How to NOT see Vanessa Redgrave

... but that was in another country,
And besides, the wench is dead. - from 'The Jew of Malta', Christopher Marlowe

I  meant to close out Letter from New York and to start a new blog, "iSingular". But haven't had the time. I'll move this over when iSingular is up and running. In the meantime ...

I just had a hot date in the West Village, New York.

To see Vanessa Redgrave in "The Revisionist".

For those not familiar with New York, the West Village  is a Manhattan gay area. I was pleased to go, though we were paying  "Dutch", as I always enjoy this friend's company. ... well that should be past tense. Whatever ...

I hate the West Village. Not because it is GAY. ASIF. But because, unlike most of Manhattan, the streets twist and turn, and are not in regular rectangle grid layout. Round where I live and hang out it's easy. 67th street is one block south of 68th street and one block north of 66th. And the streets go in straight lines. So if you head west on 93rd Street for example, you will end up still in 93rd Street but  in the Hudson River.

But pick a street in the West Village and you can follow it for a hundred years through its twists and turns and never know where you'll end up  - if the journey even ends.

"It's easy", said my friend. "Just meet me at Morandi on the corner of 7th and Waverley. Near the Christopher subway station".

And so tonight I caught three subways interconnecting though miles and miles of stairs, to end up at the  designated desination - Christopher Street station. Hence the quote at the beginning of this post.

Not to worry. At Chistopher Street I climbed another  1,000 stairs and could see the sky. A comforting familar thing.

Back on ground level, I clung to a lamp-post to get my breath back. and then started asking the passer-bys "Where is Waverly Place?"

I have bad long-term memories of Waverly Place - isn't that where Susan Brownmiller got her head bashed in? But as a woman, I stood my ground. "Reclaim the night" as my Sisters say.  Though I have to admit we are pretty safe in the West Village.

There were about 50 people hanging around the Christopher Street subway station,  most looking up Google maps on their iPhones, so I decided to approach what looked like locals  - people walking designer dogs. These people were all extremely pleasant, and as I had deduced, from the area. "Well gee whiz, golly me ma'am,'" they'd say in charming accents. "I know its around here somewhere, but can't remember. Try going north." Or south, depending who I talked to. Eventually I found the restaurant. "Morandi" at 211 Waverly Place.

My friend was sitting there, iPhoning and drinking a martini. I sat down, waiting for him to complete his emails.  A hundred years later he looked up, and with absolute chutzpa said, "You're late". OK, OK already yet.

We ordered. And three martinis later, as I was still diving in to my pasta, he ordered "Gotta go," and had the waitress or associate or whatever is politically correct, hand me the bill. "Is a $20 tip OK?" I asked. "Make it $40," he commanded.

Well it was HIS neighborhood so who was I to argue. Anyway, what is $300 in America currency? A drop in the ocean.

"Quick quick!" he ordered. I started to think that I was out with a hetrosexual;   my past conditioning kicked in and I followed him  meekly to a theater.

Great. At last we were line for pre-paid tickets. And when it was our turn we asked the "person in attendance", ("box office chick" whatever you are allowed to say) for our tickets.

The box office person  started typing in stuff to his computer. I noticed the operating system was Windows 7 and so was about to give up when a hundred years later, he informed us that neither of us was registered.  "This IS the theater for 'The Revisionist?'" I asked,  and he replied, no and that the Revisionist was playing at a theater  some 10 blocks way.

Back in the street my friend strode ahead. Faster than a guy one tenth of his age, occasionally turning to tell me to hurry up. After about 5 blocks I felt my heart giving in, but somehow managed to catch up and to enter the lobby of the correct theater company

"You are too late," said the box office guy who looked like he could have crushed Wladimir Klitschko with his bare hands. "But you can watch  it here," he said, pointing to two plasic bleacher chairs in the foyer. I have to admit there WAS a TV we could look at. I don't know where the theatrer dragged it up from. When I'd first noticed it I had thought it was from a museum exhibition. It wasn't flat screen and the the snowy reception took me back a few centuries to when TV was first introduced to Australia.

