Elinor Nauen

For progressive people the present is the beginning of the future. For conservative people the present is the end of the past.

~ Karl Mannheim (1893-1947), Hungarian sociologist

True enough - who looks back to some Golden Age but conservatives & who welcomes the whirlwind of change but progressives. It's probable that looking back is what makes you a conservative, that is, the prediliction to miss the good ol' days is a character trait that predicts a conservative mindset. There's more to it than that, of course. Conservatives are, apparently, more fearful & anxious, so it makes sense that they cling to the familiar. 

Once again, in my eternal optimism, I've signed up for a Norwegian class, this one from the Iowa-based Vesterheim, the National Norwegian-American Museum and Folk Art School. I won't be behind on the grammar, but man, my ear is a mess. Excited! 

First I went to one of the courthouses downtown to see my girl S— in 2 mock trials as part of a weeklong law program for high school students. Same scenario each time; in the first she was a prosecution lawyer, in the second a witness, & very convincing at both. Had a sandwich & listened to Damian Williams, District Attorney for the Southern District NY, tell dozens of high school students & some of their family members how he became a lawyer & the duty & joy he feels in working to repair the world or at least his corner of it. The best kid on S—'s team had the wonderful name of Desmond Augustine; he was a student at Regis & seemed like he could already be a lawyer. Then I finally saw the African Burial Ground national monument, a little oasis in the middle of Broadway. And got to hang with my beloved Mike, formerly of B&H Dairy, now the manager of a Matto coffee & snack spot, where he is dispensing beaming smiles & "sweetheart!"s to one & all. One of the most loving and positive people I've ever known. 

I kind of want to show you my to-do list, which is somehow both extensive & irrelevant. I have a list of 7 things I do daily, like this blog & studying Norwegian, but a lot of things I can finish quickly. I get the satisfaction of checking things off, along with a structure that makes sure I don't forget anything. Clearly I need some inspiration, which the heat has driven away. I took a bath! I spoke to someone in France! I had an exciting thought for a project I'm working on! 

This time I was more prepared. Since I first saw the Hiroshige show last month, I bought a book of all 100 Famous Views of Mt Fuji, and have been studying the images. My eyes were ready for the colors and just how many prints there are. Bonus: a few of them were cooling in the heat of this city summer. 

P.s. I didn't know Mt. Fuji was a volcano!

I thought it was simple: I go on Medicare, I get free additional insurance that gives me a gym membership and a preventive care visit with my primary care doc for either nothing or $25; a specialist is $25 or $50. Not bad! Simple! I was a little put out that the ophthalmologist at Mount Sinai would charge $75 extra to give me the prescription for glasses but that made it only $25 more than Warby-Parker, so what the hey. Ha! Suddenly the pre-visit estimates rolled in: $183 for one, even more than that for the other. Apparently, you pay $25 for the meal but extra for a chair, napkin, fork, glass. Apparently, I have to choose supplemental not advantage. Apparently, everyone knows this. The several different people I spoke with at Mount Sinai all said it's a big ol' scam & of course the hospitals figured out how to wring money out of every "free" service. I knew, vaguely, that healthcare is a mess but since I never go to doctors, I hadn't understood. Now I am beginning to. 

The triumph of despotism is to force the slaves to declare themselves free. 

~ Isaiah Berlin

I haven't really had jobs where I had bosses or time clocks. I've pretty much been left alone to accomplish assignments as I see fit. Autocracy isn't for me, unless I'm in charge. And I don't want to be in charge, just left alone. I believe I wouldn't grovel but who knows. 

We went to Astoria. First we had drinks at a place called Kinship Coffee. It was so large & unpeopled that I felt like we had been driving for days & had found the cutest place in Jackson, Mississippi. Look! there's all that space they aren't even using! So chill on a sweltering day. We parked where we wanted. Let's move, we all thought. Then we strolled down to the water, which I guess is the East River? But from the other side. For once I didn't see the Manhattan skyline & long to be there right this second. 

I love to talk about Lucky, in part because he was so modest that he was easy to overlook. He would comb through catalogues all year round to buy Maggie & me perfect presents. Later, he had an aide who, by the time she climbed to the top floor was too tired to actually do his errands, clean or cook. He was fine with her sitting and chatting, and I wouldn't be surprised if he fed her & gave her a few bucks here & there. 

His one bad quality was that he cheated at cribbage & then gloated when he won. I stopped playing with him! 

