A Summary:
Honey for your wounds
Pole dancing!
Streets will make you feel brand new
If you are paying attention (and you know what to give back) New York will always give you what you need. Sometimes this gift may not feel like a gift, but pay attention. Let it play.
I’m on my way home from a bad rehearsal. I am playing a character plagued with anxiety. A character obsessed, panic prone. And I’m not buying it. I’m not buying myself.
Frustrated, I shove the script in my purse and pull out another script I’m working on, Titus Andronicus.
I only glanced at the woman I’m sitting next to as I got on the train. I have an impression of silk, flyaway hair , some awkward marriage of color and pattern.
I’m somewhere in Act II; some sacrifices made, some gore abounding and I start to hear this sniffling, these sighs. The woman next to me is crying. She is trying to pull her tears back inside with great, violent inhales, droplets spreading over the open manual in her lap. She is fanning her face with her hands.
“How’s the play?” she asks abruptly.
“Hm? Oh, it’s good. I mean, it’s Shakespeare, so it’s pretty good.” I turn to look at her.
“I’ve never read – have you read it before?” Tears streaming down her face.
“I have, yes.”
“I’m sorry, I’m just. I’m having a panic attack right now. Yeah, it’s. I’m. I just need to talk so. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Oh, no. Not at all. Talk away.” I notice I am trying to make my voice level, calming. And I am studying her behavior. I am taking her in like I might play her in the movie. She is wearing several sweaters at once (crochet, cotton, cashmere) all hanging at different lengths, a silk skirt, socks over tights under cowboy boots, a quilted bag in her lap. She looks just this bohemian side of lunatic. She is probably a few years older than me, shocks of grey at her temples, a spit of freckles across her nose. Warm brown eyes. She could be my sister.
“I have this peppermint oil because sometimes it helps to, you know…”, she gestures with churning hands in upward sweeping motions. “Usually I use lavender because, well. But I tried the peppermint today and it’s… I can feel it on my face??” she asks and I suddenly realize I’m being asked an actual question. She’s really asking me if I understand, or maybe if I can see it on her face. I nod, as evenly as possible.
“I put it under my nose and it’s. It’s burning. And I can feel it just above my eye and every time the air hits it’s like. It’s like I’m on fire!? Like there’s a fire above my eye??” And suddenly, she is Madeline Kahn and I am watching Mrs. White at the end of Clue (The flames! The flames on the side of my face!).
“Oh, oh no. I’m sorry”
“Yeah. I mean I don’t think I’m going to have a bad reaction or anything.” As she says this, a compendium of terror flashes across her face. She is imagining a series of ‘bad reactions’. She cannot stop. She checks my eyes. I blink, evenly. She exhales relief. “It just feels... Anyway, thank you. Thank you for letting me talk.”
“Is it the train?”
“Yes, sometimes the train and sometimes it’s something specific. Today when I got on there was like this really bad smell. Like farts. Like lots and lots of farts and really bad men’s cologne and I just. Well, I get these panic attacks but I carry these oils with me because I accompany women during the birthing process and sometimes it helps… to, you know, calm them so I can talk them through it.”
She tells me she’s a doula, that she’s been doing this for about a year. I ask about her training, tell her I have a friend who is studying this. She tells me she works at a community center in the Bronx with expecting teenage moms who might not have the money or the support they need. I ask what brought her to this life and she breathes in a whole new way. She tells me about the women in her family, that she comes from a long line of women who know how to support each other, that her great grandmother brought awareness to the birthing process when she refused the ‘twilight sleep’.
“Did you say the ‘twilight sleep’?”
“Yes, the twilight sleep”, she repeats. She has a little lisp and it sounds distinctly like ‘twilight sweep’ when she says it. I have this vivid image of her tidying up in the moonlight.
“What is that?”, I ask, fascinated.
She tells me that women used to be given this drug that would not take away the pain experienced in childbirth, but would take away their memory of that pain. This is possibly the most terrifying thing I’ve ever heard. And though I try not to betray my fear, I know I do. My face always betrays me. And my efforts to be the calm one, the even keel, are disrupted. But then, something odd happens. I see her register my disturbance and it eases her. This is what she needed. She needed this role reversal. I play it up. I ask a lot of questions. I let her be the expert.