"Bloody Nazi!" muttered my friend, and the boxing-looking guy's ears pricked up. He walked straight towards us - "Whatdya say?" he said in a scary Bronx accent. My friend looked speechless and positively cowered in his plastic chair. "Oh,  he was talking about a mutual friend, nothing to do with here," I explained. Me, ever the woman ... Smoothing things over . Looking skeptical though I doubt that the word was in his vocabulary. He backed off.

Only to return 30 years later to tell us we could go into standing-room at the back of the theatre.

My friend accepted graciously. Me -  I said, "don't worry." And took a cab home. Only another $30.

And people wonder why I don't go out much in New York.

Seven men in my life and why I remember them

Swing low, sweet chariot,
Comin' for to carry me home;
Swing low, sweet chariot,
Comin' for to carry me home. - Wallis Willis circa 1862

The following is about seven men in my life, what they have each taught me, and with song(s) for each.

 I  have left out three men - my dad, as I never really got to know him, my son as he would KILL ME if I wrote about him, and my beautiful little  grandson who is far too young to be exposed to the social media network.

Here come THE MEN.

When I was beautiful

#1 Tim  Juliff  - brother
Taught me:  the values of love and forgiveness,  the "immaterialness" of material possessions, wit and sarcasm.
Songs: Tim has two songs  because he is/was my brother. "Swing Low Sweet Chariot and the Fugs' rendition of William Blake's How Sweet I Roam'd. "Swing Low" because he had it played at out mother's memorial. "How Sweet" because it was played it at his own.

#2 Patrick - first love
Taught me: that I was beautiful.
Song: everything on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

#3 Philip - the father of our children
Taught me: that real men DO play sport, about laughing during love, and perhaps most importantly, the importance of never being late for dinner .
Songs: Philip has two songs because we had two children together. Plus he has more albums than any other human being on this planet ...
Something from when we started, and Every Breath You Take from when we ended. Most remembered with affection - Every Step.

#4 Michael - Brief, but worth a note because he got the song right
Taught me:  that even though a man can take out a PhD at 15, he needs to  use a clockwork razor for shaving.
Song: Joni Mitchell's Carey because it's a great song and he said it epitomises me. (And it still does IMO).

#5 Robert  - Eternal Hippie at Heart
 Taught me: how to flush floating poo down a toilet bowl, and how to butter bread evenly so that every part of the surface is covered perfectly.
Song: Simon and Garfunkel's Parsley Sage Rosemary and Thyme.
Remembered with respect and affection.

#6 Richard - American
Taught me: how to use the PC financial package "Quicken"
Song:  Anything Country and Western.

#7 Last one - Name available upon request
Taught me: That I am ugly
Song: This man has no song

Here endeth "Letter from New York:"

You're Moving Out Today

So pack your toys away
Your pretty boys away
Your 45s away
Your alibis away
Your Spanish flies away
Your one-more-tries away
Your old tie-dyes away
You're moving out today - from "You're Moving Out Today", Carole Bayer Sager

 
Sitting in my living room in Manhattan, surrounded by boxes. Packing up my ex's belongings.

Cartons from the local supermarket, cartons that once held bundles of paper towels or rolls of toilet paper, but which now contain what I can only describe as "man things".

Some gals have all the luck!

I showed a friend. "What do you think this is?" I said peering into a long cardboard cylinder. "Beats me!" she answered. Fascinated we tried to pull a bit of it out, and saw what looked like a giant size  pair of kielland forceps - you know - the gynecological ones some woman-hating sadist, probably a Mr Kielland - invented, that are like huge tongs that go through the cervix to the uterus to extract babies who are reluctant to come head-first into this wonderful world.

Except these were even bigger.

I later discovered it was a tree remover. "Why would anyone want a tree remover in a one bedroom apartment?" I wondered.

