Sunday, 5 December 2010
Sunday Musings
There is little I love more than a chivalrous man. Does this make me an awful feminist?
Sunday, 24 October 2010
For Melissa
I doubt there is a woman out there who has not been shunned, let down, or deserted by a man. These times are undoubtedly hard; tears, feelings of self doubt and hours spent moping under a duvet inevitably ensue. However, what amazes me about the women in these awful situations is, not their frailty but rather, the fervor and resilience that, more often than not, runs in tandem with their searing heartbreak.
The forsaken woman is something of an enigma. She manages to exude both strength and fragility at the same time. We have all been there: that place in which we feel so low that there is nothing else for it but to pick ourselves up and battle on; to convert the heartbreak into something useful, the anger into a gainful passion. For many this passion can lead to a time of excitement and self discovery.
My dear friend Dotty P has managed to capture this multi-faceted emotional state quite sublimely here:
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Dancing in the Street
Colum McCann has managed to put into words exactly what I tried to at the start of my previous post, Shoulder Rubbing (and with much more success). What I love most about the Big City Experience is the way in which your life can collide with a stranger's for only a brief moment and yet be changed irrevocably. This extract describes one such incident and is from a gorgeous little book entitled My First New York: Early Adventures in the Big City {as remembered by actors, artists, athletes, chefs, comedians, filmmakers, mayors, models, moguls, porn stars, rockers, writers, and others}, which I picked up on my recent visit to the city. I love that it is written by a fellow Irishman and that he too fell in love with Big City Life during his 2nd time there. It is just too beautiful not to share:
"But I truly fell in love with the city many years later, in the early 1990s, on my second stint, when I wasn't quite sure if I was meant to be here at all, and it was a quiet moment that did it for me, one of those little glancing shoulder-rubs that New York can deal out at any time of the day, in any season, in any weather, in any place - even on the fiercely unfashionable Upper East Side.
It had snowed in the city. Two feet of it over the course of the night. It was the sort of snow that made the city temporarily magical, before all the horn-blowing and slush puddles and piles of dog crap crowning the melt.
A very thin little path had been cleared on Eighty-second Street between Lexington and Third, just wide enough for two able-bodied people to squeeze through. The snow was piled high on either side. A small canyon, really, in the middle of the footpath. On the street - a quiet street at the best of times, if anything can be quiet in New York - the cars were buried under drifts. The telegraph wires sagged. The underside of tree branches appeared like brush-strokes on the air. Nothing moved. The brownstones looked small against so much white. In the distance sounded a siren, but that was all, making the silence more complete.
I saw her from a distance halfway down the block. She was already bent into the day. She wore a headscarf. Her coat was old enough to have once been fashionable. She was pushing along a silver frame. Her walk was crude, slow, laborious. With her frame, she took the whole width of the alley. There was no space pass her.
There is always a part of New York that must keep moving - as if breath itself depends on being frantic, hectic, overwhelmed. I thought to myself that I should just clamber over the snowbank and walk down the other side of the street. But I waited and watched. Snow still fell on the shoveled walkway. Her silver frame slipped and slid. She looked up, caught my eye, gazed down again. There was the quality of the immigrant about her: something dutiful, sad, brave. A certain saudade, a longing for another place.
As she got closer, I noticed her gloves were beautifully stenciled with little jewels. Her headscarf was pulled tight around her lined face. She shoved the silver frame over a small ridge of ice, walked the final few feet, and stopped in front of me.
The silence of strangers.
But then she leaned forward and said in a whisper: "Shall we dance?"
She took off one glove and reached her hand out, and with the silver frame between us, we met on the pavement. Then she let go of my hand. I bent to one knee and bowed slightly to her. She grinned and put her glove back on, said nothing more, took a hold of her silver frame and moved on, a little quicker now, along the corridor of snow and around the corner.
I knew nothing of her, nothing at all, and yet she had made the day unforgettable.
She was my New York.
Still is."
"But I truly fell in love with the city many years later, in the early 1990s, on my second stint, when I wasn't quite sure if I was meant to be here at all, and it was a quiet moment that did it for me, one of those little glancing shoulder-rubs that New York can deal out at any time of the day, in any season, in any weather, in any place - even on the fiercely unfashionable Upper East Side.
It had snowed in the city. Two feet of it over the course of the night. It was the sort of snow that made the city temporarily magical, before all the horn-blowing and slush puddles and piles of dog crap crowning the melt.
