhones. Flip Cameras. And then flashbulbs on everything from digital cameras to cheap instamatics were going off all over the place.

It seemed offensive. Intrusive. Just this side of tacky. Or was it just me? I suppose it wasn’t really that horrifying---but the sheer amount of cameras and lack of consideration for the subject seemed impersonal. Almost destructive. The difference between buying some postcards at The Pyramids and chipping a bit of stone from the tombs. Souvenir-hunting at its worst. A museum. Exhibit: Hell. Click. Upload.

Afterwards, a table was set up at the side and the audience was informed that several of Mr. Hell’s books and CDs would be available and he would briefly sign some autographs.

As an avid book-buyer and rabid reader, I certainly wanted one of his books. Not the sort of thing you can easily pick up at a Barnes & Noble. So I bought one that looked interesting. A hardbound collection of his poems and essays. And then, with my own writer’s introspection, it seemed almost insulting to buy a book and then just leave when I was standing two feet away from its author.

I will admit that I do like signed books. But the signed books I own are generally ones written by friends. It’s kind of kitchy and silly to ask your friend to sign their book. But it also acknowledges their accomplishment. They got published. They did good. Congratulations. And they always write something fun inside.

As I stood there with the book in my hand, I didn’t know what would embarrass me more---asking him to sign it or walking past him refusing to let his signature mar my new purchase.

I continued in the line.

In front of me, everyone seemed to want to talk. Wanted to make the moment memorable for themselves AND for him. Strangers trying desperately to imprint a memory on a man. The line was long, and a museum worker was obviously trying to wrap things up. Hell looked concerned at the length of the line and tried to continue being polite while trying to speed things along. He paused his meet-and-greet to let the crowd know that the museum was closing soon and we would have to move quickly. Meanwhile, the two older women in front of me simply walked behind the table and started posing with him for photos. Not even a “Can we get a photo?” More like a sneak attack. Hell obliged. The camera didn’t flash at the proper time and he was forced to do it two more times. They wanted to talk. Imprint. Hell thanked them and then said, “Does anyone just need a signature?”

I was next. He looked at me and I reached around the photo shoot and handed him the book. As a way of hello, I simply said that I’d enjoyed his reading. He asked my name. I told him. I let him sign in peace. He handed me back the book. I said, “Thank you so much.” He smiled.

And then I left.

Outside, I opened the book and read what he wrote.

“With gratitude. Richard Hell”

I wondered if the “gratitude” was for being the one person that day who didn’t want to suck up his time.

I may be a fan, but I’m a writer, too. I understand the value of time. And humanity. And respect. And that the best souvenirs are of the mind.

Where Were You On 9-11?

Every New Yorker has a story about where they were on 9-11. Mine is not so dramatic.

First off, I had moved to New York a mere four months before the attacks. I hardly knew anyone in the city. I’d never even been inside the Twin Towers.

At the time, I was living in Midtown. Working two waitressing jobs. The night before, I’d worked late and been up even later writing. When the first plane hit the Twin Towers, I was sound asleep in my comfy bed.

It seems shocking to me that anyone could sleep thru a terror attack on their city. You’d think some inner intuitive sense would wake you up. Some evolutionary survival gene would jolt you from your sleep and you would instantly flee like a herd of caribou when a hungry lion appears out of the dust of the Sahara.

But apparently I have no such gene. I was sound asleep. All cozy in my bed while, just a few train stops away, thousands of people were going to their deaths.

I know I made coffee, because I remember lazily sitting with my coffee and my cigarette as I went online that morning to check my email. And I had a lot of emails that morning. WAY more than normal. The first one, from a friend back in Minneapolis was simply, “Are you okay?”

What? I took a drag off my cigarette and read the next one from another friend.

“Are you okay? Call me.”

It was surreal. I remembered a novel I’d read a few years earlier. “The Moustache” by Emmanuel Carree. A man wakes up one morning and decides to shave off his moustache. He turns to his wife and says, “What do you think?”

“About what?”

“My moustache? I got rid of it.”

“Moustache?” she replies. “You never had a moustache.”

Duh-duh-duuummmm!

The surreal feeling continued as I opened an email from my brother.

“Mom’s been trying to call you all morning, but she can’t get thru. She’s really worried. Can you call or email me to let us know you’re okay?”

