A Dream of Escape

A dream of escape.

Here in the Northeast in America, we are under a cold snap.

Since Christmas, we have been suffering with below zero temperatures and into the predictable future (according to the iPhone).

And then, with or without a cold (which I have), we are essentially trapped indoors.

I've been lucky to have a writing project to take me out of myself.

The BEST vacation I can ever have. 

Walking by the Pond

The other morning, it was 23 degrees.

I wore 2 shirts and was able to walk easily, in a freeze, as if things were NOT new to me, yet again, even if it had been such a long time since I walked.

The pond was still there, my thoughts too.  I wished for a computer and some quiet time, but 8:30 am Meetings all week. 

And then there is the Boy to occupy my mental energies. 

The only people I see are the Crossing Guard near the school; she waves.  We talked on Halloween, she liked my costume and I liked hers.

And the man who stares into space as he sits in his running car, where that lady used to be.  I somehow got a sense that she voted for Trump, I don't know how-some conversation we had, or she had with my mother. The kind of person who smiles at all the kids and who dies alone in her bathtub with some gin sitting on the rim. Funny, the things you think of in a town like this.

There is a strict line between the townies and those who get up and out.  The industrial part, the industrial parks, the commuters and the college kids.  The cab drivers ask me my age, because SURELY we grew up together.  But no, I didn't go to PUBLIC SCHOOL and didn't hang out in the places they did.  I was home watching black & white movies.  Doing research for my future life.

Take ALL the pictures you Can

Yes, I realize that the world is taking far too many pictures.

Yes, I realize I will probably never match up all the photos I take of the same thing everyday.  The difference is imperceptible, yet I am riveted by the changes and the similarities.

Because everytime I DO go back to my previous pictures, I am happy. Whatever images made me happy that first time allow me to revisit the shapes again. Look again and again until they become familiar and part of my mental art gallery.

The Blue and the Red which pop when side by side, outside of a favorite theater. 

Sometimes the shapes or the colors no longer speak to me. But the ones that do, the ones which catch my attention may even be more glorious than the original, real life image.

Just this morning, the reflection of leaves on the pond, and the bottom still visible.  And Green leaves with Red stems, and blue in the background, not of the sky-but of the steel and glass building behind it.  Almost as good as the sky.

Construction all over the City

The old coffee shop is gone, but only replaced by signs for rent.

There is a building that my train goes by everyday.  I want to remember it as the building it was before.  The painted 5 Pointz.  But I also want to remember the building as it is now, a skeleton of a structure, with golden orbs in every empty room.

There are lots of buildings like this.  Empty, and half empty for long periods of time. Even when they are close to finished, they are never quite finished.  I can't imagine who will live there.
I only hope that these buildings will all fail to attract the expensive people, and will have a place for those who can't afford anything, and will be open to them as homes.

I keep my eyes and camera ready to track the progress, or to remember what it was like before these buildings got to where they are going.

Walking to McK at 9am

There was something FAMILIAR about the heat and the sunshine at 9am.

Something I remembered from a long time ago.
(See the song Summer Breeze, and lilacs in bloom and my father coming home from work.  i'm turning into him)

Walking today, I had a flashback to the time when I must've left the house to go play with my friends down the street.  All the kids were outside playing in the summer time.

Julie used to have her sprinkler going.

I poured a bucket of water on the boys when they came over to tease us.  (But maybe they wanted to be cooled down)

TV in the 70's. Tom Sawyer and Becky on a steamboat??

The colors were different then.

Walking down near lake Street, i remember the summer I spent-probably in high school- cutting receipes out of women's magazines and organizing them by category. And then ALPHABETICALLY!

And then I came home, walking up the hills, smelling someone on my block frying something.  And when I reached our door, it was my MOM making Sweet Potato fries and Chicken Croquettes!!

Good sun!! (Last day of summer!!)

They Closed The Starbucks

The place I saw as the glaring spot reminding me of my past, is closed.

I just noticed a week or 2 ago.

I don't know if I should be happy or sad.

Makes me feel both things.

Gasoline Alley

Listening to Rod Stewart sing about Gasoline alley ("where I was born") suddenly brings to mind a VIVID image of growin up, not that I grew up in an alley, but it's what my town looked like in the 1970's.
My neighborhood was full of trees, flourishing in the spring rains, but there was a Hillbilly haunting of junk in the forest, beautiful and spooky, old car seats that had the jungle growing up through them.

And downtown there was a lot of gasoline smells, vivid concrete smells.  My neighbors (white trash?? or just the kind of people who dumped trash in the forest) the toothless grandpa who never bathed, and the broken cars in his driveway.  The trunk from the navy that was out on the sidewalk one day, recently.  And how he never liked other people going through his trash.  "Trash picker" as the worst thing they yelled at us....

Memorial Day Time

Funny to think that I am RICH when I am whirring with ideas and cannot type & paint fast enough for everything I want/need to do. I am rich because I have 3 days in a row to prepare for Open Studios.

Under The Bridge & other stories still NEEDS TO BE WRITTEN.

There was a pastor at church today, she was a pastor in Michigan & it didn't work out (Sad or Emersonian??)  She's working as an Admin Assistant for a Boys' School.  And had just returned from a trip with 36 6th Graders to Washington DC.

Wandering lost at lunch

I live on the other side of the river. 

Valley of 42nd st, from Tudor City.

Manhattan Stonehenge.

Conference Calling

Unhappy faces. Telepresence is not real Presence.

But it was still fun.

The Date on My Badge

I heard Friday afternoon that Tuesday would be my last day.  I'm not surprised.

Not surprised that my manager hung out with me in person for 2 days and didn't mention it.

Not surprised he's a chicken, that he would never answer a direct question.

That he was too stubborn to change his mind, or allow for the possibility.

That his focus would be on what his team can win, and NOT what will improve the project.

I'm glad to leave before I get more emotionally involved with the other employees (I love them all). Before I fall more in love with the habit.

I'm glad I can go back to NYC.  Everyone else has to look at those walls and my empty desk until it all gets washed of my existence.  And then I'll be completely gone.

How to Hang In

Vacations are underrated. 

It's much more amazing to realize that you are happier Not Working for a company than Working for it.

Some people (17 or 7 or 4 year veterans) are stuck with their life investments.  They are terrified to make a move or to have a move made upon them.

It's a huge deal to explore open positions, other companies, or even a new commute. Old habits die hard.

The more you move, the more efficient everyone can be. All the detritus falls away. So much surrounds us everyday that is distracting. Habits, rooms, hallways, desks, coworkers.  Everything is there until it isn't.

One bad earnings call, one rough afternoon for your boss, everything at your job can fall away until nothing is left, not even a paycheck.  It's a matter of dodging as many bullets as you can, and try not to be shocked when you get hit.