A very thin little path had been cleared on Eighty-second Street between Lexington and Third, just wide enough for two able-bodied people to squeeze through. The snow was piled high on either side. A small canyon, really, in the middle of the footpath. On the street - a quiet street at the best of times, if anything can be quiet in New York - the cars were buried under drifts. The telegraph wires sagged. The underside of tree branches appeared like brush-strokes on the air. Nothing moved. The brownstones looked small against so much white. In the distance sounded a siren, but that was all, making the silence more complete.
I saw her from a distance halfway down the block. She was already bent into the day. She wore a headscarf. Her coat was old enough to have once been fashionable. She was pushing along a silver frame. Her walk was crude, slow, laborious. With her frame, she took the whole width of the alley. There was no space pass her.
There is always a part of New York that must keep moving - as if breath itself depends on being frantic, hectic, overwhelmed. I thought to myself that I should just clamber over the snowbank and walk down the other side of the street. But I waited and watched. Snow still fell on the shoveled walkway. Her silver frame slipped and slid. She looked up, caught my eye, gazed down again. There was the quality of the immigrant about her: something dutiful, sad, brave. A certain saudade, a longing for another place.
As she got closer, I noticed her gloves were beautifully stenciled with little jewels. Her headscarf was pulled tight around her lined face. She shoved the silver frame over a small ridge of ice, walked the final few feet, and stopped in front of me.
The silence of strangers.
But then she leaned forward and said in a whisper: "Shall we dance?"
She took off one glove and reached her hand out, and with the silver frame between us, we met on the pavement. Then she let go of my hand. I bent to one knee and bowed slightly to her. She grinned and put her glove back on, said nothing more, took a hold of her silver frame and moved on, a little quicker now, along the corridor of snow and around the corner.
I knew nothing of her, nothing at all, and yet she had made the day unforgettable.
She was my New York.
Still is."
Shoulder Rubbing
What makes the Big City Experience so special is, not the overall, and sometimes overwhelming, noisy picture, but instead, the hundreds of tiny little personal moments between strangers that make up the days. These are the brush strokes that build up on the canvas to complete the portrait; the fingertip brushes and smiles from the eyes that leave their mark and find you walking away from coffee stands and newspaper sellers with a giggle and a grin.
Having recently returned from a trip to NYC I have been pondering just what this lovely, ugly city is to me.
New York is the rats on the Subway, papaya and hotdogs with Saurkraut and mustard from Gray's, ice cold and extremely sweet lemon Snapple, persistant palm readers at Columbus Circle, Lennon fans jamming at Strawberry Fields, twirling House loving rollerbladers and sweaty joggers in Central Park, an endless stream of buggies at the Children's Zoo, friendly NYPDers telling me I look lost (I wasn't - just spoilt for choice on where to go and what to do in this urban paradise), the female officer who wanted to come shopping with me(!), surprise Chinese massages at a Greenwich Village street fair, breathtaking window displays at Bergdof Goodman, Patience and Fortitude, the fabulous French woman who gives the free tours at the Public Library (her accent is still just as strong after 45 years in the city and her voice a little too loud for libraries...), electric pencil sharpeners cutting through the silence of the reading room, elderly couples sunbathing in Bryant Park, annoyingly attractive cyclers, oh so beautful farmboys selling pumpkins at the Union Square Greenmarkets, iced lattes in the sun, the smell of honey roasted nuts at street corners, yummy frosted cupcakes, strong coffee, stacks of bacon and banana pancakes, 'please help me' signs, decadent Grand Central Station and www.bootothemta.com, yummy mummies posing on 5th Ave, Hell's Kitchen for a sneaky Thai lunch at Room Service and their YUMMY Thai Iced Tea, Greek feasts in Astoria, hunting for Brooklyn tattoo parlours, falling in love with Meg Ryan and Fall whilst watching You've Got Mail and When Harry Met Sally, Vanilla and Cinnamon & Orange at Bigelows, 18 miles of books at the Strand, squinting your eyes against the Times Square glare, Tiki bars with blow fish and Floridians, dancing in the rain, black squirrels at City Hall, palm trees in the snow, picking up gorgeous furniture in the street, bizarrely pretty fire engines (are they safe?!) and their even more beautiful inhabitants, Candy Corn, Candy Corn, Candy Corn, Vintage, Vintage, Vintage (Thrift, Thrift, Thrift), Yoko Ono's Wish Tree at MOMA, the new versus the old at Seaport and St. Paul's pumpkin ale...