What was going on?

I got up and turned on the TV. Every channel had their cameras focused on the same thing.

The Twin Towers in flames.

Half-asleep and still in my pajamas, it took a whole fifteen minutes for me to decipher what had happened. Even the news didn’t seem to know. The planes had already crashed into both towers. And I’m not sure if, by this time, the first one had fallen or not. It was all so strange and I wasn’t sure if I was watching repeats or live footage.

I was able to get on the phone and call my Mom.

I’m fine. I was sleeping. Don’t worry.

Honestly, I don’t know what everyone thought I might possibly be doing downtown that early in the morning, anyway. I was a waitress-slash-playwright. How people thought I’d managed to maneuver my playwrighting and coffee-pouring skills into a job in the financial sector, I have no idea. The only reason I might POSSIBLY be down there would have been if I’d gotten a job waiting tables at Windows on the World. And, even then, I NEVER worked breakfast shifts. The meager tips on eggs and toast had never been enough to drag me out of bed before the sun came up.

At some point, after I’d called some family and friends and returned some emails stating that I was “fine”, I remember seeing the second tower fall.

On TV. In my pajamas. With cinnamon infused coffee.

By this time, the news networks were reporting that this was no “accident”. New York City had been attacked. I was stunned. I’d only been here for four months. I’d barely unpacked. And I’d worked so hard just to get my two lousy waitress jobs. And now this?

Yes. I was thinking of myself. I had few friends here. Little emotional connection to the city. And one of my waiting tables jobs was in a comedy club. The other was in a tourist restaurant in Times Square. Suddenly, I saw a future with few people wanting to laugh and even fewer wanting to tour my fine city.

“Honey,” my Mom had said over the phone that morning, “why don’t you come home for awhile. I’ll send you a plane ticket.”

Under the circumstances, the last thing I wanted to do was get on a plane.

I did spend the afternoon making calls to the few friends that I had here. One told me he just got home after walking across the Brooklyn Bridge. Another told me that he, too, was fine. He was also thinking it’d be the perfect night to try to pick up chicks. He’s a comic. I couldn’t really laugh, but I knew that humor was his way of dealing with the tragedy. Another friend who lived further downtown had to show her ID and proof of address just to get past police barricades.

And then there was the guy I was seeing. He flew a lot. To be honest, even before my concern about my jobs---I was concerned about him. Had he been on a plane that morning? Was he okay? Where the hell was he?

The way the phones were working that day, no one could call in to me, but I could call out. After my Mom, he was the first person I called.

He was fine. Not flying. At home. Not too far from where I was. Doing the same thing I was. Watching the news. Wondering what would happen next.

That morning, he’d seen both towers fall from the view in his penthouse apartment. Two years later, when his lease was up, he moved. He admitted that he hated the memory of looking out the window and watching it all unfold.

But that morning, he didn’t invite me over.

And I didn’t ask.

The relationship was still fairly new. And he’d lived in New York for twenty years. I knew he was going thru different emotions. He had a connection. I didn’t.

At least, those were the excuses I made. Looking back, I realize it was the moment I first mentally broke up with him. I was in a new city. Terrified. I just wanted to be held. And he wasn’t there. He hadn’t stepped up. If 9-11 was a relationship test, he failed.

I didn’t verbally break up with him. But I mentally did. I pulled back. I felt it. That barely perceptible drift that only the intimate can subliminally translate.

I knew no one who’d died in the towers. The whole thing was just too big to really comprehend.

What I could comprehend was being alone.

I made a cup of tea, vowed not to call him, and cried as I continued to watch the news. In one morning, I’d lost a relationship, two paying jobs, and the hope in my fabulous new city.

In my own way, within seconds, I’d also lost a life. I cried. But I cried for me. Poor healthy, alive and intact me.

Yes, I knew it in no way compared. But two gigantic towers full of people was just so big. So unreal. It was like something that happened in a foreign country---not a forty-five minute walk away.

Two hours later, I finally left my apartment. Police and Army personnel were everywhere. And a thick cloud of dust was in the air. Over the next few days, as the fires continued to burn, I could actually feel myself breathing in heavy soot when I went outside.

By this time, office workers from downtown had made their way to Midtown to catch their commutes home. Only a few were bleeding, but most all of them were covered in thick ash and soot. And most of them were in pairs---either finding a fellow co-worker to walk with or picking up a complete stranger along the way.