Moving on.  "And what do you think these are?" I asked my bemused friend. "Hoses!" she triumphed. "Well try lifting them up, I think they are made of lead," I countered. In describing them to a man a few days later I was told that they were probably hydraulic hoses used for lifting bob-cats - whatever THEY are. Perhaps there was a "bob-cat" in with other man-things we'd already packed away.

All sorts of unlikely things in the nooks and crannies of the apartment. We even found a generator - well that's what my friend claimed it was. I have my doubts. Perhaps some reader can enlighten me. It was bright yellow painted metal that fitted easily into a briefcase. I think it was its color that made her think that. Who would want a generator in a Manhattan apartment? But then, who would want to pull up trees in one either.

At the back of a high-up closet shelf, hidden amongst some porn magazines were a few copper tubes of various shapes and sizes, with bolts on each end. Was their proximity to the magazines significant? It didn't bear thinking about.

"What's in yer boxes. lady?" said a man with a strong Bronx accent when I phoned the storage facility. I was silent. Perhaps I'd be better off describing their owner. It'd make as much sense. "Oh, just some tools and stuff," I mumbled.

Of course there were other things. Books belonging to other people.  Cookbooks. Gardening books. Manuals for things with names I'd never heard of with Chinese drawings and missing pages. I put those in the " miscellaneous box".

The miscellaneous box is the biggest box. Things go in there that have no name. Several cell phones with no insides. Old combination padlocks with forgotten codes. A circa 1990 hard drive. A pouch for a circa 2000 cell phone. Old Epicurean magazines.  Two kangaroo scrotums. "Why two?" I wondered.

It all goes next Friday. Thank Christ! I've hated packed things ever since I moved house 27 times when I was a child.  Inner traumas become exposed. The half-hearted attempts to make new friends, knowing I'd be lucky to be in the same school for more than six weeks. The packing. The moving. The horror of cardboard boxes.

And these particular packed things give me the creeps. I think it is because I don't understand what's in them. Or perhaps it's because ... well I had better not say ...

When I go home at nights this week I close my eyes tightly shut so as not to see those silent boxes standing like gravestones in my living room. I especially don't want to  see the cylinder Blefuscudians forceps one. I go straight past the livingroom to the bedroom. Straight into bed.

And now it is only two more sleeps and they'll be gone. My happiness will know no bounds.

Yep, there's only one thing better than getting rid of an unwanted man,  and that's getting rid of his carton-packaged "man things".

Sailing into Tomorrow

Sailing into tomorrow
To a gilded age foretold - from "Tempest", Dylan 2012

Tim Juliff,  1950 - 2011 Hippie, Lover, and Forever Remembered  

2012, especially the last few months were unsettling for most of us. Hurricane Sandy in New York, the horrifying Sandy Hook massacre in Connecticut. Syria.  The Noida rape and murder in India.  Pakistan's brave Malala Yousafzai. The US "fiscal cliff" fiasco.

And then, many of us have had our own personal problems and have lost loved ones.

One sometimes wonders how one can go on. But it is a New Year and for all of us who have had hard times - economic or emotional, believe me, hope is on the horizon.

 Who would have thought that American people would have voted for universal health care, gay marriage, and the legalization of marijuana  Let alone voting for a black president's second term during a time of economic crisis.

So to all my peers, to all you baby boomers out there - we are surviving.

Just look at Paul McCartney (well perhaps not .. ).  Mick Jagger (well ....).

 Let's look at Robert Allen Zimmerman (aka Bob Dylan). Perhaps the greatest artist of the 20th century and still going strong.

Roll on Bob!

Remembering Vanessa

Woman I can hardly express,
My mixed emotion at my thoughtlessness,
After all I'm forever in your debt,
And woman I will try express,
My inner feelings and thankfullness, - from "Woman", John Lennon

Each man's death diminishes me, - John Donne

I heard the news today, oh boy! My friend Vanessa passed away on December 26th.

