San Sebastian

#1: Get drunk and call someone. Submitted by Chris from Chicago.

After a friday teacher happy hour...

Josie: Hello.
Me: (shouted) Josie!
Josie: Hello?
Me: It's me, Sarah.
Josie: Oh! How are you?
Me: I'm good. How are you. I was just...picking a rose out of someone's yard. I was taking a walk. And I felt so guilty for picking it. Hold on, I need to sit down. OK. So I stuck a dollar to the plant, through a thorn. To pay for the rose. Now it's in a glass in my room. It's really pretty. Do you like yellow roses?
Josie: Yeah, they're ok.
Me: I like the way they look when they're on the way out, you know, when they're all...fluffy. And the petals are starting to fall off. I really like that. Do you think I should make some chutney? Like a bunch of different kinds. Should I send you some? Do you like chutney?
Josie: Sure, I like chutney.
Me: I'm love the world of condiments. I think I'll make some ketchup too. Catch up, ketchup. Getcha ketcha. Ha ha.
Josie: (pause) Are you drunk?
Me: Yes.

#2: Visit Mrs. DiClementi. Submitted by Catherine Noble, Mrs. DiClementi's neighbor.

I am standing in front of Mrs. DiClementi's apartment, holding a bunch of flowers from the bodega on the corner. She likes to put them in a giant old jam jar in her window; she waits until they are brown and all the petals are on the floor before she goes on to the next bunch. Inside, there seem to be empty cigarrette packs on every flat surface. They are the generic kind of cigarettes, the ones that are three dollars less than the famous ones, the kind on special at gas stations. Her fingers are brownish at the tips, from smoking them. Once the flowers are in the jam jar, she pulls a plate of peanut butter cookies out of the refridgerator, and even they taste faintly of cigarettes. I tell her about my class and my parents' visit and about the leaves changing at the park. There are faded pictures all over the walls; by the shag carpeting and the clothes, I know exactly when they're from. I like Mrs. DiClementi to tell me about the people in the pictures, especially about her brother in law, Nicky, who loved chicken cutlets and turned the backyard into a miniature farm, right there in the middle of Carroll Gardens. Mrs. DiClimenti makes some tea. Behind her, in the backyard, a neighbor has strung flowered housedresses out to dry. The breeze is making them sway and dance, which I point out to Mrs. DiClimenti. She takes a long drag on a Target brand cigarette and laughs, a smoker's laugh, an expert's laugh. There are ancient newspaper photos taped on the walls with yellowed tape. I start to count them as Mrs. DiClementi continues to laugh, and I'm not sure she's laughing about the dresses anymore or if the joke is private now. The sun is starting to set, and the tea is growing cold.


*This update typed while watching a documentary on the history and making of hot dogs.

Motorcars, Handlebars

The heat has come on at 295 5th Avenue, and the dusty, smoky smell of the ancient furnace fills every room.
The air grows dry, crackles with dryness. The pipes clang and pop, startling me out of my nap on the couch. My book has fallen out of my hands, onto the floor; my glasses are askew. It was the heat that drove me out onto the street, and it's fall, there on the sidewalk, that fills my lungs with sharp air and makes my heart pound.

There are old men sitting on their usual stoop on Carroll Street. The one in the thick dark-rimmed glasses I have known for years. This man speaks maybe 10 words of English, and I speak only a few more in Spanish, but what needs to be said, is said, and understood, and we are always happy to see each other. Today he looks a bit glum, and I know it's because the Yankees broke his heart the other night. Acorns, falling from the trees above, roll along the sidewalk.

Walking over the Gowanus Canal, there is a man standing on the bridge where I usually stop to look down into the water. I have seen him there before. I stand next to him for a minute, and we are both looking at the leaves and tiny silver fish go by. "Do you remember when the jellyfish were here?" I ask him. "Oh sure," he says. "They get washed in by the tide." We stand for a while longer, quietly. Before I turn to go, he says, maybe to me, maybe to himself, "I come here every day, and every day the water looks different than the day before."

By five, I am at O'Connors, the only one in the place for a little while, besides the bartender, who is an old friend. I spend every late Saturday afternoon here lately, talking to the Irish guys who come in to toast Ireland and God, and the old men who sit quietly, wrapped in loneliness, drinking budweiser from the fancy old glasses Pat bought in the '70s. Outside, the street is growing darker, and I have a glass of my own in front of me. I am drinking to make the fall last longer, to keep the winter at bay. To keep the leaves on the trees a few more weeks.