I’m on my way home from a bad rehearsal. I am playing a character plagued with anxiety. A character obsessed, panic prone. And I’m not buying it. I’m not buying myself.
Frustrated, I shove the script in my purse and pull out another script I’m working on, Titus Andronicus.
I only glanced at the woman I’m sitting next to as I got on the train. I have an impression of silk, flyaway hair , some awkward marriage of color and pattern.
There’s a rule about train interaction. If you want to observe/ engage/ spark a metromance with someone, do not sit next to them. Across, adjacent or standing in the door-well are infinitely better options. It is more than a little alarming to feel your seatmate turn to look at the side of your face.
I’m somewhere in Act II; some sacrifices made, some gore abounding and I start to hear this sniffling, these sighs. The woman next to me is crying. She is trying to pull her tears back inside with great, violent inhales, droplets spreading over the open manual in her lap. She is fanning her face with her hands.
“How’s the play?” she asks abruptly.
“Hm? Oh, it’s good. I mean, it’s Shakespeare, so it’s pretty good.” I turn to look at her.
“I’ve never read – have you read it before?” Tears streaming down her face.
“I have, yes.”
“I’m sorry, I’m just. I’m having a panic attack right now. Yeah, it’s. I’m. I just need to talk so. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Oh, no. Not at all. Talk away.” I notice I am trying to make my voice level, calming. And I am studying her behavior. I am taking her in like I might play her in the movie. She is wearing several sweaters at once (crochet, cotton, cashmere) all hanging at different lengths, a silk skirt, socks over tights under cowboy boots, a quilted bag in her lap. She looks just this bohemian side of lunatic. She is probably a few years older than me, shocks of grey at her temples, a spit of freckles across her nose. Warm brown eyes. She could be my sister.
“I have this peppermint oil because sometimes it helps to, you know…”, she gestures with churning hands in upward sweeping motions. “Usually I use lavender because, well. But I tried the peppermint today and it’s… I can feel it on my face??” she asks and I suddenly realize I’m being asked an actual question. She’s really asking me if I understand, or maybe if I can see it on her face. I nod, as evenly as possible.
“I put it under my nose and it’s. It’s burning. And I can feel it just above my eye and every time the air hits it’s like. It’s like I’m on fire!? Like there’s a fire above my eye??” And suddenly, she is Madeline Kahn and I am watching Mrs. White at the end of Clue (The flames! The flames on the side of my face!).
“Oh, oh no. I’m sorry”
“Yeah. I mean I don’t think I’m going to have a bad reaction or anything.” As she says this, a compendium of terror flashes across her face. She is imagining a series of ‘bad reactions’. She cannot stop. She checks my eyes. I blink, evenly. She exhales relief. “It just feels... Anyway, thank you. Thank you for letting me talk.”
“Is it the train?”
“Yes, sometimes the train and sometimes it’s something specific. Today when I got on there was like this really bad smell. Like farts. Like lots and lots of farts and really bad men’s cologne and I just. Well, I get these panic attacks but I carry these oils with me because I accompany women during the birthing process and sometimes it helps… to, you know, calm them so I can talk them through it.”
She tells me she’s a doula, that she’s been doing this for about a year. I ask about her training, tell her I have a friend who is studying this. She tells me she works at a community center in the Bronx with expecting teenage moms who might not have the money or the support they need. I ask what brought her to this life and she breathes in a whole new way. She tells me about the women in her family, that she comes from a long line of women who know how to support each other, that her great grandmother brought awareness to the birthing process when she refused the ‘twilight sleep’.
“Did you say the ‘twilight sleep’?”
“Yes, the twilight sleep”, she repeats. She has a little lisp and it sounds distinctly like ‘twilight sweep’ when she says it. I have this vivid image of her tidying up in the moonlight.
“What is that?”, I ask, fascinated.
She tells me that women used to be given this drug that would not take away the pain experienced in childbirth, but would take away their memory of that pain. This is possibly the most terrifying thing I’ve ever heard. And though I try not to betray my fear, I know I do. My face always betrays me. And my efforts to be the calm one, the even keel, are disrupted. But then, something odd happens. I see her register my disturbance and it eases her. This is what she needed. She needed this role reversal. I play it up. I ask a lot of questions. I let her be the expert.
