#59 Brindle French Bulldog on the Uptown 6 Train

Back on the uptown 6 train, Lorraine is sitting next to a tall black man with colorful patches of Africa all over his denim shirt. They are beautiful and intricate. He is bobbing his head along to the music plugged into his ears. He is serene and far away.

Africa.

On a journey and off to somewhere else. She cannot hear the music at all but admires his resourcefulness: successfully queuing up tunes which transport him elsewhere.

Across from her is a woman balancing her French Bulldog on her lap with her right arm. Her other arm is free and her hand is holding a novel. She is wearing a tan trench coat with a small button of a superhero on the left lapel. Her stockings are pearly opaque with small dots lined up horizontally. Shoes are brand new Doc Marten upgrades: un-scuffed teal blue with less substantial soles. Her hair is a sleek and perfect pageboy: symmetrical bangs falling right next to her deep black eyelashes.

She turns the page without disturbing the dog.

Lorraine knows that the dog is brindle. His head is tilted back and his eyes are fluttering in REM sleep.  His tongue is falling completely out of his mouth. It is a tremendous pink tongue and the pair is like nothing Lorraine has ever seen before.

Her African guy shifts in his seat and a large Jamaican women gets on and sits on the opposite side of him. They begin talking as if they know each other.  She has an app on her phone that entertains them both.  It is then that Lorraine notices he is missing several teeth. His eyes are fixed on his Jamaican lady friend. At 51^st he departs and tells her,

“Have a blessed day.”

Lorraine wishes he would say that to her, too.

The Jamaican woman looks at her and smiles very warmly.

The French Bull Dog mom turns the page, again, and her baby licks his chops and sighs in his sleep.

The end of a fruitful day.

#58 A Banksy Knock-Off And The Teenage Threat

Early last week, Essie walked down the same section of Broadway between Houston and Prince that she always traversed. It had been years and years of pounding the same old block. Her footprints were probably engraved in the sidewalk under the disgusting mile-high scaffolding which never came down. It was a permanent fixture.

Except this one particular day, a Tuesday, she walked past a table of Banksy's piled neatly on a black tablecloth. Yes, she walked right past and then did a double take and returned to the table. Each painting was wrapped in plastic wrap and had a round, pre-printed price tag attached neatly in the right hand corner. Of course, her mind leapt to the Banksy prank of the prior year; the one where he had anonymously set up tables in various NYC locations selling his original art at well below auction prices. When the secret was revealed to the press, all who cared chuckled and kicked themselves for not spying the originals right beneath their noses. So, as Banksy would have it, everyone lost out on a big payout (this was his work of art in action).  

The joke was on the world. Oh, Banksy!

Essie was one such person who felt she missed out, though she was embarrassed to admit this until now.

Laid out before her were canvasses of teddy bears with pistols, red heart balloons released by a silhouetted couple on a hilltop, two Bobbies making out.  But the one that caught her eye and locked into her brain was a woman vomiting hearts. She was expertly stenciled in black against a purplish-dirty  graffiti prepared background. She was wearing a 60's style sleeveless mini-dress with her hair in a bun on top of her head. Her right hand was pressed horizontally against the wall supporting her leaned over self as the perfect red hearts spilled out of her mouth -not even reaching the ground! The hearts started small and gradually increased in size. Her left arm was awkwardly twisted behind her back and was useless except that it made her pose more visually interesting. The best part was her sneakers:

With her legs slightly set apart, track shoes, like tiny hip slippers, were adorned with little black stripes. They were priceless.

Essie looked at the Banksy knock-off and knew she had to have it.

Love was like that; hearts vomiting out of ones' mouth wasting all the goodness as regurgitated onto the sidewalk, with that last large heart suspended just perfectly above the ground. Just before it went splat and made a sickening mess.

She was tempted to haggle with the guy who made the Banksy knock-offs, but somehow that felt wrong.  Her entire concept of money, possession, commerce and appropriation got all jumbled as she conversed with the man (artist?) who had a MBA from Stern Business School at NYU. He was covered in tattoos and told her of his Wall Street days. The days he was the Man behind the desk at the Big Bank. But he busted loose and here he was, exercising his First Amendment Right: selling Banksy knock-offs in Soho (without a vendor permit, only a tax ID #).