A good friend even though not really really close. Real.  Because after living in the USA for nearly 20 years, she is one of only three American friends I've made here. Three American friends in 20 years. Some feat Van, as I am not the easiest person to get on with, and New York City is not the friendliest town out there.

But Van and I "got on", despite differences in cultural and socio-economic backgrounds, and religious beliefs. I like to think that is because we "knew" each other. And that sort of knowingness does not come often in this life and is to be valued. Yep, we were on the same wave-length.

So this posting is short. Vanessa contibuted to "Letter From New York" over the years in comments (mostly anonymous) and in a couple of postings under the pseudonym of "Jaded New Yorker".

2012 has been a bloody awful year. Let's hope 2013 will be better.

In memory of Vanessa I close my last posting of 2012 with my brother Tim's poem. Tim who also died of lung cancer (give up the cigs folks!), and who, like Vanessa, believed in the hope of peace and love.

Beetroot
beetroot to yourself
Lettuce
lettuce all get along
Bean so good getting to know you
Peas to you and all of your family

My Friend Chris

The days of wine and roses laugh and run away like a child at play
Through a meadow land toward a closing door
A door marked "nevermore" that wasn't there before - Henry Mancini

Innocence

I don't have a photo of Chris. I searched my albums and though I can see many of his friends, and certainly his good mate, my brother Tim, Chris seems to have somehow always avoided the camera's eye.

I first met Chris in the heady days of the seventies when he was a wine-drinking hippie. With his olive skin and thick dark curly hair, I always thought he belonged on a Greek island lying under an olive tree drinking a rough red, instead of hanging out in rainy old Melbourne.

Whenever I meet up with Chris he's always got something philosophical to say about the world. Sort of hippie-sounding stuff but slightly off. Or should I say more politely, creative.

One thing about Chris, he practices what he preaches. Life is to be enjoyed.

In the eighties when he was helping my brother out renovating houses. Chris would do the bathroom tiling, and this fitted in with my view of him as a younger version of  Zorba the Greek.  According to Tim (featured left when he was a child - but more on children later) one day Tim couldn't be at the house they were renovating, and the owners were at work, so Chris turned up solo.

Like all Juliffs, Tim liked to embellish, so take this with a grain of yogurt ... On arriving at the house, Chris took a look at the bathroom and decided to take a break. He wandered around the house and spotted the red wine collection. A glass wouldn't hurt, he thought, and opened a bottle, then sat on the deck in the sun, contemplating life and how both good and bad the world is. The bottle finished, he went back inside and found another. Then came his Goldilock's routine. Being by now somewhat sleepy, he surveyed the bedrooms, and finding the master bedroom the most inviting, thought he'd have a little lie down. And promptly fell asleep holding a now half empty bottle of wine.

Eight hours later the owners arrived home from a hard day of work, eager to see their newly tiled bathroom. Instead the discovered, lying  on their bed - a drunken hippy, snoring contentedly with a smile on his face. The wine of course had been a Grange...

I phoned Chris last night to wish him happy Christmas, and he explained the state of the world to me in his usual knowing Chris-style.

I told him I'd just come upstairs from my building's Christmas party for children. I'd rolled up at around 6:50 pm (it officially ends at 7) and Santa was just about to leave. "Ho ho ho!" he told the little kiddies. "I am off to the elevator to the roof to check o my elves," and off he went. "Bye bye Santa," the little Manhattanites called in their polite Upper East side Manhattan kind of way.

Happiness

Santa had barely gone and suddenly a down elevator arrived full of a new batch of two year olds with parents in tow. It was still 10 minutes before the advertised  Santa departure time, and their parents had been busy changing them from their their nursery school clothes into party wear. Wide-eyed with faces of wonder that only little children can express, they rushed into the party room looking for Santa.

I have to give their parents' credit. As the little one's faces dropped their moms and dads knelt down to explain that Santa is a VERY busy man and had to go to lots and lots of places, not just in New York but all over the world, so they mustn't cry because it was a GOOD thing that he was looking after as many children as he could.