He made borscht & gravy every Thanksgiving, & loved to be part of the giant dinners we threw for many years. 

Wouldn't tRump rather be a television celebrity than president? Why don't some rich Democrats in Hollywood offer him a show & get him out of politics? Celebrity, adulation, ratings without the work or criticism or impeachment or felony convictions. Meaningless lies. 

Happy 4th, fellow citizens. 

... is sit in the park & get to know the trees. It started with the pigeons roosting a foot away from my office door. I became a pigeon fancier & a nature girl. Every time I sit outside, which I do daily, it makes me feel like I have all the time in the world. Everything expands & I am part of the block, the neighborhood, the city, the world. Trees! 

While there are 422 trees for every person in the world, there are almost twice as many people as trees in New York City. But there are about 40 trees in my field of vision when I sit on a bench at Village View. I'm hogging the trees of New York! 

Yesterday people disappeared behind a tree on the path & reemerged into a sunbeam. Did they realize their golden light?

I try to get on with it & if I start a post, I find a way to finish it that often includes an unexpected (to me) swerve. It's strange to be feeling kind of one-direction & indecisive. 

We had a great time visiting Johnny's sister & seeing her 4 daughters (the 3 sons were far off, as it happens). It was unspeakably hot & humid but luckily they have a big air-conditioned house & we hung out, laughed, reminisced & were glad to be together. I worried it would be the last time, as it's harder & harder for Johnny to travel & his sister has health issues of her own, but it wasn't bad at all & I think we'll get down to Virginia again in not too long. We spent half an hour at the Civil War battlefields visitor center - there were 4 major battles in the area - but otherwise didn't leave the block. I saw deer and a groundhog.

C'mon, New York, whatchoo got for me?

To Europe she was America. To America she was the gateway to the earth. But to tell the story of New York would be to write a social history of the world.

~ H.G. Wells

I love quotes about New York City, especially when I've been away for a few days & despite everything would rather be here than anywhere else. The "everything" is how nice to stay in a house, with plenty of rooms & a pantry & a screened porch, bathrooms, ice that refills itself, cars. But then I get home & my cat missed me & my books missed me & I can see my whole house from anywhere in it, so no one can creep up on me through a basement window. Also, it was a hundred degrees & a thousand humidities in Virginia where we were visiting Johnny's wonderful family & chilly when we got off the train at Penn Station at 2 this morning. 

Visiting Johnny's sister & family, and came upon this in a batch of family photos. 

In case of accident, don't call 911 or an ambulance or his parents or the police. In Case of Accident, Please Call a Priest. 

Totally great to be here with our wonderful nieces and Johnny's terrific sister. I love this family ~ they are so kind & supportive to each other, and get more beautiful & deep by the year. I even went outside for 5 minutes. And wilted. Meanwhile, Liz had a session with her trainer, & Gary went for a run in the heat, & Mo, who's almost 90, drove off in a jeep with no doors. What a wimp I am. Johnny beat me ~ he didn't set foot outside. Tomorrow we are going to drive past a battlefield or 2. 

We're going to Fredericksburg, Virginia, this (Wed) morning for a few days to see Johnny's sister & a few of her 7 kids. I'm writing this on Tuesday & hope to say more day by day but if not, you'll know why.

Lucky lived on the top floor & after Bobby died was pretty isolated. We finally managed to get him to get hearing aids, which gave him a new life for his remaining 5 or 6 years. He was able to get a phone & a TV. He also had an aide, who by the time she heaved herself up to 4 flights of stairs was unable to do any of the cleaning or shopping she'd been hired to do. So they sat around gossiping & cackling & playing cribbage, unless she gave it up, as I did, because he was such a notorious cheater & gloater. Except for that he was a wonderful person, who spent all year combing through catalogues to find the perfect gifts for his "nieces," me & Maggie. He made borscht & gravy for Thanksgiving and looked out for us & the building. 

I always thought that an artist's was the hardest life of all. Its rigor—not always apparent to an outside observer—is that an artist has to navigate forward into the unknown guided only by an internal sense of direction, keep up a set of standards which are imposed entirely from within, meanwhile maintaining faith that the task he has set himself to is worth struggling constantly to achieve. This is all contrary to the notion of bohemian disorder.
~ Lucian Freud

A lot of us were fooled by the myth that we needed to derange our senses to be true artists. Those who figured it in town got some real work done, or those with a sense of self-preservation that overcame the distractions. 