Wine and cheese, wine and cheese


*This update typed while listening to John Denver.

Sweater weather

The third graders are restless. They are trying to invent their own language, but there are problems. Is a pen a squidge or a croops? They laugh, argue, fret and fight. They apologize and forgive on tiny slips of paper which I find crumpled on the floor at the end of the day. One of them says, "I'm sorry I said your words was not good. Sorry sorry sorry! Do you forgive me?" On the back is written, simply, "Cha." Which is how you say 'yes' in the language they are making up.

Why did you become a teacher, people want to know. They assume the answer is honorable, that I am honorable. Sometimes they don't even wait for an answer. "That's so nice," they say, their faces sincere. They say, "good for you" and "I could never do that, but I'm glad you can." They say, "Sorry, I shouldn't swear around a teacher". They look at me curiously, their eyes wide. I wonder, at these moments, if they are comparing me to their own third grade teachers, with floppy bow shirts and buns and Halloween sweater vests covered with pumpkins. The truth is, I am not so honorable or world saving. For me, it started with monkeys. The monkeys in question were eating the apples and corn in a little village in northern Japan, where I was volunteering. We were assigned the task of shooting fireworks near the monkeys, to scare them away. It was a farming village, remote and poor, and they were desperate. When we got there, fireworks in a large burlap sacks, the monkeys were not a problem anymore, though they still skulked around, bitter and gray and screechingly loud. We shot the fireworks off at night on the beach of a lake, at each other, into the trees. For lack of anything else to do, we herded cows, made birdhouses and were sent to elementary schools. There were three schools in the village, and all of them were tiny. We were told to "internationally educate" the children there. So we did. We went to these sweet and kind children, with their spiky, bed-rumpled hair and their neatly pressed school uniforms. They smiled at us with black and grey teeth, which startled us at first; there is no flouride in the water in northern Japan. These children had never seen white or black people before. ("What's wrong with her nose?" one of them asked a Japanese teacher, about me. He translates this with great embarrassment, but it makes me laugh. Some mornings, years later, I stare at the mirror, at my nose, pushing it from side to side, wondering what she meant.) We taught them to make pancakes and to say words in English and to dance to hip hop. They taught us how to make rice balls and salted cherries and black eggs. How to sumo wrestle, which I still do, at least the stomping part, in the living room when no one else is home. The cat looks on, blinking, unimpressed.

The feeling of a small hand slipping into mine outside before school, in the rain. The look of raw fury and frustration on the face of a child that has been pushed too far. The tears shed, the genuinge grief, at the death of a goldfish or the sight of a sick pigeon on the sidewalk, the awkwardly scribbled notes of love, covered with crooked hearts and smiling faces. After school, I walk out the back of the building, where the school buses are, and around the corner towards the front. My class is standing outside in front of the school, waiting to be picked up. They are plucking yellow and red and orange leaves out of puddles, and laughing, and pushing each other. They have last year's ratty hats pulled down over their heads, scarves tied around their necks. One of them sees me on the sidewalk, then some others. Someone screams; it must be Dalma, she's always screaming. My name is shouted. They gallop towards me, dragging backpacks and little sisters. It hasn't even been five minutes since they last saw me in our classroom, but it would never occur to them that this is a small span of time. They live in the moment. I hold out my arms.


*This update typed while listening to the rain hitting the air conditioner.

