SOLTuesday: Rainy Traveling Tuesdays

It’s my annual trek to warmer places, if only for a few weeks. This year I’m visiting Alabama, where I have a friend who teaches in Mobile, and civil rights museums and memorials to visit in Montgomery and Birmingham.

            Last Tuesday and today, it’s been rainy. Warmish, but wet, both days. Last week I was in Mobile, today I’m in Montgomery. Last week, I was feeling the culture shock of living in car culture. At home in New York, I walk many places and take the subway or bus—have never owned a car in my life. When I travel, I often rent a car, and I love to drive, but driving is just another mode of sitting. I think last week my body wasn’t used to the walk-to-the-car-drive-park-walk-to-wherever-drive-park, and it rebelled by, paradoxically, not wangint to do anything. And I couldn’t go for much of a walk in the rain.

           So last week, I drove to a barbecue place called Meat Boss, had a pulled pork sandwich with sides of baked beans and Asian slaw, then drove to a couple of malls and just walked around the stores. The Walmart was the most interesting to me, since we don’t have one in New York. It’s like a department store, but horizontal instead of vertical, and in miniature, since each department is smaller than, say, a Macy’s, but there are some departments our New York Macy’s doesn’t have, like automotive supplies, or guns. I didn’t buy anything, just walked.

            This week, in Montgomery, I’m in a hotel in downtown. Most of the sights I want to see are in walking distance, so I feel much more at home. Luckily, I was in a drugstore when the deluge came, so I was able to sit inside until the rain slowed, then found a coffee shop a few doors down. Then an art gallery next door, with a tour company next to it. By the time I’d arranged for a civil rights tour for Thursday the rain had stopped and I could go across the street to Island Delight, a Jamaican restaurant, for jerk chicken lunch. Delicious. Walked some more around the city, made a reservation for dinner tomorrow night, found where I’ll eat dinner to night (more barbecue), and back to my hotel. I haven’t quite gotten to 10,000 steps, but maybe getting out for dinner will do it.

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Blogging A-Z: G Is for Gym

            Jack went to the gym almost every day for the last 30 years of his life.

            He wasn’t particularly athletic when we first met, sometimes joking that the most exercise he got was lifting his glass-holding hand to his lips. But a few years after we moved to New York, we decided to learn to ride bikes. Mostly we biked around Central Park or Riverside Park; this was long before bike lanes, and biking on city streets faced hazards from both moving and stationary vehicles.

            We always walked a lot, well, at least Jack walked a lot. He sometimes told the story about walking to school as a teenager. Because he didn’t have a car, he was embarrassed about walking, and later found out that students admired him for walking. We walked around the neighborhood, but also in Riverside Park, down along the river and back.

            Especially in the summertime, with a cool breeze off the water, this was fun. A few times we walked across the George Washington Bridge and into Palisades Park, once climbing down giant rocks to near the river. Another time we took the ferry to Staten Island and walked eight miles to Richmondtown.

            In the ’70s, Jack took up running. At first he ran along the outside of Riverside Park. Then he discovered the track down in the park near 72nd Street. That was his favorite. I tried running, too, but soon I had to tape my ankles, and after another year or so, I was taping my knees. And since I could never make myself run farther than a mile and a quarter, I went back to the long exercise walk.

            When I started teaching at NYU and got a family membership to the gym, Jack took to it immediately. No longer did the weather stand in the way of getting his endorphin hit. When it looked like I wouldn’t get tenure, he searched around and found the West Side YMCA. He’d taken Christie there for swimming lessons years earlier, and the gym and locker rooms had been considerably refurbished since.

            He loved the Y. He rode the stationary bike long before there were TV screens for distraction, for an hour at least. He had friends there, both men and women. He’d bring home stories, most of which I’ve forgotten. Sometimes he tried the weight machines, but mostly he just wanted to bike. Even after his blood-clotting disorder, he missed a few months, but was back as soon as he could.

            His fall, however, stopped him. He never went back to the gym, and it was never clear whether he was embarrassed about how feeble he had become or simply didn’t want to talk about what happened. He went to physical therapy and kept up his exercises at home. I bought him weights to help. I also kept renewing our family membership, even though I wasn’t going as regularly as I should have. I did tell Zaida, who worked at the “towel-desk” and always asked after him when he died.

            Ever since, I’ve had mixed feelings about the Y. I keep going back, much more regularly now, but there’s hardly anyone left who knew Jack and knew that he and I were together. The Y is one of the most diverse places I spend time, which is important to me. But will I continue to go there, or find another gym or health club? I don’t know. 

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April’s writing challenge is to blog every day, with each post beginning with a letter of the alphabet from beginning to end. We skip Sundays, except for April 1, so as to have 26 days in the month.