All were silent.

The silence that comes from trauma. But all of them had found someone to share it with. Even if it was very un-New York.

The usual manic energy of New Yorkers that I’d gotten used to was completely gone. No one was screaming “fuck you!” No one was yelling at their “homie’ across the street. It was a march of the zombies---only occasionally halted when a pair stopped in an open bar for a drink.

A few open bars posted “Happy Hour” specials.

There were plenty of takers.

Bits of burned paperwork from the Twin Towers even floated all the way to Midtown. Not a lot. But I remember seeing the bits and pieces. And the smoke.

Within days, hundreds of “missing” posters were plastered everywhere.

“John Smith. 38. 5 foot 10. 165 pounds. Brown hair. Hazel eyes. Last seen in Tower Two.

Like their loved ones were lost neighborhood cats.

And the pigeons. They had all left Manhattan. Not a bird in sight except for a vacant lot near my corner.

I remember stopping at the sight.

A vacant lot where construction was about to take place.

On the lot, was a single dead pigeon.

But this single dead pigeon was surrounded by a dozen live pigeons standing guard over the body by forming an actual circle around it. Their feathered heads were bowed and they remained perfectly still. Not cooing. Not pecking at the ground for crumbs. Not walking around trying to mate with another pigeon.

Perfectly still. Like statues.

It was as if the pigeons were in mourning. I had never seen anything like it.

It was four days after 9/11.

And the first pigeons I’d seen since the attacks.

I watched from the sidewalk. Fairly close.

Not one of them moved.

Not one of them strayed from their post to peck at the crumbs of bread the crazy old woman down the street had left for them. And none of them feared me.

It was a sentry.

For a pigeon.

For some reason, the emotions of pigeons for one of their own suddenly brought it all home. I looked up and saw the dark cloud of soot that still hung over the city. My Mom had called again that day. Asking if I wanted to come home.

“You don’t have to move back home. Just come here and stay for a while.”

But at that moment, I was at one with the city.

And the pigeons. I bowed my head and stood with them. Perfectly still. I had hardly known anyone in New York. Until now, there hadn’t been anyone to mourn with.

Except the pigeons.

They didn’t fly away. They allowed me to stay. I stood with them in silence. In thought. Meditation.

I finally had the opportunity to mourn.

With pigeons.

To this day, it’s my strongest memory of 9-11.

It may not be as dramatic a story as escaping the Towers, walking across bridges, or pulling people out from under fallen debris.

But it’s my story.

It's the day I became a New Yorker.

My Right Foot: The George Washington Bridge

I have always been a creative person. I don’t think this makes me a better person. In fact, it often causes me to feel isolated both physically and mentally. Creation requires a certain amount of solitude. And with that solitude, a different way of looking at the world develops. A way that most people don’t quite understand. This is what causes that lovely “alone in a crowd” syndrome that often overtakes me. Sometimes it’s lonely; but most of the time, it’s pretty nice.

A lot of people think it’s hard to be creative---even some artists themselves.

A few years ago, I ran into an artist friend in my regular coffee shop early one morning. As usual, he was there with his coffee and art projects all spread out. He was in his late-fifties. A full-time, working artist. His work was in the Smithsonian and galleries all over the world. In the 70s, his work was featured in one the first issues of Andy Warhol’s magazine, Interview. I’d seen a great deal of his work both at the coffee shop and at his studio. I’d even purchased a few originals that particularly appealed to me. Just small pieces. He gave me hugely discounted rates---being that I was a waitress, and all. “Here,” he said that day as he pushed a pen and piece of drawing paper in front of me at seven o’clock in the morning, “close your eyes and draw an animal for me.”

“With my eyes closed?”

“Yes. Just put the pen anywhere you want to put it on the paper, think of an animal, and then close your eyes and draw. And don’t open your eyes till you’re finished.”

I thought for a moment, then put my pen on the paper, closed my eyes, and drew. Then I opened my eyes and turned the paper around.

“It looks like an anteater,” he said.

“Ya!!!” I clapped and smiled. “That’s what it is!”

And it was a pretty good anteater, if I do say so myself.