I feel like I did nothing since I got run over by the heat-truck but I went to a karate class, had a lunch, went to services, thought deeply, dropped off & picked up Johnny's laundry, did my laundry, went shopping at Key Foods, & did some $$$ work. It's 93° right now. The adjectives ~ brutal, unbearable, inhuman ~ hit like a truck. It only takes a couple of degrees above normal to destroy the brain. 

Nothing else to talk about. Do we need to adjust the calendars like they did in the 16th century & make the months match their weather? June has become August, & August is October. And it may never snow again.

Thank goodness for the vegetable plate at Westville ~ something to live for! 

It is a heat wave.

I remember that I used to like the heat blanket because it made a perfect excuse to do nothing, which was what I was going to do but I also wanted to justify lying around & reading books & not being productive, not that lying around reading books isn't productive. Then I moved to NYC & got sharp. And now I'm back to lying around & then I remember that I don't have to justify a damn thing. 

Part of the greatness of Amichai is that people write brilliantly about him. I meant to distill this essay by Adam Kirsch but there's too much of it. Like a poem, you can't condense or summarize & keep any of the flavor. 

Here's a line I liked: 

The Jewish vocabulary of Amichai's poetry doesn't mean that he is a believer. On the contrary, the deep pathos of his religious verse is that he has achieved a kind of sublime intimacy with a God who does not exist, at least not as the tradition conceives Him.

I always return to Amichai. 

My birthday was a couple of weeks after I moved in (the same month as Jimmy Carter's inauguration). I was excited to get a card or 2 to my new address & when I saw the mailman I ran across 1 Av to ask when he would be hitting my side of the street. Which was when I discovered that was a different zip code. I was 10003 and the east side of the avenue is 10009. What I don't remember is whether I got any mail that day. 

Isn't it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when you look back, everything is different.

~ C. S. Lewis

And sometimes the opposite is true ~ everything changes every day but in the end, we're simply & still us. 

We four old friends, who worked together many years ago, decided to get together. We live on the Jersey shore, NYC, upstate NY, & Pennsylvania. Chatham, NJ, turned out to be 1 hour & 4 minutes from each of us. After a few days of crowing about exploring the dark wilds of the Garden State, I realized a friend of mine lives in Chatham. It did seem suddenly more possible to get there. 

And I did. And we hugged & laughed & told stories for a few hours, & decided not to wait so long again. Even though we know each other as colleagues, all the stories we told were personal: getting caught in a flood, one of us on crutches, that sort of thing. It's how we know we're friends not merely coworkers, & why the afternoon was so pleasant. And that each of us was central ~ not a star & 3 acolytes. No one had aged, which was weird, but there was a lot we'd forgotten, which eventually did make me believe how long it had been. Although I do NOT believe it's been 30 years. 

A deeply restorative afternoon in a cute town. Is it the suburbs if it's an hour away on the train? 

It was an old-fashioned holiday even when I was a kid. Maybe because we were out of school by then? 

Flag Day commemorates the adoption of the flag of the United States on June 14, 1777, by resolution of the Second Continental Congress.

"We take the stars from heaven, the red from our mother country, separating it by white stripes, thus showing that we have separated from her, and the white stripes shall go down to posterity, representing our liberty."

Taking Wednesday & Thursday off to enjoy the blintz-&-cheesecake holiday of Shavuot. 

I don't know where this photo came from or where it is but it's so many places I've passed through or lived. The gravel road, the summer sky, the waiting cars. I belong there. 

I have never done any work cold. I have always worked with my blood, so to speak. Those who see these things must feel that. 

~ Käthe Kollwitz

Loved her show at MoMA. Hard to choose a single image to represent her work. An artist who works with her blood.

I'm a little goofy, what with the satisfaction of a new book, the hot weather, the effort to avoid a whirlwind of anger at the endless stupidities, many of them mine. Here's another poem from my new chapbook, which you can order from the publisher if you'd like. It's a very New York book. 

On the Block

What's Spanish for suitcase? Simon asks Sylvie

Su…casa? she tries

        Diana from the corner walks by.

        She's been in LA for two years!

        She holds my hand

        & tells me she's here for jury duty

        & how much she likes Jackie Chan

I love my block: the secret world

where I don't have to be new

& I run into everyone & they're reading

spy novels & eating chips &

 
the babushka Hungarian lady curses me:

I am a gonna fetch you!

 
esa paloma

came too close