Walking and Remembering

              Today I walked around the neighborhood on the way to pick up the program’s for Jack’s memorial on Saturday. I walked up Broadway to see if I could find the place where our daughter went to day care 40 years ago. I’d gone by the area yesterday and nothing looked familiar — I remembered what the nursery school/day-care center looked like, but the entrance into the middle-income housing complex where it was located looked very different. Did it even still exist? So I thought I would explore today.

            The walkway was off 123rd Street, not Broadway, as my mind’s eye had it. The path led downhill toward an area with benches. Then there were two winding stairways, and I wondered, did my three- then four-year-old walk down these steps? Did I wheel her in the stroller and carry it down the steps?

            But down at the bottom, there was the play area, fenced in, the entryway, now lined with open coat cubbies and wooden stoves, sink, cabinets for the kids to play with. By the door was a stroller parking lot. Yes, it still exists, though now the plaque hanging above the entry says it’s the Children’s Learning Center of Morningside Heights, no longer the Gardens at Morningside Gardens.
           It started as a nursery school in the early 1960s; one of the founders lived in our apartment building. When my daughter went there in the mid-1970s, the Gardens was unusual in the city in that it was neither wholly private nor wholly public: some parents paid full fee, as though it was a private school, while others were subsidized through city, state, or federal funds; it was multicultural before that was a touchstone. A story I wrote for the Village Voice in August 1976 noted that this was the least expensive way to provide child care in New York City. But most day care then in the city was completely paid for either by government funds or by parents. An ad-hoc coalition proposed that the centers funded by the city change over to this mixed service to save money. But this didn’t happen, partly because the city agency would no longer have control over a line-item budget, but also because there was corruption in the awarding of day-care leases.             It seems from the Children’s Learning Center Web site that it is completely private now, though a limited number of children receive tuition assistance. Too bad.
            From the presence of strollers and jackets, it was clear there were children inside, but it was too quiet. Perhaps it was nap time. And I wish I’d had one of my camera devices. I’ll have to go by there again to add a photo. 

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It’s the annual Slice of Life Story Challenge, hosted by the wonderful people over at Two Writing Teachers! Every day this month, hundreds of writers will be posting their stories. Head on over and check out the other slices!

Slice of Life, #30

            I had a doctor’s appointment this morning on East 63rd Street. Afterwards I walked across town to Columbus Circle. If it had been spring-like, instead of simply springtime, I would have walked through Central Park, but it was too breezy and too cold for walking anything but the most direct route, almost a mile and a half.

            At the southeast corner of the park, Fifth Avenue and 60th Street, I came across this structure.

It’s a public art work by Tatiana Trouvé , an Italian artist who's created three “spool racks” that respond to the miles of walkways throughout the park. After looking at maps, Trouvé found 212 paths in the park; then, she estimated the length of each one. There are three structures containing 212 spools, one for each of the pathways, and the cable wrapped around each spool approximates the length of the path. And each spool has a metal plate identifying the beginning and end point, as well as a name that conjures the cultural significance of walking.

            The spool racks will be up through the end of August. If you’re in New York City, stop by to see them. They are impressive, and may just lead you to try walking one of the paths memorialized by a spool. Pick the one with your favorite color, perhaps, or one of the black spools. And check out the Public Art Fundfor more information and more public art in New York.

            Here's another spool rack.

Slice of Life, #17

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            Last night I went to the Big Words reading series. Founded by Stacey Kahn and Jess Martinez exactly three years ago, Big Words meets approximately once a month with readers writing to a theme chosen by the audience at the previous Big Words reading. Last night’s theme was All or Nothing.

            I was one of the readers (see Slice 11). When I started going to Big Words, it met in the back of CultureFix, a bar on the far Lower East Side, a long walk from any subway stops. Last summer it moved to Brooklyn, to a large upstairs event space at another bar, 61 Local, at 61 Bergen Street (this one has a kitchen, and a good one). I’d been to a couple of Big Words there and thought I knew the way. So I didn’t make a Google map. My mistake.

            Took the subway to the Barclay Center, but when I looked at the neighborhood map in the station, I couldn’t find Boerum Place, the street I usually walked down. But there was Bergen Street just a couple of blocks away, so that’s where I headed. But when I got to Bergen Street, the house numbers showed how far off I was. The first one I saw was 413. Oh, dear. And Brooklyn blocks are long. It took me 25 minutes to get to 61 Local -- but at least there was no wind, like Monday, it wasn’t very cold, and I could use the exercise. When my friend Stacie arrived, she explained that I should have gotten off at Borough Hall – oh, it was that B on the map that had thrown me off.

            My reading went well, there were many laughs, and I enjoyed my five minutes in the metaphorical spotlight (no mike either). Looking forward to the next Big Words, whose theme is Stories from Abroad.