The children hung around, looking wistfully at half eaten cookies that the early birds had left behind. They'd been anticipating the Santa party all day. No longer wide-eyed, they stared downward at the floor.

"How old are you?" I asked a pretty little girl with a woebegone face. "Nearly two," she answered. And then, remembering her manners, "Happy holidays and it is nice to meet you."

Of course the parents were furious, because after all, they had arrived during the allotted time. But like their kids they put on brave faces.

I told Chris the story. "God, how Dickensian!! That's terrible! That will affect them for life! One of them might grow up to be a mass murderer!"

"CHRIS!!!" I screamed! He remembered himself. "Yeah,. that was the wrong thing to say Kate. I am SO sorry. Christ! Why did I even say that?"

So that's Chris for you.

He later told me he'd given up drinking. "Not smoking though," he added, "a man's gotta have something."

He might have given the grog but somehow my inner image of Chris will always be of him propped up under an olive tree, or snoring in a yuppie townhouse owner's bed, clutching a bottle of red and trying in vain to work out what makes this bloody world tick.

On Being a Holiday Person

Please turn up sometime around 4pm. At 5pm we will hand out presents (for children only please) from under the tree. The tree symbolises mother nature and her abundance, the presents symbolises the triumph of advertising and the petrochemical industry. To honour the fact that Jesus didn't restrict his diet to kosher food we will be offering a curry dinner. This will be served at precisely 6 pm. Latecomers may chose to sit on the front porch till the meal is over. This is to recognize the 40 day fast in the wilderness when Jesus was tempted by the devil. After eating we will drink wine and talk. This is to acknowledge the legend that Jesus liked drinking wine and talking with his friends. -  Invitation to Christmas Dinner,Tim Juliff
 

New York Guy Celebrating Hanukkah

I'd seen them several times earlier in the day. A bunch of young guys dressed in varieties of Santa Claus inspired gear, some sporting antlers, others waving fake holly. They were frolicking around the streets of  Upper East Side New York, Leunig-like - a joyful procession of party people joined together hand-in hand like a happy antithesis  of Bergman's Dance of Death.

Around three in the afternoon I bumped into them for perhaps the fourth time, waiting at traffic lights on the corner of 88th and Second.

I smiled at them and asked, "What are you celebrating?"

"Hanukkah," they shrieked.  "Happy holidays," I replied.

 Unlike many people, I have no problem with saying Happy Holidays". It's almost natural to me now. In fact the other day when I was asked, "Are you a 'holiday person'" I answered with a decided "No" - thinking of course that the person meant did I like the December holy days. In fact she meant did I object to "Happy Holidays" over "Happy Christmas".

Growing up atheist in a single parent family in Australia in the fifties, Christmas was a time to dread. Christmas Day especially. The three of us, Mum, Tim and myself would sit forlornly around the table eating roast chicken - each of us trying to put a bright face on it in order not to upset the other two. One Christmas Day, when we were a bit older, my mother, having a sense of humour most would be generous in considering "dry", served up one hamburger with plastic holly on top.

Dance of Death from Bergman's "Seventh Seal"

Melbourne, in fact all of Australia, was outwardly mono-religious back then. Saying you were not a Christian was like saying you were a communist, or worst still, an aborigine.In fact, so deeply ingrained in me was Christian Christmas and its associated cultural side-effects that I didn't even 'get' the scene in the 1970's  Woody Allen "Hannah and Her Sisters", where Woody buys white bread and mayonnaise when he decides to convert to Catholicism.

So I love it here in New York when the December greeting is "Happy Holidays". I DO however draw the line at "holiday trees". What's wrong with "Christmas trees"? That's what they are, aren't they? Why else would people put dead trees in their living rooms and decorate them with glitter and stuff. And no one suggests we call Menorahs "Holiday Candles".

Menorah at Café D'Alcase

Still it's a small price to pay, living in a city where you are not assumed by the very fact that you are white and alive, that you are religious, let alone atheist.

I can ignore the store musak and the pretty lights. On Christmas Day we are eating Indian.  And the 1950s are 100 years ago! Praise the lord!

