A Memory Found Amongst Red Leafs....

Tonight, chopping up a carrot, I found myself momentarily transported to my New Hampshire home circa 2003, when I would sit at the kitchen counter, working on my algebra homework and listening to my dad make one of his signature salads, a series of concentric clonks as his knife cut through veg and hit upon the wooden cutting board. He does this all the time, carelessly brandishing large bunches of carrots, red onion and celery, chucking them into a huge black bowl that will sit in the fridge full of red leaves and veggies and covered in saran wrap. We’re big on greens in my family and when I lived at home, every few days my dad would make a salad, sliding chunks of carrot my way while I home-worked, popping a few in his mouth, while he talked, chewed, worked on a beer and listened to XM radio.
Making my own salad tonight, I went to cut up some cheese to go on top and saw my daddy, lopping of lumps from a big chunk of cheddar effortlessly. I remember once, trying to do the same with similar ease and struggling against the resistance offered by the door stop sized wedge. Dad knowingly tilted his head and watched my progress from over his drug store brand reading glasses. “Cutting cheese is a delicate task” he said.

Here on the upper west side autumn has arrived in full force.
Night rolls in by seven, couching my evening time walk to the park in navy blue and lamplight, illuminating only the silhouettes of the people I pass by. It is cold and crisp and the neighborhood itself seems to have grown into a warm and amber orange, perhaps in place of the leaves that it lacks. I’ve never felt fall so deeply in the city, perhaps because there’s never been the space to. But there’s kids up here, and with them comes a mentality that refuses to take itself too seriously. As a result, I’ve slowed down considerably and feel like I am living my life in the moment, rather than in anticipation of it.

My body is taking a deep breath and re-booting, the change is in my skin, my blood cells, and my ability to find peaceful sleep. The change is also one of space and how my body occupies it, a transition that is accented each time I go downtown for class and am tossed about and rattled by flocks of people, all on an individual mission. I used to walk Calvin on 10th street and find myself plastered up against a building, pushed aside by a throng of speed walking hipsters, their skintight jeans pushing all the blood to their loins, and giving them a slouchy and determined walk in the direction of alphabet city.

Up here it’s kids who fills the streets. But they are wide streets, with room for Calvin to walk way out on the end of his 16 foot long leash, for me to run alongside him, and for the kiddos to pass us by, or stop us to ask for Calvin’s name. These youthful west siders are out each night in droves, skipping down the street or perched atop their parents shoulders, flocking to one of the many candy stores that litter Columbus Avenue, nestled in between chic little bistros strung with the white twinkle lights I so adore.
Somehow the kids really bring to attention, not only the availability of space and the change it has affected in me, but also the change in the seasons. Fall excites them with its newness and the promise of an onslaught of holidays to come: Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas…all of which translate to candy, stuffing and presents respectively.

Despite a bit of baggage that keeps me from joyously bounding towards the holiday season in full out childish abandon, in my heart, I too associate the entry of autumn with the excitement of Halloween and the like. It has shifted a bit though, and this year, I find myself perfectly content just to watch the kids tear towards home on a chilly evening, brandishing a newly purchased light saber and laden with plastic bags full of the makings of Luke Skywalker’s garb.

This essay is rambling, but full of the feelings of warmth and belonging that the upper west side has settled into my soul. I passed this place tonight, Alice’s Tea Cup…if I were tea spot, this is what I would look like. A purple painted nook on the corner of Columbus and 73rd street, glittering with warm and welcoming juju and bedecked in little white Christmas lights.

Tomorrow I will go have a cup of tea there. And I will walk Calvin the three blocks over to central park where we’ll take the path we’ve made routine, crossing the wooden covered bridge and passing through a small crop of wood that opens up onto the horseback riding trail. From there we’ll head over to the turtle pond, where older women set on the grass and read novels and couples make out on the dusty rock that juts into the water and offers a fabulous view of the Manhattan skyline. I’ll stop many times along the way to let passing kiddos pet my dog. I’ll breath in the moment, and think it sharp and obscure all at once, like it was as a child, in a world where the only anticipation was directed towards the turn of the season and the next celebration.

(FYI- the images above are photographs of a series of collages created by my mom, artist Mary Fussell)

Where’s the inspiration?
I am wondering this, looking for this, and doing so actively from a passive place on my couch.
My creativity is often spurred into life by another artist’s work, but nothing I’ve seen of late has really lit my fire. Well, maybe Julie Taymor’s film, Across the Universe. Although it was certainly not core shaking, the music brought to the forefront of my mind a musical influence I’d deeply loved in my younger years and hold close to my heart in the present.
Or maybe Joni’s new album, which I got my hands on earlier today. It’s subtle, like the lady herself, and needs space and time to sink in.

Time and patience are pivotal to inspiration, but I’m trying to push myself into it. I feel like I am wasting time, that my nights should be filled with hours of painting or poetry instead of trying to read Freud and ending up making booklists on amazon.com instead.

My mom has found inspiration in nature, using it to piece together a series of collages that are understated, organic, and altogether beautiful (see above) She gets in the flow with them and the art just pours out of her. I write a sentence of my story a night, before leaving it to tomorrow and turning on E! news. It’s awful to own up to, perhaps it's my hope that by doing so, I'll help things to shift.

I’m not sure if I know how to write anymore. Somewhere deep in my body is buried a trove of words that the past five months have rendered inexpressible. I’ve been in survival mode, and as I begin my re entry into the world of personal time and space, I find myself a shell shocked shell of the self confident self I left behind at the end of spring semester. I’m afraid to write honestly about what happened and I’m not sure I even know how to…or if I even want to. In fact, all I seem to want to do is to sit at the end of a long boardwalk, where it meets a set of steep stairs that lead down to cold water. Just set out like a lump and staring, maybe with a cup of coffee in hand, for however long it takes to reel in the magnitude of what has come and gone and how it’s left me changed.

Everything happens for a reason- I believe that, but I wonder if everything happens to make us better, wiser, stronger than we were before. My optimistic side says unequivocally yes but then why do I feel less peaceful than ever before. I feel disconnected from myself, like the stormy gray sea that my body is watching from the top of a boardwalk set staircase. And I’m frightened. Everything has gone so far the opposite from what I pictured. If I pictured it at all, which at this point, I cannot recall. How do I trust myself again. Forget about trusting other people, forget about men. But me, myself, how do I trust? How does one trust a stormy sea? The water is all around, encircling, embracing, holding. So who supports the water?
All around me encouraging eyes speak of how much I’ve learned, how well I have done.
And all I can think is how cold that steel gray water was, when I plunged on in.