The train stops at 145th and she says, “Thank you”, touches my arm and breezes off the train. I watch her shoulders drop an inch as she moves up the platform, entirely calm.
.................................................
It’s a Friday night and I stop by this French place on 9th Ave. to pick up a friend’s credit card, accidentally left behind. I mean to grab the card and head toward the theatre (to see Richard II on trapeze!), but the smell of garlic and roasting vegetables and something about the eyes of the host makes me stop at the door and ask for a table. I take a seat by the window and order a ratatouille and goat cheese crepe and a glass of white wine. I sit there for an hour. Every muscle in my body lets go of its tensions one by one. I can feel myself loosening, like untying knots in a rope to let it reach the water, soak up from the fray.
There is a bench out front and from my vantage point I watch this incredible series of reunions, rendezvous and meetings between strangers. A little old lady in a pink hat laughs with her young, gay companion and his bevy of pit bulls. A little girl wearing a T-shirt that says “Art Is Healthy” puts on a show for her parents and their friends. Two single, older men, a family, a group of women are all greeted by name, shown to their regular tables.
I feel like the stretch of sidewalk outside this restaurant, just the fifty feet from the curb to just north of the doors of this place, have slowed down. Just this little piece of New York has noticed that it is a warm and beautiful Friday evening and wherever one might need to be can wait a moment.
I take the sprig of rosemary from my plate, put it in my pocket and walk out into the warm night. I step beyond these fifty feet and everyone is moving at their usual harried pace, the sound of traffic returns, a woman with her head down veers wildly, clips my shoulder. But I don’t mind. I have brought the spell with me. Those fifty feet are mine. They are in me.
..................................................
Saturday morning I walk down 28th Street between 8th Ave. and Broadway, a stretch that I have only heard non-New Yorkers call the ‘Garden District’. I think to New Yorkers it’s just… Chelsea. The ‘Garden District’ is in New Orleans. The sidewalks are crowded with flowerbeds and canopied with greenery, an urban jungle. I forget that I am walking parallel to a street choked with taxis and angry people. I whack a man in the chest with my yoga mat and he just smiles at me.
I find the address I’m looking for and a middle-aged woman opens the door for me, says good morning. Three more people arrive as we wait for the elevator in this cold, industrial lobby. The woman says it’s too bad about the graffiti and I notice for the first time what looks like could be Yevtushenko’s autograph in red on the glass of the door.
Upstairs, we walk into this incredibly peaceful yoga studio. A woman with colorful mandalas tattooed on every available joint of her body, big blue magnolias over her kneecaps and orange roses on her elbows looks at me with no nonsense eyes and asks if I know my curvature. I tell her yes, I have a right thoracic somewhere in the 30’s, a smaller compensatory left thoracic higher up and a left lumbar. She immediately likes me and I can tell this is a thing hard won.
I enter this room. Women in their seventies, fifties, thirties and a few teenagers. One twelve year old who had the school screening last week, her mom looking more anxious than she does. A couple of men. There is a woman who cannot put both heels on the ground, her body is so twisted, her hips so misaligned. Each step a spring followed by a thud and a warm, open smile on her face. And there are women who have a more slight curvature, more like mine. You can see how they have trained their bodies toward balance. I catch my reflection in the mirror. I look delirious, surprised. There are tears in my eyes.
We do this class together; a series of poses, stretches and exercises designed to alleviate pain, create better alignment and increase proprioception. The teacher with the mandalas makes sure to show us examples in each other’s bodies and being able to see what is happening in my body by looking at another person’s spine is incredible. I am filled up, overwhelmed.
I walk out into this breezy summer morning back into the corridor of green on 28th street and I am taller, I am breathing differently. I have ease. And then I get on the ‘1’ train with a rugby team and several hundred other screaming fools. I get off at Columbus Circle and descend the escalator into the madness of Whole Foods. I put the basket above my head like I’m bringing water home from the oasis just to make myself smaller, more maneuverable for these absurd little aisles. I find myself staring at a wall of honey, so many options. I hear this voice behind me.
“This one right here is the best, if you want to know. Let me tell you.”