As we sat there drinking our morning coffee, he explained that people always talk about how hard it is to draw. How they can’t draw. How they have no talent. “But every little kid can draw. It’s only when you grow up that you develop inhibitions and lose that sense of play. I’m putting together a little show of these.” He took a long drag off his Marlboro and glanced down at the paper. “That’s a really good anteater.”

Recently, I realized that I’d started to lose that sense of play. Sure, it was still there; but sometimes, life just comes along. Work. Family. Laundry. Things just need to be taken care of. And, in New York City, the stakes are high. Most of the time, you’re just trying to make the rent and keep the apartment clean. Not much fun. And certainly, not inspiring.

For me, this wasn’t living. This was simply existing. Something had to be done.

So this morning, I woke up with the idea that I was going to take a 30 Day Artist Retreat. No, I’m not going into the woods to write poetry. But I realized that I did need to devote time to that very important side of me; because frankly, it was starving. Artistic Scurvy, if you will. I had no idea what I was going to do about it when I woke up today. A beautiful, spring day and no plans whatsoever. I mulled over going to Chinatown, to Soho, to the Village, to Central Park, to a museum, to a concert, or just get on a train and see where it took me. But with the trains in my neighborhood under repairs this weekend, I decided I’d rather look a little closer. And then it came to me. The George Washington Bridge. I began to wonder---Can you walk across the bridge? Safely? Just walk across the Hudson River to Jersey?

I did a Google search. According to a website I found, yes indeed, you can!

Within fifteen minutes, I had packed a bag, grabbed a bottle of water, put on my walking shoes and headed out the door.

For you folks who want to try this at home: First, go to the Southbound Pedestrian and Bike Entrance somewhere around 178th and Cabrini.

I admit, I felt a twinge of nervousness as I headed up the ramp. That nervous feeling you get as you're about to head off into the unknown. I had no idea what was on the other side of the bridge. I looked across the Hudson. A few houses and a large apartment complex stood beckoning me from atop the bluffs. What WAS over there? I'd heard that cigarettes were cheaper in Jersey. In New York State, they are currently up to between $10 and $10.50 a pack. Maybe I was about to walk across the bridge for a pack of cheap cigarettes. Or maybe I would find something even more interesting.

Nevertheless, I was off on adventure.

To my surprise, loads of runners; bikers; and walkers, like myself; were peppered all over the pathway. It was comforting to see them there. Those irrational fears of encountering a psychopath who would push me over the railing could be set aside. Phew. Though the bridge itself is not for the faint of heart or those afraid of heights. The GWB (as it is known about town) began construction in 1927 and completed in 1931. It was designed not only to withstand the elements, but to flow with them. Vibrations from passing trucks go all thru your body. And when a gust of wind hits the bridge, there is a barely perceptible sway. But it's this marvel of construction that has made the bridge one of the sturdiest in the country.

Also, the most beautiful.

The scenery while crossing the bridge was (to use a highly overused adjective) breathtaking.

Signs all over the bridge declared that No Loitering was allowed in the walkway and violators would be prosecuted. But how could you NOT loiter? Sure, you didn't want to get in the way of bike traffic. But no one in their right mind could possibly walk this span of bridge without stopping to admire the view. Yes, suicides often occurred on this (and many other) bridges in New York City. But as I stopped to look at the view of the Hudson, I couldn't imagine anyone standing on this beautiful bridge with the world spread out like a beautiful wedding cake before them and even consider jumping into the water below. Surely, someone has come here after a particularly trying time and looked out onto the river and said, "You know, it's so pretty up here. Maybe life is worth living after all."

As I walked across the bridge, I thought about the day I moved to New York City. You see, my choice of activity today was not quite so random as you might think. Almost eight years ago, I came to New York City with a strong belief in my talents and a truckload o' shit. A filmmaker friend of mine had offered to drive the truck for me as he knew I didn't know how to drive. I offered to pay for the truck, the gas, all expenses and his plane fare back to Minneapolis. We had driven together on a film shoot out to Boston and New Hampshire a few years earlier and knew each other to be good road companions. As we drove across the George Washington Bridge, I remember him saying, "This is the ONLY way to enter New York City". I still remember the view. The Twin Towers were still there then. They would be destroyed by the terrorists just a few months later.

That day, we were running behind schedule and the sun was setting over the Hudson as we crossed the bridge, casting a red-orange glow over the amazing city I was about to jump right into with a few hundred dollars and a dream.

