Love, Mom

_{Jill Greenberg Revelations}

Every day I make a running list in my head of the difference between here and there. I will save most of that for some other post, but a couple things happened to me today and they were the kinda things that would have been nice to share with someone because they were funny yet entirely inconsequential. Because I haven't shared with them with anyone yet today, I offer them up to you here.

I went on a hike today, not a big deal hike, really something more of a walk to a park called Treepeople. It was a very nice park with lots of informational placards and kind reminders to pick up your dogshit and to not smoke. The funny thing was--and this brings me to the difference-between-here-and-there portion of this little post--is that everyone was dressed for major physical activity. I kid you not, I was the only person I saw in jeans and muddy sneakers and not carrying a water bottle. There were many wearing portable electronic devices that played music or allowed them to talk on the phone hands free. I saw some very well-coordinated track suits, and every one was dressed to the nines in their athletic wear.

But, as happens, when people are walking and passing nearby, I overheard some bits of conversations that made my day. I am not even sure if they will translate here, but I will try. One young couple--and when I mean young, I am guessing high-school--were on a sort of date, it seemed. The young girl was very, um, perky but in a tolerable and cute kinda way. She was talking about a bike ride she had gone on in a group and how flustrated she was that she could not keep up. She kept finding herself dead last, with no one else around. It brought her to tears, but she kept persevering. When she thought she could take it no longer, she looked up from the steep road in front of her and realized there were sunflowers six feet high on either side of her. I know what she means, sunflowers can have that effect on me, too. As if we are looking in a mirror and seeing, instead of our own dour reflection, something smiling back at us with unwavering determination. Sometimes it is just the thing we need. I used to plant sunflowers, for this very reason, every summer. It saddens me that I no longer have a plot of land in which I can plant, neither a vegetable garden nor these cheery flowers, for those long summer nights when it is just me, the yard, and the slugs.

The other funny--okay I think maybe it's not really funny, but actually sweet--thing that I noticed today happened when I was in line at the post office. Now, normally I can get away with not standing in this line and using the automated postage machine which I love. But I forgot to tape my box and I needed to buy insurance, so along with everybody else who arrived at ten of closing, I had to stand in line. But if I hadn't stood in line, I wouldn't have noticed the young guy in front of me, checking his email on his cell phone. There he was scrolling through, when I happened to catch the last, salutary line on his message. And it said love, Mom. It was a nice closing to what had been a rather brutish day and, once again, gave me faith in humanity, young boys and their mothers, and kids in high-school going on a hiking date and revealing the most important details of their lives. We are not so different, after all.

Wait Until Spring, Bandini

My day got off to a pretty good start, even though I accidentally went off into the day wearing my house dress, which I realized upon my first stop, was just a bit more Jayne Mansfield than is necessary at 9am on a Friday. Um, oops. But oh well, the weather was nice and it got me a lot of help from all the salesmen. Where was I headed? Downtown. My new favorite place. Thank you to Mo for reintroducing me to this elegant, rundown and forgotten part of town.

First, I would like to introduce you to the Dancing Girls building. This is a building that I would love to live in, convert to lofts and light up the sign. C'mon, how great would that be: the Dancing Girls Lofts? I am starting a fund now for which you can donate to the cause. And I will keep you all posted. Hmmm, maybe the cleavage can help in some way! I see a theme emerging...

Next stop, the flower mart. Because I was a florist for three years way back in college, whenever there is a family function, I am the one called upon for my special talents. And I don't mind. I love cut flowers. I love knowing the names of them. I love their smells. I love holding them in my arms like the winner of a beauty pageant. I love the simple flowers, like daffodils. I love the overtly sexual ones, like anthuriums. I love being snobby about the flowers that people--okay mostly men--think are appropriate to give to women whether in courtship, in apology or in some mild sense of gratitude. The flowers that are so trite, unimaginative, and well, lame, that they are the equivalent of a Hallmark greeting card. Are we as women so appreciative of any small gesture a man is willing to make that this is acceptable? Or am I being a total unnecessary elitist here? Well, I digress and it's really not my argument these days. Let me get back to the poppies. Is there anything as life-affirming as a poppy about ready to unfurl it's petals? Like a baby's fist holding on for dear life and then suddenly letting go. It's a pleasure to behold, I tell ya.

