of mous­tach­es and blue­ber­ries, and the Oth­er Big City

Here I am, at home in Con­necti­cut, and it’s just as we all dreamed as we were strug­gling through the last insane weeks of Lon­don life.  Gary the Ground­hog is eat­ing all our over­ripe fruit (man­goes are this sum­mer’s sur­prise favorite), John’s birds are scat­ter­ing sun­flower seeds over the ground for the chip­munks to car­ry away in their man­ic way, the hors­es are snort­ing in the back mead­ow, Avery has jumped on the tram­po­line, lit­tle Kate across the road has charmed us with her Vic­to­ri­an flut­tery eyes and appetite for lemon muffins.

My per­fect nieces Jane and Mol­ly have come to jump over the horse jumps and con­quer the teeter-tot­ter (once I dragged it out of the barn and scraped a dessi­cat­ed bat off it, yuck).  We’ve gath­ered around the sup­per table wear­ing a vari­ety of mous­tach­es, just to mix things up.

All is nor­mal, in fact.

We’ve eat­en our way through an enor­mous plat­ter of baby-back ribs, end­less ears of bi-col­or corn drip­ping with but­ter, steamed lob­sters, bison burg­ers and slabs of juicy Con­necti­cut tomatoes.

Ten­nis in New Eng­land heat and humid­i­ty is a whole ‘nother ball­game from the tem­per­ate games we play in Lon­don!  But a quick dip in the pool after­ward cools our faces and makes it pos­si­ble to jump in the car and go for a new adven­ture.  We got a mes­sage on the phone yes­ter­day, deliv­ered in Jane’s typ­i­cal breath­less prose, “Do you guys… want to go… pick blue­ber­ries… with us?  Call us back!  OK!  Thank you!  bye!”  So we did.

My God.  How any­one on earth makes a liv­ing pick­ing blue­ber­ries in 90-degree heat, I do not know, and I have enor­mous respect for any­one who can.  It was so HOT!  But an adven­ture, espe­cial­ly as our sat­nav took us to Bell­town Orchards in Glas­ton­bury, Con­necti­cut by way of a most unex­pect­ed route.

“Why is there a lit­tle boat icon on the sat­nav?” John asked in per­plex­i­ty, as we drove along merrily.

“What water could there pos­si­bly be?”  And then we saw.  A fer­ry cross­ing, over the love­ly Con­necti­cut Riv­er, in fact, the old­est run­ning fer­ry in all of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca.  Who knew!

It’s a four-minute ride.  It costs $3, just so you know (I felt the sat­nav should warn us of this impend­ing expen­di­ture before we actu­al­ly land­ed on the fer­ry dock with no way to back up, but that’s just me carp­ing).  A com­plete­ly beau­ti­ful ride, with all of us clean and fresh on the way there, and then sweaty and exhaust­ed on the way back.

We had bare­ly recov­ered from our berry-pick­ing when it was time for Avery and me to pack up a lit­tle bag or two, hop in the car, and dri­ve into New York for a reunion with two sets of old and won­der­ful friends.  We slipped into Tribeca as if we’d nev­er left, left the car at a blis­ter­ing­ly hot park­ing lot where, if there were no eggs actu­al­ly cook­ing on the pave­ment, it was only because the atten­dants were between meals.  Unbe­liev­able!  The heat in New York is a unique expe­ri­ence.  It’s some­thing to do with the height of the build­ings crouch­ing over you, hold­ing in the humid­i­ty, the peer­less ener­gy of every­one around you, the excite­ment of being “home,” and the com­bi­na­tion won­der­ful and awful smells: exhaust, pee, hot dogs, asphalt and sun.  You have to love it, to endure it.  And we do.