I turn and see this tiny old lady. She is among a rare breed of New York women, grossly wealthy and eccentric. What she has on probably represents several thousand dollars worth of clothing but she is wearing so much of it at once that if you did not look closely you would assume she was a bag lady. She has a scarf over her head and enormous tortoiseshell sunglasses. She tips them down a bit and says,
“Believe me, honey. This stuff is amazing.”
Yes, she calls me ‘honey’. I look at the 10 oz. jar that looks like something from an old world apothecary and at the price tag which says $31.55.
“It’s a little expensive, I think”
“Everything this company makes is just gold”, she says. She is clutching the jar and stroking it with moth hands. I can see through the whites of her fingernails.
“You know, you can even put it on your wounds”, she says. She spits on me a little as she says this.
“Hmmm. …okay.”
“The market’s down, sweetheart. I mean, I’m poor and I’m buying it.” She turns, laughing, to the woman standing just behind us who I have assumed is her friend, or someone just waiting for us to get out of the way so she can buy some honey. I turn and look at her and realize she is wearing a Whole Foods apron and carrying a basket. She is looking at the rich old moth with patience. She is a personal shopper. She holds the basket out so the lady can drop in her jar of honey. I walk away.
Carrying my heavy bag of groceries in one hand, I run down the stairs to catch a train, just barely making it through the doors before they slide shut. I look up and realize I’m on a ‘D’ train. (Shit.) I have no idea where the ‘D’ even goes. I mean I know it goes express to the Bronx and that’s about it. We are careening past stops that I recognize.
A man in his late sixties is doing a kind of pole dance a few feet from me. He is thrusting his hips in a jerking motion and punctuating each thrust with a high pitched grunt; “Uh!”(thrust) “Oh!” (thrust) “Ooh!” (thrust)
He launches into a song about how a man should treat a lady right. How a man who can’t support his family is not a man. How a man better not lay a hand on his lady. He is directing most of this at me and I want to say,
“Dude. I am not your audience. I am not a man. I’ve got no lady to mistreat. And I bought these groceries.”
I’m trying to find a way around him so I can see if any of the maps on this train have not been ripped down or graffitied over, but he has me hemmed into a door-well. He is pointing in my face now, occasionally throwing in a fancy spin, or an awkward bow.
I decide I don’t care where the train is going. Wherever it goes, I’m going with it. I might as well watch the show.
By the time I make it home, my shoulders are in my ears, my neck is rebar. All good I’ve done myself, revoked.
I lie on the hardwood floor with a glass of water. We are about to have a house party and there is much to do. I continue to lie on the floor. I have ‘Empire State of Mind’ in my head and have for weeks. I let it play. I think about the cupcakes I’m about to create with my $2.99 honey. I let it play.
.................................................
It’s a Friday night and I stop by this French place on 9th Ave. to pick up a friend’s credit card, accidentally left behind. I mean to grab the card and head toward the theatre (to see Richard II on trapeze!), but the smell of garlic and roasting vegetables and something about the eyes of the host makes me stop at the door and ask for a table. I take a seat by the window and order a ratatouille and goat cheese crepe and a glass of white wine. I sit there for an hour. Every muscle in my body lets go of its tensions one by one. I can feel myself loosening, like untying knots in a rope to let it reach the water, soak up from the fray.
There is a bench out front and from my vantage point I watch this incredible series of reunions, rendezvous and meetings between strangers. A little old lady in a pink hat laughs with her young, gay companion and his bevy of pit bulls. A little girl wearing a T-shirt that says “Art Is Healthy” puts on a show for her parents and their friends. Two single, older men, a family, a group of women are all greeted by name, shown to their regular tables.
I feel like the stretch of sidewalk outside this restaurant, just the fifty feet from the curb to just north of the doors of this place, have slowed down. Just this little piece of New York has noticed that it is a warm and beautiful Friday evening and wherever one might need to be can wait a moment.
I take the sprig of rosemary from my plate, put it in my pocket and walk out into the warm night. I step beyond these fifty feet and everyone is moving at their usual harried pace, the sound of traffic returns, a woman with her head down veers wildly, clips my shoulder. But I don’t mind. I have brought the spell with me. Those fifty feet are mine. They are in me.
..................................................