I also planned ahead. I brought my knife to be sharpened at the cutlery store nestled nearby. It only takes 20 minutes, so I walked across the street to the Grand Central Market for my juice. There is a mind-boggling array of juice available: celery, watercress, beet, not too mention apricot and pomegranate. All freshly squeezed and distributed out of these neat little contraptions. I settled on pomegranate, apricot and banana with some protein powder thrown in for good measure. Delicious.

I also had time to buy some tropical fruit. Large, ripe papayas grabbed my eye--hard to miss those--as did the Meyer lemons, and while the guayabas were not ripe yet, the cheremoyas certainly were. Everyone was super friendly and even the more so when I spoke Spanish to them. Many an introduction were made, a few de donde eres's and I got the lowdown on when to come back for the guayabas.

I came back for my knife, it's sharpness demonstrated to me by one swift slash of the newspaper in which it was wrapped. Chatted about which knife would be a best second knife--next time I have the extra 80 dollars or so--and marveled at the wide selection of hair clippers available for purchase. This place has been around for ever and they charge you on the length of your blade. It is quite reasonable. I think this quote about sums it up: Two brothers and forty years of business.

Finally I peaked into the famous Bradbury building next door. Famous, not only for it's eclectic Victorian architecture designed with the utopian ideals of Edward Bellamy in mind, and famous not only for being featured in Blade Runner, but famous to me because it is where I shot my first Super-8 film back in high school. A special thanks is now in order to my sister, for agreeing to climb this famous building's fire escapes for my little movie. No longer available commercially, you can contact me directly for your copy. Hell, for 20 dollars, I will even sign it.

For $15

You get access to the spa for as long as you want. For $2 you get a scrubby sponge. For $30 you get a Korean lady in black bra and panties giving you the scrubdown of your life. And so it goes at the Olympic Korean Spa. Oh, there is more on the menu--a full body waxing at $120, for example--and I hear the facials are of particular note--but honestly, the $17 is all you really need to spend to feel rejuvenated, transported and healed.

It's different from the zen Japanese and fancy schmancy Burke-Williams with-their-cucumber-water spas. It's not about aesthetics. In fact, it's not really even about relaxing. It's sorta about putting your body through the ringer. It's about cleansing. It's about invigorating. And it's about healthy glowing skin. We could call it an exercise in extremities. Slough off the skin. Burn yourself hot. Then freeze yourself cold. It's a spa for the masses. We're talking proletarian, women of all sizes, share-your-plastic-washing-stool-and-bowl-with-your-neighbor kind of place. There is even a utilitarian restaurant for those who enter or exit hungry.

I'd recommend starting with the charcoal oxygen room. A quick bath at the communal, um, trough, for lack of a better word. Jump into the dark and mysterious Mugworts tea bath. Plunge into the cold dip. Warm up in the wet charcoal sauna with jade floor and burning herbs. Slip in next door to the dry stone sauna. Rinse. Lather. And repeat.

Sigh. I could do that for hours. I could practice this ritual daily. But tonight we arrived near closing, so with the hour I had, I made the best of it, frantically jumping between baths and showers and spas. Chances are, though, when you do leave, you will be leaving like I did, with a jump in your step, cheeks all aflush and, like the sign says, replenished.

Everything is Everything Take 2

If yesterday were opposite day, I'd be saying what a fucking horrible day! It's good to know that for me things like my general emotional state of being can change in a heartbeat. Yesterday, my friends from Mudville were in town and not just any friends but The Amazing Family whom I love more than anything, each family member in it's own special way. Just the mere fact that they were here brought tears of joy to me, but an actual outing into this strange new city of mine brought me to a nearly ecstatic state just anticipating it.