Almost eight years later, I find myself still struggling, but still writing. This morning, with a few years of NYC experience under my belt, I decided to start all over from the beginning. Leave, and enter the city the way I came in. A re-birth. I knew nothing else other than when I came back across this bridge, I would come back with a fresh attitude and maybe a pack of cheap cigarettes.

I paused on the bridge for another photo. You see, as I walked towards the bridge, I began laying out my plan for my 30 Day Artist Retreat. I would write about the experience in my blog everyday---but what would be my theme? I remembered a photo I took with some black and white film years ago on an adventure day like today. I'd decided to walk around some railroad tracks all day and take photos. With no one else around, and wanting a picture of myself documenting that I was indeed there,I simply pointed the camera down and took a picture of my foot on the tracks.

So, this afternoon, as I crossed the GW Bridge, I pointed my camera down and took a photo of my right foot on the bridge. Not a thumbed-nose at the Daniel Day-Lewis film, it's just that my left foot was starting to get a small blister on my heel. So I took the picture of My Right Foot.

Later, I realized how appropriate as I was going for a Right Brain sort of thing over the next 30 days.

About twenty-five minutes later, I stepped off the bridge into New Jersey. And there it was---an Exit Ramp. Not even a gas station in sight at which to buy my discount cigarettes. I looked around for the most promising route and made my way off the highway by following a pair of twenty-something guys carrying some groceries home. The entrance to The Palisades was nearby and I remembered that this was the site of the old Palisades Park torn down in the early 70s. As I followed the pair of young men a few yards ahead of me, I noticed a tiny strip mall up ahead and went in that direction. But when I turned the corner, I discovered a gorgeous little...well, village. Small little shops and restaurants and cafes. The more I kept walking, I realized that I was in Fort Lee New Jersey. It was adorable! And full of interesting things at every turn.

One amazing spot was this memorial for veterans.

The walkway had small memorial stones listing the loved ones remembered for their service and lives.

I took photos and walked around for hours. One of my favorite sites was this rectory.

Though I remain a lapsed Catholic, I can still appreciate the beauty of the faith and the history of the church. The religious orders are not a mystery to me---I was practically raised by nuns. And writers often feel an affinity with the monastic life. Back in high school, as part of a religion class, we visited the convent of a contemplative order in St. Louis. We were told by the nuns that we were in for a treat and a great privilege. While our nuns were part of a more social order, the contemplative convent we were about to visit was full of nuns who never left the premises.

Never.

We were granted this great privilege because one of the girls in our class had an aunt in this order. That afternoon, we all piled into a vehicle we referred to as the "nun-mobile" and drove to the convent where we met our classmate's aunt. Well, meet is putting it a bit strongly. We saw her. Well, the shaded OUTLINE of her from behind a grill. She was in full-out nun regalia---long skirt, long habit and spoke to us softly from the shadows about her life inside.

She had been in the order for about 17 years at that point. She told us, in front of her niece, how just before she'd taken her final vows, she got to hold her newborn niece in her arms for the very last time. And then she put on that ring and was locked up behind the bars.

Well---those are my words. She seemed quite happy. What did she do all day? I asked.

"Well, we make the bread for the nearby churches and we pray for anyone who asks us to pray for them."

For this service to the community, they were given food, health care and a roof above their heads for life. In some ways, it seemed a bit too much. In other ways, not near enough. I remember we got to taste the bread. It was pretty good bread. A little dry, but then, it was meant to be washed down with the Blood of Christ.

As I walked the quaint little streets of Fort Lee, I did some contemplating of my own. Not about my past failures or the usual anxieties that often plague me after a hard week of waitressing---I just thought about what a beautiful day I was having. How much I missed having wonderful days like this. Walking. Thinking. Exploring. Feeling my creative juices coursing thru my veins. I felt good. Better than I had in weeks.

Now, on adventures like these, I'm always on the lookout for two things. First, a little spot I can call my own. It could be a bench or a coffee shop. A bookstore or a tree. Second, something my little brother and I used to refer to as a "thing-find". Not something you buy. Just something you find on the ground to commemorate your day. It could be an unusual looking stick or a bit of castaway treasure on the ground. You don't have to keep your thing finds forever. It's just the bits of things that catch your eye that you drag home in a knapsack to remember a lovely day. It also keeps you observant of the beautiful things around you.

