I think one of the challenges of being a human being is to come to terms with the way many other humans are. Imperfect creatures, it seems to be their nature to sometimes war on one another, ruin the earth, and forget the most elemental messages of empathy and compassion. We can fume and sputter about it, or understand it as the nature of the world. Whenever I see a New York brownstone, I think of the promise of the world, a way to live. There are not many of them left in Manhattan, they are too valuable, too expensive.
There are lots standing in Brooklyn and I always pause to consider them and give thanks for them. One day, perhaps we will live in a world where it would be unimaginable to tear them down.
A Brooklyn philosopher on Union Street – the owner of an ice cream parlor – took it upon himself to share some relevant philosophy with his fellow citizens and passersby and I love him for that, and for his message. People in Brooklyn have lots of opinions and are often sharing them, it seems.
But his message surely resonates with me, as does the beautiful writing. With all of its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.
Brooklyn is a mish-mash of powerful places, all connected by history, the ethnic story in America, and the echoes of a time when communities cherished their monuments and architecture and built lasting monuments to the creative spirit. Americans seem to have lost their heart for monuments and cultural temples. All great civilizations build them, I think. The Brooklyn Museum was one of those places, but there are many in Brooklyn – the Library, Bam, Eastern Parkway. This museum seemed to sometimes overwhelm its own art the the people trying to see it, and this hallway captured that for me.
I think the way life works is you often pay a toll for the good things you want, the good things you get. Nothing is free, even when it is easy. There are two women I love dearly in the world, my wife and my daughter and they are rarely in the same place. Emma and I lead very different lives – she is a committed urbanite, and the thought of living in the country is almost incomprehensible to her, and I love my upstate county and the people in it, and as excited as I find Brooklyn, the thought of living there does not seem conceivable to me.
So that is the toll. We each live where we wish, and in the way we wish, without any judgement or pressure from the other, and that is a beautiful thing. But a good ways apart.
Emma is happy in her life and successful in her life, and what more could a father want? Well, maybe to see her more than two or three times a year, I suppose. And to be a bigger part of one another’s lives. I wish all the disruptions in in my life had worked out differently. But tolls are not bad things, just because they cost you. I do not lose sight of the fact that the best things are worth paying for, even if they cost. Tolls are the price we pay for living our lives. We don’t get it all. I do not spend much time looking back and none regretting my wonderful life.
I would never want Em to live any other life but her own and if the price is that we sometimes look at one another through a wide prism, or communicate mostly by text, then that is the price. On the train home, I found myself looking out the window and crying, and Maria asked what the matter was, and I said I sometimes just felt sad about being so far from my daughter. Sometimes, with people and with animals, the most loving thing you can do is to let go.
So there is little in life that brings me more joy than seeing the two women I love together, in the same place. They are so comfortable together. The world seems especially bright then. Can’t get enough of that, and so I love this shot of the two of them at the Brooklyn Museum Saturday.
One of the many things I love about being in Brooklyn is the sense of the creative spark everywhere. Every other person you meet is a writer, a painter, an artist. The coffee houses are filled with young writers staring at their Apple laptops, meeting with young editors. The pharmacies have as much art work in their windows as you see in most suburbs. It is one of those places where people with the creative spark go to make their way, and in New York City, from O Henry to now, that has never been an easy task. But the creative energy is everywhere – that exciting sense of story-telling and striving – and I was mesmerized by this young musician playing in the last light at Union and Fifth Avenue.
Maria and I must have walked a hundred miles in our three day, and I was always sorry to see the sun set because so much of what the light hit – painted murals on walls and windows – seemed to be capturing the creative energy of this hybrid place. Everywhere you looked, so much of what you saw, beauty and grime, renovation and decay, money and poverty all mushed up in a riotous symphony. I would love to be in such a place. I would not like being in such a place.
