Love Letter to New York

Clip clop, flip flop, patter, patter, pat.

My sandals smack the city streets as I walk long blocks across and up, across and up. With every step, I soak in New York's pulsing dynamism, as if my feet are sponges with direct links to the city's life source.

I had a date with Shawn, one of my favorite people, oldest friends and the one who inspired me to start this blog.

We met at the 92nd St Y to hear a former colleague of his present her new book, How to Raise an Adult. Afterwards, starving, we raced down Lexington and across 21st, heading west to Shawn's new home and new puppy. 

Booker came to dinner with us, because in New York, dogs are quasi-people. We sat outside at Pastai, at a sidewalk table, ordered a glass of cold Grillo (me) and a beer (Shawn), and watched as people ogled the wriggling pup- goofy, beaming smiles on their faces. Neighborhood friends, memories and laughter floated around us; surely that's what pushed the humidity and heat away because there was no trace of either. 

After cupcakes at Billy's Bakery, it was finally time to part ways. Two good hugs before Shawn turned left and I right. As I looked down the glowing avenue, my ambivalence about catching a cab joined hands with the total inability to spot an empty one. Lucky me, I took off walking.

I love the women in skintight jeans and baggy shirts, draped over electric meters and taking long, deep drags on their cigs. This is the only place that still seems remotely chic.

...the men in impossibly tiny booths guarding lots and listening to tunes from foreign homelands.

...the bow-tied doormen who nod politely, the brassy front doors behind them gleaming without a fingerprint to be seen.

...the ambient smell of dog piss, delivery men on bikes, steaming plates of late-night fare slid atop shimmed-even outdoor tables, lights, drips, languages, horns. 

...mountains of trash tied neatly in bags and packed neatly in boxes lined the sidewalks, turning them into trenches. 

Finally, more out of acquiescence to the later hour than anything else, I hailed a cab. Immediately I remembered why I both love NY taxi rides and feel as if my life is in vague danger when in them. 

My driver, a handsome Sikh, is as familiar with the streets as he must be with his own hands. He winds in and around, through and across, threading needles that seem actually to have closed up; like neglected pierced ears. 

His window remains open, and periodically, he calls out to other drivers. At Tesla square, we come within an angel's breath of crashing. I thrill in it all.

I beg him to let me out early, for there is more to see before I leave these streets. I pass babies being strolled despite the darkness of the night. I wince at the homeless man sleeping on the sidewalk. I wonder at a man making music out of nothing and everything. It's past 11 and no one is sleeping while back home, everyone is.

The diamond district lights are bright: faceted gems atop columns glowing like beacons. Anywhere else those would look so hokey, but not here. I see Radio City, Rock Center, men with walkers, women with canes, hot dog and pretzel vendors, seemingly sourceless clouds of smoke. 

It takes me ages to get to sleep because I'm so wired, but I convince myself into slumber with the promise of "more tomorrow."

Fast forward 19 hours, and I'm nearly catatonic from enthusiastically BlogHer'ing all day long. I get in bed but then remember just where the hell I am. New York as a motivation unlike any other. I slither into jeans and sandals and head out into another night, north this time, up to Columbus Circle, along the perimeter of Central Park and up Broadway.

I pass a man kneeling with sincere concern next to a homeless woman wearing little more than an old sheet. I have seen her before. I know I have. I stop to see if I can help. "No, no, she is fine," the kindly man says.

New York gets a bad rap for being cold, but I see humanity everywhere. 

A barefoot chap is trying to entice everyone to blow bubbles, giant ones, using ropes and poles. "It's free, man. Bubbles!"

I eat outside again, this time at Boulud Sud, and revel in every bite of crispy artichokes and an heirloom tomato panzanella salad. A baby, maybe two months, squeaks in his mother's arms at the next table. Two elderly women walk by, clutching each others arms fondly.

Sated, I head towards the Park and am unable to resist the siren song of a public drum and dance show taking place near a fountain. I find a spot on the marble base and sink down happily. The music is electric, the dancers in complete sync. Their bodies seem hinged, multifaceted, powered by an engine. I cannot stop watching them and it takes everything I have not to jump up and join in.

A police cruiser pulls up and drops two people off. The woman is crying. You don't often see the police serving as carpool. No one notices or cares. The cop drives off, the woman wipes her eyes. The barefoot bubble guy is still walking around talking about bubbles. The drummers are keeping our heartbeats for us.