The sun comes up

1.
Sal owns a little coffee shop across the street from the school I work at. There's no name on the outside of it, or anywhere inside either. We just assume it's called Sal's. In the window, there is a light up neon coffee cup and the word "rolls", also neon. Sal never opens the gate that protects the windows, so except for the door being open, and the crowd that sits on the bench outside, the place always looks closed. Inside, there are two large tables and some plastic patio chairs, and almost always between 9 am and 5 pm, there's a big card game going on. The card gamers, and the crowd watching the game, are friends of Sal's, men from the neighborhood between the ages of 50 and 70. They nod at me when I come in. It's cluttered inside; there are statues of the saints scattered around, and the walls are covered with framed posters of Frank Sinatra at different ages and points in his career. And the Pope. There are pictures of the Pope behind the counter, on the back wall next to Frank's pictures and on the wall and next to the cooler, which is filled with Manhattan espresso soda that no one ever seems to buy. Beyond the front room, through a little doorway, Sal's house begins. His kitchen is right there, you can see right into it, and his mother is there, always, in a flowered housedress. She is in her seventies, maybe early eighties, and watches a little black and white television and waits. There is no menu at Sal's. When I go there for lunch, I just ask Sal, "Whadya got today?" I say it with a not very good Carroll Gardens accent. Sal tells me the special that day. "We got meatballs, real good, on a hero" or "I got chicken cutlets, all breaded and with sauce" or "we cooked up a whole roast beef for today". Sal's mother makes everything herself: the sauces, the meat, sometimes she bakes the rolls too. She is a wonderful cook. She makes what she feels like making, on any given day, which I like. I like walking in not knowing what I will leave with. Outside on the bench in front of Sal's, Ronny sits in his sunglasses, whatever the weather, and wants to talk about books. He reads books about the most obscure topics in the world. The life of ants. The history of the necktie. How roads are planned in rural communities. I'm never able to add anything to his explanations, but I ask questions and I'm interested, and he likes that. Ronny thinks I should marry a good Italian boy, one of his nephews, or the son of friends. He has photographs of them in his wallet, big thick-necked men with crew cuts, grinning in front of birthday cakes, or at the beach, or in bars on Long Island. I tell him I'll think about it. The man with the fruit truck sits on this bench for much of the day too. I don't know his name, and he doesn't know mine. He always asks about my family and my job and whether I go to mass regularly. As he organizes the apples and mangoes in boxes on his truck, he worries about souls. "There's a church right there," he always says, pointing across the street. "But I'm Episcopalian," I tell him. "They won't even let me go to mass in there." But this excuse doesn't seem to faze the fruit man. "God don't see it that way, honey, ok? He just wants you in there." The fruitman plays with his worn baseball cap as he talks. He taps his knees nervously with his hands.

We were sitting in the grass, and I was looking at your feet and feeling shy. You asked me what I did all day, and I told you about school. But I forgot to tell you about the other people I see every day, these people I don't know, but love anyway.

2.
My parents are visiting from Wisconsin for the weekend. They got in late last night and this morning they took the subway down to Park Slope. I watch them as they cross the street, my mom such a sweet smiler, hurrying across the street, my dad, grumbling and purposeful in his street crossing. They get to the corner where I'm standing. We are all grinning. "It's our Sesa," my mom says, using my childhood nickname. I throw my arms around them.

We spend the early afternoon at the farmer's market and walking through the park, my arm around my dad's shoulder for a while, then my mom's. It's a lovely fall day and we are walking and laughing and I'm so happy to see them I feel shaky. In the park, we run into two kids in my class, or rather they run into us; we are talking on a park bench and making fun of the recumbent bikes. My parents, as always, are charming conversers. They talk to the kids' parents, offering advice and anecdotes and kindness; the kids, for their part, are completely floored by the fact that not only do I have parents, but I go to the park, and I drink apple cider. Talking to them, I remember a time I saw my third grade teacher buying broccoli at the grocery store and was shocked for days that she had a life outside of school. And that it involved something so specific as the cooking and eating of vegetables. My mom walks through the park observing little things everywhere. Today I notice the way she talks about these things the way someone else might suddenly realize they have their mother's eyes or their father's nose; I see the same kind of things she does and I talk about them the same way. We are both fascinated with small things, and little changes: the leaves turning red on just one branch of a tree, the way the bees have slowed down in the cooler weather and seem to be flying in slow motion, a picnic basket being carried by, the dragonflies flitting crazily around the meadows.

Later in the afternoon, my parents go off to a show near Union Square with a friend of mine, and I go off to meet friends at Greenwood cemetery. The catacombs are open today, which doesn't happen often, and I want to see them again. We wander through the graves, not talking much. There is mysterious piano music coming from somewhere, and we walk over hills and down little paths, making a game out of finding it. The music leads, as we suspect, to the Steinway family tomb, which is open today too. There is a piano player outside (the source of the music), and we consider asking her to play some Billy Joel. The catacombs are beautiful, and today, they echo with the voices of people helping out with the tour; they are reciting the names of people interred there. Gary takes my picture in one of the little rooms that line the corridor, and the result is the kind of camera shy moment I've gotten used to after this many years: eyes ridiculously wide and a little wild. Uncertain whether to smile, what kind of smile.