Saturday morning I walk down 28th Street between 8th Ave. and Broadway, a stretch that I have only heard non-New Yorkers call the ‘Garden District’. I think to New Yorkers it’s just… Chelsea. The ‘Garden District’ is in New Orleans. The sidewalks are crowded with flowerbeds and canopied with greenery, an urban jungle. I forget that I am walking parallel to a street choked with taxis and angry people. I whack a man in the chest with my yoga mat and he just smiles at me.
I find the address I’m looking for and a middle-aged woman opens the door for me, says good morning. Three more people arrive as we wait for the elevator in this cold, industrial lobby. The woman says it’s too bad about the graffiti and I notice for the first time what looks like could be Yevtushenko’s autograph in red on the glass of the door.
Upstairs, we walk into this incredibly peaceful yoga studio. A woman with colorful mandalas tattooed on every available joint of her body, big blue magnolias over her kneecaps and orange roses on her elbows looks at me with no nonsense eyes and asks if I know my curvature. I tell her yes, I have a right thoracic somewhere in the 30’s, a smaller compensatory left thoracic higher up and a left lumbar. She immediately likes me and I can tell this is a thing hard won.
I enter this room. Women in their seventies, fifties, thirties and a few teenagers. One twelve year old who had the school screening last week, her mom looking more anxious than she does. A couple of men. There is a woman who cannot put both heels on the ground, her body is so twisted, her hips so misaligned. Each step a spring followed by a thud and a warm, open smile on her face. And there are women who have a more slight curvature, more like mine. You can see how they have trained their bodies toward balance. I catch my reflection in the mirror. I look delirious, surprised. There are tears in my eyes.
We do this class together; a series of poses, stretches and exercises designed to alleviate pain, create better alignment and increase proprioception. The teacher with the mandalas makes sure to show us examples in each other’s bodies and being able to see what is happening in my body by looking at another person’s spine is incredible. I am filled up, overwhelmed.
I walk out into this breezy summer morning back into the corridor of green on 28th street and I am taller, I am breathing differently. I have ease. And then I get on the ‘1’ train with a rugby team and several hundred other screaming fools. I get off at Columbus Circle and descend the escalator into the madness of Whole Foods. I put the basket above my head like I’m bringing water home from the oasis just to make myself smaller, more maneuverable for these absurd little aisles. I find myself staring at a wall of honey, so many options. I hear this voice behind me.
“This one right here is the best, if you want to know. Let me tell you.”
I turn and see this tiny old lady. She is among a rare breed of New York women, grossly wealthy and eccentric. What she has on probably represents several thousand dollars worth of clothing but she is wearing so much of it at once that if you did not look closely you would assume she was a bag lady. She has a scarf over her head and enormous tortoiseshell sunglasses. She tips them down a bit and says,
“Believe me, honey. This stuff is amazing.”
Yes, she calls me ‘honey’. I look at the 10 oz. jar that looks like something from an old world apothecary and at the price tag which says $31.55.
“It’s a little expensive, I think”
“Everything this company makes is just gold”, she says. She is clutching the jar and stroking it with moth hands. I can see through the whites of her fingernails.
“You know, you can even put it on your wounds”, she says. She spits on me a little as she says this.
“Hmmm. …okay.”
“The market’s down, sweetheart. I mean, I’m poor and I’m buying it.” She turns, laughing, to the woman standing just behind us who I have assumed is her friend, or someone just waiting for us to get out of the way so she can buy some honey. I turn and look at her and realize she is wearing a Whole Foods apron and carrying a basket. She is looking at the rich old moth with patience. She is a personal shopper. She holds the basket out so the lady can drop in her jar of honey. I walk away.
Carrying my heavy bag of groceries in one hand, I run down the stairs to catch a train, just barely making it through the doors before they slide shut. I look up and realize I’m on a ‘D’ train. (Shit.) I have no idea where the ‘D’ even goes. I mean I know it goes express to the Bronx and that’s about it. We are careening past stops that I recognize.
A man in his late sixties is doing a kind of pole dance a few feet from me. He is thrusting his hips in a jerking motion and punctuating each thrust with a high pitched grunt; “Uh!”(thrust) “Oh!” (thrust) “Ooh!” (thrust)
He launches into a song about how a man should treat a lady right. How a man who can’t support his family is not a man. How a man better not lay a hand on his lady. He is directing most of this at me and I want to say,
“Dude. I am not your audience. I am not a man. I’ve got no lady to mistreat. And I bought these groceries.”