An extremely drunk woman with a fifth of vodka and a shirt just a bit too small, is overly invested in securing tips for the drummers. She takes their "tips here" drum and pressures viewers. The "manager" of the group politely asks her to put the damn drum down. She does but then tries to tuck dollar bills in each drummer's shirt. While they're drumming. As if they're providing musical lap dances. 

Again, she is encouraged to back off. "Is she with you all?" the manager asks Barefoot Bubble. "I'm not with anyone!" drunk woman replies. But she slinks away and sits quietly. Until I see her arms rise and start waving dollar bills in the air. 

The concert ends, and I realize the time. I must go get some sleep. But this city. Will it?

A Louisiana corner, Part 2

The water in south Louisiana is always the color of a good roux: somewhere between milk and dark chocolate. And depending on where you are, whether the tide is in or out, and if a recent rainstorm has stirred up settled detritus -natural and manmade- from the bottom, it can resemble roux's thick consistency.

You can never see more than an inch deep, and the older I get, the less I trust what lies underneath. For as long as I can remember, mullets have flung themselves from the bayou over and over as they travel. It seems utterly exhausting and inefficient, but perhaps they too are suspicious of the murky depths. I mean, since the gators moved in, and ducks, geese and hunting dogs have gone missing, I'm sure uneasy. My mom sends pictures of the Louisiana Jaws she spots- sunning on the grass just across the bayou, in our boat slip, and so on. You couldn't pay me to jump in that water now.

We used to jump though, from high pilings that guarded the bridge posts. Don't you love the cross RIGHT next to our jump site. Safe. For so many reason. This is me and fire-out-my-butt Trish.

Early on, Mom taught my sister and me to crab. We'd tie chicken necks with kitchen string, affix these lures to wharf cleats and slowly let them sink into the opaque abyss. Patiently and quietly, net at the ready, we'd wait, looking for subtle tugs or outright jerks. When something seemed to bite, one of us would pull the line up as slowly as possible, for crabs are skittish and quick (and definitely what you hope is on the other end of the fleshy neck).

When a claw or those beady eyes came into view, the one with the net would deftly scoop our catch and hurriedly toss it into a bucket or ice chest. Anything other than crabs got tossed back in, released from death's grip until another day. 

Those poor crabs would skitter back and forth frantically, hard-shell legs clicking desperately against the prison. I felt so badly for them but I also knew just how delicious they'd taste later, freshly steamed. Gulf crabs are scrumptious. All Gulf seafood is, really, especially the shellfish. 

I could never throw the crabs in the pot of boiling water. Still can't. But I appreciated Mom's fortitude and loved the aftermath. She would cover our kitchen table with newspaper, and we'd sit down with nutcrackers and picks to pry open the key on the crabs' bellies and crack open their claws. Peeling crabs is an onerous task and I always found the gills and other innards fascinating in a disgusting way, but each bite of that delicate meat made all the work well worth it.

Each time I take Jack and Ol to Lake Charles, I am seized by a yen for a cupcake from Jo's Party House and so we make a quick pilgrimage across town. Jo's white cake simply cannot be beat, and despite the insane cupcake fever that's overtaken the country in recent years, Jo's cupcakes are still just $1 each. They know they have a perfect, beloved product but have stayed true and humble, and honestly, I think that makes their cakes taste that much better. 

Jo's has been in the same tiny building on the corner of Ethel and Sallier (pronounced Sal-yay) forever. There's an oak tree in the middle of the gravel parking lot, an AC unit is always humming from one window, and a large, three-tier, painted wooden cake serves as its sign.

Without fail, Jo's is busy. Freshly iced cakes decorated with John Deere tractors, Thomas trains and singing Elsas wait on shelves, ready to be picked up happily for parties later in the day. 

In four bites, I'm done. Perfectly sated. I am an avid baker, and I've made many cakes in my life, but despite my efforts, I can never figure out just what makes Jo's cakes so airy, delicate and flavorful. The consistency of both the cake itself and the quality over time are impeccable, and I am grateful for that. Nothing changes except for the color of the flower buds piped on top the main sugary cloud (and even that is rare; traditionally the buds are pale pink, baby blue and yellow).