We throw ourselves down in the grass for a while, reading the inscriptions on ancient tombstones and looking around. Using my bag as a pillow, I lie back and look up at the sky, which is gray and bright at the same time. The grass is soft and long. I think: it would be so easy to fall asleep now. But I don't have time. It's quiet here, and beautiful, a perfect fall afternoon, and I can't stop smiling.

I meet my parents in the city for dinner, and afterwards, we stroll through the East Village. They are full of questions about the neighborhood and the buildings we pass. Then it gets later and they are ready to leave for their old and familiar hotel on the upper west side, the one they have been staying in since I was 7. I am going back to Brooklyn, and I am eating the cream puff I just bought from the Japanese cream puff shop on Broadway, Beard Papa's, and as always, I am clumsy and full of pastry concentration. There is powdered sugar everywhere, drifting down onto the platform where I am waiting for the subway. Then there is movement in the corner of my eye and I look up, startled. My mom is standing across the station, on the opposite platform. She is beaming. Through the artificial glare of the subway station lights, my parents and I wave and wave to each other. Then the uptown R train thunders into the station, and out again, and they are gone.

*This update typed while watching bad movies with Troy, Katie, Brian and Jacob.

I sometimes forget just how seldom you cry

A fall Saturday.

Sean Howe manages to get us two precious film festival tickets to David Gordon Green's new film, _Undertow_. He knows what a nice gift this is to me, but doesn't say anything; Sean Howe is modest. George Washington (the first movie by this same director) is my favorite movie, so dearly loved that my hands sometimes start to shake while I watch it. Sean has trouble sleeping lately. He is up early, exhausted, and stares at the ceiling, thinking. On the subway, his eyes are heavy-lidded. Loafing back in his seat so far it looks like he might fall out, he speaks of sleep longingly. The movie is good, but not great, and the image of a nail going through a boy's foot haunts me through the entire thing, and all the way home on the subway as well. On the 2 train, I watch as newcomers at each stop blink in alarm at the bright lights. Some seem to wake up in the light, bursting into conversation. Others seem to be shut down by it, frowning and slouching and closing their eyes. A group of teenage girls, on their way to a party, start singing. The song fills the whole car. It could go either way for us, the other riders in this car; we could accept this late night intrusion, maybe even embrace it. Or we could frown, mutter, try to stop it. I glance around at the other passengers. There is a pause. It's a nice night, warm and calm. Slowly, everyone begins to smile, and nod.

It's two in the morning, and there are cds scattered all over the floor. I make myself a drink and dance alone, biting my lower lip in concentration, while a Tommy Dorsey record plays. After a while, the drink is missing, and I'm still not sure even now where I set it. I spend a while looking, clapping my hands as I walk from room to room, as if the drink will respond. Then, rather suddenly, I swoop up my keys with one palm and walk out the door for a walk in the neighborhood. I've been taking walks like this a lot lately. On Seventh avenue, late at night, it's hardly different than the downtown of my small hometown; only a few cars go by, even fewer people, and there's a calmness so startling the air pressure seems to have changed. Tonight, I head around the corner of Second street, past the flowers that have been set there in memory of someone who was shot the other night. From my bed, in the early morning hours, the gunshots sounded like firecrackers. The playground at PS 321 sits deserted in the brown light of Brooklyn nighttime, and I sit down on the slide and read a pizza menu that's on the ground. It's getting cooler, which fills me with autumn giddiness, but makes me tired too, and I lean back on the slide and look at the sky and listen to plastic bags and newspaper blow around the school yard. I close my eyes and suddenly it's half an hour later. I brush a hand across my face, to wake up, and my lips have gotten cold. There's a gray and white cat sitting by the entrance of the yard, watching me. Before I get up, and walk home again through quiet streets, I lay still for a moment, looking up at the tops of the trees next to the school. The wind has picked up even more, and if you close your eyes, it could be the middle of the park, the middle of the woods. The middle of nowhere. When the sun comes up, the Packers will lose again, and brunch will be served, and this slide will be covered with books and political buttons for sale at the flea market. But for now, there is just this wait, this quiet, my tired feet dangling from the end of the slide.

*This update typed while listening to George Baker sing Little Green Bag, over and over.