I’m trying to find a way around him so I can see if any of the maps on this train have not been ripped down or graffitied over, but he has me hemmed into a door-well. He is pointing in my face now, occasionally throwing in a fancy spin, or an awkward bow.
I decide I don’t care where the train is going. Wherever it goes, I’m going with it. I might as well watch the show.
By the time I make it home, my shoulders are in my ears, my neck is rebar. All good I’ve done myself, revoked.
I lie on the hardwood floor with a glass of water. We are about to have a house party and there is much to do. I continue to lie on the floor. I have ‘Empire State of Mind’ in my head and have for weeks. I let it play. I think about the cupcakes I’m about to create with my $2.99 honey. I let it play.
In New York, concrete jungle where dreams are made of
There’s nothing you can’t do, now you’re in New York
These streets will make you feel brand new
Big lights will inspire you, let’s hear it for New York, New York, New York
Some things I saw and ate and loved:
Big Bambu! This incredible structure on the roof of The Met (the best place in New York already) was designed by two photographers and built by mountain climbers... so, people who know about aesthetics and tying the fuck out of knots but not a lot about building, well, anything. And the result is a chaotic mess of bamboo that is utterly delightful. However. They have just begun the process and only phase one is complete. The structure will continue to grow through... October, I believe. You have to go on a guided tour and you will definitely be frustrated that you can't swing through the branches like a wee monkey, but.. the breeze in the leaves and the perspective on the city is not to be missed.
Best Worst Movie: at Village East Cinemas (E. 12th and 2nd) extended another week through the 29th of May! I have seen this movie 3 times now – at the SXSW world premiere in Austin, at the Rooftop Films series in Brooklyn last summer and last week for the official NY theatrical release/partytime. My dear friends Katie Graham (DP/Editor) and Andrew Matthews (Editor) made this movie… and they are amazing. Whether or not you have seen Troll 2 (and you should maybe put on your party pants and your schlock helmet, visor down and see Troll 2 immediately) this documentary about it is fantastic. GO SEE IT.
Richard II: (Mon 5/10, Wed 5/19, Fri 5/21 @ 7pm, Sun 5/23, Mon 5/24 @ 7pm) at The Tank (354 West 45th Street) with Sonnet Repertory Theatre and Matchbook Productions. http://www.matchbookproductions.org Vince Nappo. I say again, Vince Nappo. I love your crazy face. I got this wonderful e-mail from Vinnie reminding me that years ago when he was trying to decide whether or not to go to grad school he asked if I had suggestions for pieces he should use. I told him he should do the worms/epitaphs/ of comfort no man speak monologue and that someday he would play the role. And yes, he got into grad school and yes, I am a genius. GO SEE THIS EVERYONE. RICHARD II on TRAPEZE!
The Moth: GrandSlam at the Highline Ballroom http://www.themoth.org This was amazing. The wrong person won. Those judges were drunk! But …so much fun. And great stories. Also the host, Dan Kennedy, is a dreamboat. And by ‘dreamboat’, I mean greasy, dark-hearted weirdo who I wouldn’t want to touch, but I’d totally drink a beer with.
Yoga Union: (W. 28th and Broadway) Yoga Center for Back Care and Scoliosis.
LeGrainne: (W. 21st and 9th) French, but in a good way.
Frankies 457: (457 Court Street –Cobble Hill, Brooklyn) Adorable back patio on a gorgeous Sunday morning with the indelible Josh Beerman and his wife/hurricane of joy, Ms. Nicole Boote-Beerman and the unstoppable Jess Smith. I had the sweet potato and sage ravioli in a parmesan broth. Not even to be believed. Yes, I said broth. And yes, I lifted the plate and drank the last of it from the bowl.
Tile Bar (E. 7th and 1st) Divey. Cheap. A place to sit. Perfect.
Veselka (E.7th and 2nd) Ukrainian soul food. What? You heard me. I had blintzes with blueberry. At 2 in the morning. My late night dining companion had yogurt and honey. And a chamomile tea. The waitress made fun of him.
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