On the way to the airport, we pass a yard in which, for as long as I can remember, have stood two decorative deer. As with much else in Louisiana, these deer are utterly dilapidated and we can never understand why their owners haven't replaced or removed them. Of the deer's original four ears, only one remains, an entire shin is missing, and their chipped paint makes them look as if they are mottled in a diseased way. 

But as with so much else, they are part of tradition of going and leaving home, and I love them for that.

A Louisiana corner, in July: Part 1

It is the kind of hot that you start to sense while still inside. The kind that pushes back on you the moment you consider facing it. Heavy, sludgy, steamy; the earth as a cast iron pot full of gumbo that's been simmering over a flame for hours. You remove the lid to taste for seasoning but not before being walloped by a fist of heat.

The windows drip with humidity, lizards hide away in potted plants, people stay indoors unless a good breeze is blowing. Then, a rocking chair on a covered porch with ceiling fans might be tolerable. 

Everything slows down, conserving energy, seeking respite and biding time. 

"When do you run?" I ask a friend.
"Before 6 am or after dinner," she replies as she hands me a bag of sage and sweet red peppers from her garden. It looks like summertime Christmas. The sage leaves are each the size of a cow's ear; they like the sunny sauna just fine.

Southwest Louisiana in July is not for the faint of heart. As those who have attempted to style their hair know, the summertime elements are a forceful blend of sweat-, frizz- and near-panic-inducing inputs. Temperatures and humidity levels regularly hover near 100 (degrees and percent), mosquitos swarm, and swaths of pancake-flat land at or below sea-level provide little in the way of relief. It's an insanity trinity, really, except many of us never seem to succumb. Not enough to stop loving the place, at least. 

It is unlike anywhere else in the U.S.. Acres of thick, wiry St. Augustine carpet run alongside lazy bayous and glassy lakes. Cypress trees -their knees, trunks and stumps- resemble arboreal mountain ranges studding shore and shallow. They are supremely suited for a swampy life, and Louisianians are all the luckier for that. 

Luckier still for the love that Oaks have for Louisiana climes. They grow up and out over the decades, arms reaching into a wide embraces with plenty of room for all. They let us hang hammocks from their trunks and swings from their upper branches. Wooden planks are tacked up as ladders for kids, and birds find their boughs perfect for nests. Spanish moss, a gray hairnet you want to touch, hangs decorously from them too, mysterious curtains behind which anything might be found. 

I often think of my homeland as a verdant swiss cheese: lush green country hole-punched by an intricate system of muddy waterways. Everything is some state of disrepair, for what doesn't shift and age atop an ever-moving, scorching base?

Quite often, the move toward ruin adds immeasurable charm, and indeed, were it not for its dynamism, Louisiana wouldn't be nearly as special: flat and hot aren't much without a constant infusion of je ne sais quoi. And this has led to both a remarkable acceptance of eccentricity and a laissez faire attitude among many down there.

This morning, for example, before I finished packing, the boys wanted to take me for a ride in the golf cart a friend loaned us a few days back. They'd driven with Mom a few times and I was going to see all they'd learned. It wasn't yet 9am, Dad was wearing a hospital greens top tucked into ancient Levis and a sweat-stained cap and clutching a mug of coffee, and I was still in the pajama shorts and tee I'd slept in. I slipped my feet into Mom's fluorescent green Crocs, the five of us belted ourselves into the spunky Precedent and we took off through the neighborhood (this picture is from a previous trip so not representative of just how odd we may have looked).

Ol, sitting on Mom's lap, drove first, and after a lap, Jack took over. Because he is Jack and cannot resist a lever or button, he pressed all available, and we stalled on the main road. Soon enough, he and I were pushing the cart while Mom and Ol steered, and I am telling y'all that not one person seemed to think anything was remotely weird about any aspect of the situation. And if we'd needed help, all passersby would have stopped.

I must have seen 25 people during my few days home. We did the rounds one afternoon but also ran into friendly faces all around town: my childhood dentist; my high school English teacher; the man who sold Tom my wedding band; mothers of friends from elementary school on. All have known me for seemingly ever, some since I was five.

We come away with a bag of just-picked garden tomatoes, a book recommendation, a plea to come swim again, a Mason jar of homemade pimiento cheese. We reminisce, catch up, share a drink and then a tight hug. Nothing is far. So many are familiar. 

I think we can all agree that Louisiana is far from perfect (um, Bobby Jindal anyone?), but I deeply love so much about it.