While I kept my eyes peeled for a potential thing-find or two, with Fort Lee's large Korean community, I decided to find a little Korean spot to call my own. A few blocks later, I found it at a place called School Zone, which offered Korean-style frozen yogurt in a Hello Kitty atmosphere.

It was cheery and bright and I went inside to discover that I was the ONLY white person in the joint. The place was filled with twenty year-old Korean girls both on staff and as customers. Poppy Korean music played and the delicate cadences of soft-spoken Korean girls filled the room. The yogurt was self-serve and I filled my cup with a sampling of Blueberry, Mango, Strawberry and Green Tea frozen yogurt.

I ate my yogurt and looked out the window at the sunshine. What a beautiful day. Could the weather be any more beautiful? I didn't think so. I was happy here. I'd even managed to find a 7-11 to buy a pack of cheap cigarettes. Only about two dollars cheaper, but I was happy I'd had such a lovely day.

I went into a Border's bookstore I'd seen a few blocks away from the yogurt shop. Borders sell these amazing little notepads with an elastic band that are the perfect size to fit in my apron pocket at work. When thoughts on a project come to me, I can simply whip out my notepad, make my little note, and get back to pouring coffee and telling people about the specials.

Unfortunately, this particular Borders was quite new and did not carry my favorite notepads. It did, however, have a book that caught my eye:

It was PERFECT for my day! The book is filled with amazing chapters titled, "How to Tell a Ghost Story", "Climbing", "How to Be a Spy", "Making a Willow Whistle", "Going to Africa", and "How to Paddle a Canoe". It was in the Bargain Book bin and I snatched it up.

As I stepped out of the Borders, I realized that the sun was starting to go down, and I should probably start making my way back across the bridge.

I got a little lost, but that was okay. That's part of the adventure. What wasn't okay was that I hadn't come across any good thing-finds. Fort Lee's cleanliness was going to be my loss. After about twenty minutes of wandering around, I finally saw the entrance to the Palisades Park a few blocks ahead and got my bearings.

A few minutes later, I stepped back onto the bridge.

I took a deep breath and left all my negative thoughts, disappointments and rejections under the freeway ramp. Surely, some homeless man will find them there and add them to his shopping cart and plastic bag.

This time, I was entering Manhattan with a belly full of Korean yogurt, a renewed sense of hope and a book that would tell me how to identify a porcupine footprint. I was all set!

The sun was setting on the Hudson as I crossed. Just as beautiful as I remembered it the first time.

I remember my heart had skipped a beat the first time I crossed seven years ago---more in fear than anticipation. But this time, I was excited to get back to New York City. To be a Daring Girl. To be creative. To play. To work hard. To live.

About half-way across the bridge, I looked down at the cement pavement and there it was. My thing-find. A rock.

Yes, the shape was smooth and interesting; but what was more interesting to me is exactly HOW did a rock get on the George Washington Bridge?

The river was hundreds and hundreds of feet below so it certainly couldn't have washed up. The other bits you see in the photo aren't rocks, but bits of plastic and rubber that fell off the bridge and the nearby cars. The sandy bed is surely from the dust of the tires traveling over the bridge---but just HOW does a rock get all the way up here? And not a bit of broken concrete rock---but an actual pebble that fit perfectly into the palm of my hand. I picked up the rock and measured how it felt as I rubbed it in my hand. Never was a rock designed that was so perfectly Zen and organic in my hand. Almost perfectly smooth except for a few tiny indented patches to give it a only-God-is-perfect-Turkish-carpet sort of sense.

I don't think I've ever fallen in love with a rock before. But I fell in love with this one and and nursed it in my hand all the way across the rest of the bridge. This was my rock. My lucky rock. I don't think I've ever had anything I actually felt was lucky before. Sure, there was the Lucky Green Bean about a year ago---but that didn't last. After all, it was just a green bean.

As I headed towards New York, the lights of Manhattan began to flicker and glow. Yeah, I knew it wasn't exactly for me. But if I could believe that a green bean could be lucky, I could surely pretend that the lights of Manhattan were welcoming me back home.

The sun went down behind the Jersey side of the bridge and I went home to begin my creative journey. Right foot first.