So turned off was I by the 1950's idea of Christmas that I brought my children up without any explanation of what it was supposed to signify. And I realized I had succeeded as a parent when my daughter, aged around six, asked me,

"Mum, was it Christmas or Easter when they crossed him up?"

Happy holidays.

The Expat's Exit

With apologies to the bard

New York is just a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And each one in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.

At first the distant viewer,
A-wonder and bedazzled by the city's movie charms.

And then the tourist, with backpack
And admiring morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly back home.

And then the new resident,
Sighing with rapture, with emails full of wonder
Sent to those back home.

Then the seasoned dweller,
Full of stressful oaths and complaining life's too hard,
Grasping for money, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking success and reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth.

And then the critic,
With the back-chat speech of Big Apple chic,
With eyes fatigued and clothes in shades of black,
Full of wise cracks and sneering references;
And so he plays his part.

The sixth age shifts
Into the departing expat,
With boarding pass in hand and carry-on on side,
His innocent views, now jaded, a world too wide
For his tortured mind; and his long-lost native voice,
Returning again to thoughts of home,
And the serenity of life past.

Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is the parting journey home and mere oblivion,
Sans stress, sans hype, sans wonder, sans everything.

Steal This Blog

You tell me you are going to Fez
Now, if you say you are going to Fez,
That means you are not going.
But I happen to know you are going to Fez.
Why have you lied to me, you who are my friend? - Moroccan Saying

Don't trust anyone over 30." - Jack Weinberg 1964

Cafe Wha? MacDougal Street, Manhattan

I have to admit that I only, just today, discovered the true meaning of the word "hipster".

I like to think this is because, true to my generation  that ever since I heard the phrase in the late sixties, I "don't trust anyone over thirty".

Then today I read an excellent piece by thirty five year old Christy Wampole who is is an assistant professor of French at Princeton University.

Ms Wampole's How to Live Without Irony explains that hipsters are people, mostly young, who hide their true beliefs and tastes behind "a mantle of irony".

"The hipster haunts every city street and university town. Manifesting a nostalgia for times he never lived himself, this contemporary urban harlequin appropriates outmoded fashions (the mustache, the tiny shorts), mechanisms (fixed-gear bicycles, portable record players) and hobbies (home brewing, playing trombone). He harvests awkwardness and self-consciousness .... The hipster is a scholar of social forms, a student of cool. He studies relentlessly, foraging for what has yet to be found by the mainstream. He is a walking citation; his clothes refer to much more than themselves."

Of course, as Ms Walpole points out,  things to be nostalgic about eventually run out - at least in our modern western throw-away culture, and one can only go far in scavenging  "vintage stores" to find clothes to mock at. Next in line are the clothes of  "ordinary people". Like those of pre-pubescent girls who like Justin Bieber, or of long haul truck drivers. And thus the cartoons accompanying Ms Walpole's article showing side-by-side the uncool and the hip - Justine Bieber tshirts or "Long Haul" inscribed baseball caps can be cool or uncool depending upon who is wearing them.

To put it bluntly, if you can't make it, make fun of it. And if you want to be REALLY cool, make fun of making fun of it. As in "The Life Organic" by Dom and Adrian.

Very funny actually. I like the bit where Adrian orders an egg and bacon roll, with no aole and instead of aole some oregano, and instead of bacon a field mushroom, and instead of egg, avocado. Ending with, "And can I get no roll?"

Although I didn't really know what a hipster was until today, I  realize now that I HAVE met some, mostly in foodie restaurants in Melbourne.

I like the way they take things literally. I suppose this is because they spend so much time on concepts and memes being one-removed from being one-removed. It can be very confusing. Like the old Moroccan saying from circa 1500 quoted  at the beginning of this blog. The existence of which goes to show that  hipsters have been around for a very long time!