Both Avery and I are unre­pen­tant New York­ers, no mat­ter our love for our adopt­ed home of Lon­don.  New York seethes.  Strangers who do things for you, like park your car, or sell you a bot­tle of water, or dri­ve you in their taxis to the the­atre, are ami­able enough, and always good at their jobs, but with an under­ly­ing poten­tial for… deal­ing with any­thing, a sort of “what­ev­er you might throw at me, it’s hap­pened before and WORSE” kind of shrewd­ness, and a promise of being able to dish it out as well as take it.  New York­ers are indomitable, incom­pa­ra­bly friend­ly, ready to chat about a news­pa­per head­line or the weath­er or a cer­tain bas­ket­ball play­er aban­don­ing the city for Mia­mi of all places.  But there is a hard­ness, too, and an ener­gy lev­el ratch­ets above that of any oth­er peo­ple I have ever known.  “We can take what the world dish­es out, and we’ll even enjoy it, and we’ll find a way to rein­vent it and make mon­ey from it,” is the cheer­ful­ly grim atti­tude of New York­ers, and Avery and I both sim­ply love it.  We for­get what it’s all about until we’re there, and then we can’t stop smil­ing fool­ish­ly, in our hap­pi­ness at being back.
We checked into the slight­ly dire but charm­ing Cos­mopoli­tan Hotel just a stone’s throw from my old art gallery, from Avery’s beloved pri­ma­ry school, from the World Trade Cen­ter site, from so many mem­o­ry-laden places and peo­ple.  Avery and I stood in the heat on the side­walk talk­ing about what restau­rants had gone out of busi­ness. or moved into some­one else’s restau­rant space, a favorite occu­pa­tion of New York insti­tu­tions, when sud­den­ly some­one said, “I rec­og­nize that voice!” and it was Avery’s old dance teacher, the fear­less Loret­ta who shep­herd­ed our tiny girls, aged 3, in pink tutus for their first for­ays into “lis­ten­ing to their bod­ies.”  It was such a joy to see her, and to see the dis­be­lief on her face at the grownup  young lady with me, hard­ly rec­og­niz­able from the plump, unco­op­er­a­tive but adorable lit­tle thing from 10 years ago.

From there it was up Green­wich Street to meet with Avery’s first friend, Cici, and her moth­er Kath­leen, for a glass of iced tea and a delight­ful catchup, talk­ing all over each oth­er about every­thing that had hap­pened since we last saw each oth­er at New Year.  Schools, boys, music, vaca­tions, jobs, Kath­leen’s paint­ing, my writ­ing, Lon­don, New York gos­sip.  It makes me so hap­py to see bits of Avery’s child­hood reap­pear and be just as beloved as before.

We walked in a leisure­ly way, wad­ing through our own sweat I hate to say, up to their new loft, in the build­ing where we all spent the ter­ri­ble morn­ing of Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001, watch­ing build­ings fall and oth­er tragedies.  It was their office at the time, and they’ve since decid­ed to turn it into a home, which I think it a mar­vel­lous way of exor­cis­ing the ghosts of that unfor­get­table day, when we walked uptown from the girls’ first day at kinder­garten, try­ing to shield them from the sights and sounds.  A hap­py home will be the best thing that could hap­pen to that space.

From a quick tour of the loft, then to a fab­u­lous din­ner at Gior­gone on Spring Street: tuna tartare with avo­ca­do and arugu­la (arugu­la! sor­ry, rock­et, that’s your name here), then a soft­shell crab on a bed of sliv­ered green beans and smashed new pota­toes.  Avery had tortelli­ni with ricot­ta and Cici and Kath­leen a glo­ri­ous-look­ing crispy pizza.

And uptown in our first yel­low cab of the vis­it, in air-con­di­tioned splen­dor!  “I can’t believe this, it’s FREEZ­ING!” I bur­bled to the Tunisian dri­ver, who smiled benev­o­lent­ly and said, “Sweet­heart, if an under­cov­er cop gets in your taxi and it’s not run­ning cold air, you get a tick­et.”  I think I must have known this, but it seemed a mir­a­cle of mod­ern Amer­i­can life anyway.