The day went up from there. When we got to the expansive botanical gardens to which they had invited me, special just for us, there was no admission fee whatsoever! We wandered the gardens and guess what? All the cacti were in bloom! Purple, orange, pink, chartreuse! It was as if we had called in advance and reserved a private blooming. We were all very excited as you can see by the photo. We traveled from the desert to Japan to the English countryside and to the tropical rain forest and back again. We saw carnivorous plants and rare orchids. We traversed bamboo forests and hid among the orange groves. And guess what else? You can be a volunteer there! Hmmmmm. Something to think about.

On the ride home, I got a chance to talk to one of The Amazing Family's friends who is a local here. She is also an artist and not just any kind of artist--well, ok, she's a painter, too--but a conceptual performance artist to boot, my favorite kind of artist, the if-I-could-do-anything kind of artist. So, she had some suggestions of hikes, mentioned a 10 acre marsh area not too far away, and most important of all, assured me I would come to like it here. She herself arrived only six years ago, not too far from where I hail, has managed to explore what there is of the wilderness here and hereby, and come to love it, accept it, and call it her own. We saw some cute pollito graffiti near her house, an unexplored Haitian bbq joint with a curious sign reading goat show, and talked about how you can still get any kind of drugs kind of like a drug drive through, right down her street, same as when I was growing up here.

That night I attended the inaugural reception to the Lady's Auxiliary Art Salon or Whateverthehellyouwannacallit of which I am a proud new member--there are now three of us--and founder. We came up with many hairbrain schemes, non-viable ideas, and the completely perfect horror film. For obvious reasons, we decided to proceed with the completely perfect horror film, even if that had little to do with anything we were individually working on. By the end of the night, I felt enthused and excited in a way I really haven't yet. Almost as if I was beginning to fit in here.

Everything is Everything

Friends, brothers and sisters, let's just say, today was just one of those days. I woke up and unpacked, listening to every single PJ Harvey album I owned and ended the day on the treadmill staring straight into the anonymous face on the opposing treadmill with Danny Hathaway. One thing you should know: right before I cry, I feel like I am going to sneeze. And let's just say, I spent the entire day feeling like I was going to sneeze. I could blame the miserable weather, daylight savings, the state of the union, the liver cleanse I am trying out, my hangover this morning (yes, that's right those last two decidedly do not go together), or just the unfortunate combination of things. I could blame myself: my doubts about the move I just made, my guilt about not working, my insecurities about oh, fill-in-the-blank. Or I could blame God if only I thought he was somewhere out there. Friends, brothers and sisters, not even my new haircut could lift my spirits.

Which brings me back to Danny Hathaway. Because sometimes all we have is music. The closest we can get to god, heaven, or hell. The closet I can get when my misery wants company. The best explanation when I have none, is often someone else's. Does that make any sense? Does it make any sense that when Hathaway sings to be young gifted and black, my noise starts to twitch? Does it make any sense that when I hear that chorus of voices shout out everything is everything my heart simultaneously breaks and then mends itself? I ask you: does it make any sense any of it?

Today, the word of the day that was found in my inbox, was gestalt. I thought it rather ominous. The definition given was: most often used in psychology to describe a theory or approach which aims to see something as a whole rather than breaking it into separate parts. But all I read was breaking and separate parts. I think you get what I am trying to say here. Every now and again a day comes and it just gets you down. And everything that happens in that day seems proof of how horrible or ugly or difficult things really are. Nothing helps except the day ending. The sun setting, the moon rising, the pillows calling. Nothing helps except to sit and wade it out. Next time, it will be someone else's turn. But for now, I'm gonna turn down the sheets, close my eyes, and listen to my gospel.

P.S. I look exactly the same.