Taking things literally  An example. I was in the weirdly named restaurant "Denches" in North Fitzroy with my daughter last September and we were amused to find "Deconstructed Eggs Benedict" on the menu. "Can you tell me what that is?" my daughter asked the waitress with a laugh. The waitress took the question literally and went on to explain the meaning of 'deconstruct' and that the eggs were not on the muffins and the hollandaise sauce was in a cup on the side.

A DYI eggs benedict....

Then last week when I was on the phone to my health insurer I spent several minutes getting the customer service man to understand the spelling of my name. He was obviously a hipster. My last name is Juliff and even though I was spelling out, ending with  "f as in Fred" he kept thinking I was saying 's' and asking me what "Fred" had to do with it. At last I explained the NATO phonetic alphabet and why we have it ... "You know," I said, "B as in bravo, C as in Charlie ..."

I thought he'd seen the light, "I know," he almost shouted in awe of his own enlightenment. "X as in Xray."

"Right," I sighed.

"So it is "Juliff" with an 'X' as in Xray," he answered.

I give up! It is just too hard being a baby boomer. Maybe I don't understand hipsters at all.

Shades of Gray

As I get older the past seems to flood in more and more.
We are all wounded and flawed and it helps to admit that. - Tim Juliff, June 2009
 

Scattered pictures,
Of the smiles we left behind
Smiles we gave to one another
For the way we were. - from "The Way We Were", Marvin Hamlisch

Shades of Gray - View from my Living Room

I am twelve thousand miles away from what I am remembering. My brother Tim.

I saw his smile two days ago. Sitting on a cross-town bus on the northern part of the island of Manhattan. Below 39th Street our New York world's a mess. Flooded. Powerless in all senses of the word, wet, sad, gray.

We had more spirit in the aftermath of nine eleven.

I have my own refugee here. She's camped in the living room. Her apartment still has no power and it's been almost a week since Hurricane Sandy hit.

We went downtown yesterday to check it out. Guards opened the door to the apartment building and showed us where the water level had been. The security card system wasn't working. There was no heat, limited power, some water. A smell of dankness filled the lobby. Outside a tree up-ended by the storm showed its root system - bared to the gray Manhattan sky. The local deli had a few packets of cheese and some salami on its otherwise empty shelves.


Stuyvesant Town, New York

I've been all into New York this past week. The news, the internet, the people waiting for buses, lines of people holding cans for gas. The wreck that is Staten Island. Faraway Rockaways. It is as if a shell of gray surrounds us New Yorkers - living in our own little gray-encased world.

On the phone to OZ, people seen perplexed. "What do you mean, food shortage?" "Why didn't she fill the bathtub up with water?" And on Facebook, "At least you aren't in Haiti!" "At least YOU aren't in Haiti!" I snap back.

And so on the cross-town bus, I sat, immersed in my city, New York. No other place existed. Then I looked across the aisle. And saw my brother's smile.

The woman across from me sat reading. She'd looked up briefly, annoyed at some one's ringing cell phone, and caught my eye. She had my brother's gray hair, my brother's mouth and sixtyish wrinkles. As she caught my eye she smiled. It only lasted a minute, but was enough.

Woman on Crosstown Bus

I was transported back to Melbourne, Australia. To  a thousand different rolling-on-the-floor-laughing nights before emotions were acronyms. To the blue skies and white beaches of Wilson's prom when we were Dylan-listening teenagers. To Tim's sarcasm. To his deep love of his children. To visiting his first-born son in a Melbourne hospital, and picking baby Sime out immediately. Through the hospital nursery glass there were some twenty babies. All in hospital white. And there in the middle was Sime, all dressed up in hippie-purple.

Where was I? The bus jolted me back to reality. It had stopped on Central Park West. A heap of German tourists had ascended with all sorts of high-tech collapsible tubular steel mounted necessities for modern life. "Excuse me!" I had to get out.

I climbed over collapsed strollers, squeezed through the barricades of backpacks. Onto the busy New York street.

My brother's smile was fading. As it blurred into the grayness I remembered where I was.

In New York, New York.