The play… the play!  We none of us had any idea what it was about, but it was David Mamet’s “Race” and a MOST chal­leng­ing piece of the­atre.  Be warned!  Mas­sive curs­ing, sex­u­al con­tent, over-the-top in both real­ly, but thought-pro­vok­ing and well-act­ed, with Eddie Izzard doing a pass­able if uneven Amer­i­can accent, and Richard Thomas from “The Wal­tons” lend­ing an air of creepy self-impor­tance to his role as perpetrator/victim.  It was a won­der­ful the­atri­cal expe­ri­ence, but as I’ve been the vic­tim before of peo­ple telling me how won­der­ful a play/movie/exhibition is and then watch­ing my child’s mouth open in utter shock and hor­ror, I thought I’d give you a heads-up.  Teenagers at the youngest, I’d say.  And maybe not your moth­er.  At least, not MY mother.

And my first-ever night­time vis­it to Times Square, if you can believe it!  New York­ers are like that about tourist sites, refus­ing often to go to the Stat­ue of Lib­er­ty in a life­time of liv­ing in the city, and proud­ly announc­ing this fact to any­one who will lis­ten.  But it’s SUPERB.  Pedes­tri­an only now, for sev­er­al blocks of traf­fic night­mare shifts, I imag­ine, and EVERY SQUARE INCH in sight cov­ered with mov­ing, glo­ri­ous­ly com­plex, HD neon images.  Just absolute­ly stun­ning.  And most mes­meris­ing: a video dis­play, an ad for the trendy cloth­ing store For­ev­er 21, of a live feed of the crowd, with anoth­er video of a beau­ti­ful girl super­im­posed over the live feed, and then she takes a Polaroid of a por­tion of the live feed, blows in it and waves it about, holds it up so the crowd can see it and try to pick them­selves out of the image!  Am I explain­ing it at ALL?

Here it is.  So bizarre!

Final­ly it was time to head back down­town to the hotel, to col­lapse with a night­cap and a good book, and try to absorb all our adven­tures.  I’ve said it before: it’s good to get OUT once in awhile, do some­thing new, some­thing inde­pen­dent, and real­ly enjoy life in all its variety.

Up in the morn­ing to meet my dar­ling best friend Alyssa at Avery’s old haunt Gee Whiz, across from her school!  All the same wait­ers!  The same menu!  (But a new, cool black cof­fee mug, so they aren’t entire­ly stuck in a rut).  A cheesy egg sand­wich, Avery plow­ing her way through choco­late chip pan­cakes, Alyssa and me try­ing des­per­ate­ly to fill up the last six months with fran­tic gos­sip and infor­ma­tion exchange of the sort that can­not be accom­plished by phone, email or Face­book.  Must Be In Per­son.  It’s almost too painful to be with her, because I imme­di­ate­ly begin think­ing how much more I will miss her when we part.

We met up again with Cici to head for an orgy of shop­ping in SoHo.  Sepho­ra for the girls, JCrew for me, a pass through Dean and Delu­ca where I per­formed the nec­es­sary task of any long­time New York­er of bemoan­ing how Joel Delu­ca’s famous hand­writ­ing on spice jars has been turned into… a FONT.  Unbe­liev­able.  “I remem­ber when ALL the price signs for the meat were in his REAL hand­writ­ing!” I say tire­some­ly, and Alyssa nods sage­ly.  final­ly into For­ev­er 21, where the girls shopped in aban­don, pick­ing up t‑shirts of incred­i­ble cheap­ness and unknown fiber con­tent.  Alyssa looked around and said, “If some­one lit a match in here, the mer­chan­dise would go up in an instant.  It would­n’t so much burn as melt, and what would be left would be this big” — she made a ges­ture the size of a base­ball — “and it would out­last the universe.”

And that was our New York adven­ture.  Sure­ly not the last of the sum­mer, but the first, which makes it… the best.