New York is whatever you want it to be; an endless adventure of discovery and NEVER being bored.
Having recently returned from a trip to NYC I have been pondering just what this lovely, ugly city is to me.
New York is the rats on the Subway, papaya and hotdogs with Saurkraut and mustard from Gray's, ice cold and extremely sweet lemon Snapple, persistant palm readers at Columbus Circle, Lennon fans jamming at Strawberry Fields, twirling House loving rollerbladers and sweaty joggers in Central Park, an endless stream of buggies at the Children's Zoo, friendly NYPDers telling me I look lost (I wasn't - just spoilt for choice on where to go and what to do in this urban paradise), the female officer who wanted to come shopping with me(!), surprise Chinese massages at a Greenwich Village street fair, breathtaking window displays at Bergdof Goodman, Patience and Fortitude, the fabulous French woman who gives the free tours at the Public Library (her accent is still just as strong after 45 years in the city and her voice a little too loud for libraries...), electric pencil sharpeners cutting through the silence of the reading room, elderly couples sunbathing in Bryant Park, annoyingly attractive cyclers, oh so beautful farmboys selling pumpkins at the Union Square Greenmarkets, iced lattes in the sun, the smell of honey roasted nuts at street corners, yummy frosted cupcakes, strong coffee, stacks of bacon and banana pancakes, 'please help me' signs, decadent Grand Central Station and www.bootothemta.com, yummy mummies posing on 5th Ave, Hell's Kitchen for a sneaky Thai lunch at Room Service and their YUMMY Thai Iced Tea, Greek feasts in Astoria, hunting for Brooklyn tattoo parlours, falling in love with Meg Ryan and Fall whilst watching You've Got Mail and When Harry Met Sally, Vanilla and Cinnamon & Orange at Bigelows, 18 miles of books at the Strand, squinting your eyes against the Times Square glare, Tiki bars with blow fish and Floridians, dancing in the rain, black squirrels at City Hall, palm trees in the snow, picking up gorgeous furniture in the street, bizarrely pretty fire engines (are they safe?!) and their even more beautiful inhabitants, Candy Corn, Candy Corn, Candy Corn, Vintage, Vintage, Vintage (Thrift, Thrift, Thrift), Yoko Ono's Wish Tree at MOMA, the new versus the old at Seaport and St. Paul's pumpkin ale...
New York is whatever you want it to be; an endless adventure of discovery and NEVER being bored.
Saturday, 18 September 2010
City Love
City life and love breeds creativity. Rose should move to the big city - there her procrastination problems may just find their cure.
The noise and the hustle has the power to make you feel alive and part of something special, if only you let it. Why while away the hours in front a the television and risk missing some beautiful and unplanned piece of real life kitchen sink drama? Who needs Eastenders when you can walk through Shoreditch and find all the drama you could want, or indeed need, watching WWIII unfold in a lesbian cafe come thai restaurant? (Let's just say there will be no "I am your mother" moments happening on this occasion...)
In my urban meccas you may not find the beautiful landscapes that provided inspiration for the likes of Yeats and Wordsworth (although come to Bryant Park, NYC as the sky turns to dusk on an evening in fall and you may think otherwise...) but around every corner, through every doorway, and behind every curtain lies a beautiful story yearning to be told, a devastating secret waiting to be discovered and a vibrant character longing to be introduced.
"I like sheltering from torrential downpours in New York on Broadway, watching two types of peeps running for cover from the rain. The grumblers hidden away & the splashers, they giggle & don't mind the puddles. And I like running out of doorways and doing twirly twirls with the gigglers. So did I? Do twirly twirls on Broadway in Monsoon weather? Indeed I did & got soaked to the bone... Happiness is the freedom you feel doing twirly twirls in the rain." Gisele Scanlon
For me the big city can be "a fiction of sorts, a construct, a story, into which you can walk at any moment and at any angle, and end up blindsided, turned upside down, changed." Colum McCann
Rose, get off your 'Queen of Procrastination' derriere and move to London, New York, Paris, any big city. Now!
N.B. Visit Anthropologie by the Rockefeller and you will never fail to be inspired. The beautiful, fabrics, smells, crockery and trinkets may lead to you losing a few hours but these will NOT be wasted. You will leave feeling much calmer and fulfilled, and probably with a little weight lifted off your...*ahem*...purse.
Location:NYC
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