She took out her credit card and watched as he swiped it on his Square. Sixty-dollars, plus tax.

It now hangs on her office wall and she loves her heart vomiting girl.

She loves her worthless Banksy.

#57 Tight Jeans. Ugh.

Sadie is too young for this. For most of her life everything fit fine. Clothes fit her well and were easy to put on and take off. She likes her body as much as one does when they don’t even think about whether liking it or not even matters. Clothes are clothes and a body is a body.

Suddenly budding adolescents starts to make some changes to her belly, hips and thighs. Always a stick figure and now there are other angles and shapes to contend with that she never had to consider before. She never really cared about clothes one way or the other until recently. She likes her stretch pants and easy colorful (and stained) t-shirts with cool printed images and words like, “I Hate Homework!!”, “YUM YUM!” , “GAP GIRL!” and other brands that mean mostly nothing to her at all. Super easy to take care of each day; putting on clothes is as easy as quickly brushing teeth or hair. She could definitely do it with her eyes closed if necessary. Socks are also simple because mismatched is something she enjoys and if the socks that are partnered become undone, anything will do and actually look cute.

However, the curves are starting to make her wonder what’s up. She really has no time and very little interest in navigating her life in a new direction as putting on clothes becomes more problematic. Her mom is always complementary of her choices and there are a lot of hand-me-downs mixed in with some new bought items in her drawers. She likes to mix and match and doesn’t even mind the name tags of the other kids attached to her clothes. She will even say, “I’m wearing Kate’s shirt and Megan’s pants!” Her mom appreciates the clothes and they’ve come in handy over the years.

Jeans then start to make more of an appearance in her wardrobe. They are more sophisticated and especially ones which are slightly ripped or tattered make her happy. She really likes them a lot, but starts to notice they are more difficult to wear after they are washed and dried. It goes something like this:

Pull jeans out of laundry bag. Inspect them first front, then back and especially the back looks like the jeans are probably too small, the wrong size. They are a great color otherwise it’s hard to remember why jeans are considered to be comfortable clothing. Step into them. Palpably tight, but still button on top, almost. Lying  flat on back on the bed wiggling toes sucking in belly, button top button. Zip. Pull self up look in mirror. Deep knee bend. Once, twice, three times. Sit on bed. Put legs above head and propel body up. Deep knee bends again. Question self as tugging on backside and pulling waist out. Pull again. Back on bed and zip again because zipper started to drop. Start to soften. Gut feels okay.

Stand up. Walk. All is good.

Is this worth all the work? Of course it is worth it, but it also in subtle ways is forcing her to rethink her body. No other article of clothing has ever done this before and hopefully no other article will.

Somehow she has the sneaking suspicion that this is just the beginning of a long  clothing saga which will influence her feelings about her body and though she isn’t in the mood to think much about it now, there is a part of her which dreads it, but gets that this is also an opportunity to be more mature and find new ways of expressing herself and her personal, unique style.

But who has time for this?

#56 Shelter Island

Rice, wind and water.

Wind pours through the trees: a giant bag of rice pours onto a table

Eyes closed.  I can see the inlet where soft white sailboats swim like fish on the surface of the bay.

Eyes closed.  Light, yellow-gold behind the grey as fluttering wings fly by.
Soft purple; the crash as a child falls into water, capturing weight with laughter.

Bright red swim trunks.

Green, windy leaves pour like rice so loud and soothing.

Eyes closed.

Ice blue water moves like an electric jigsaw puzzle with pieces arranging re-arranging each time dunk, dive and shimmer.

Grandpa walks backwards –unsuspecting-next to the pool with 3-year-old grandbaby girl and boy pink & yellow swimmies on biceps:

“where am I going?” hee hee‼!

where am I going? Hee hee hee‼!

They push him in the deep end!  he cries and feigns distress,

“you pushed me in!”

Surprise! Surprise!

Bursting, bubbling-baby laughter for the silly surprise!

Imprinted on their memory that day.

That time on Shelter Island.