This week, I had two moments with The New Yorker magazine.
First, I received a rejection email from their poetry department for something I had submitted, I kid you not, 27 months ago -- which, admittedly, is only less than 4 months in dog years.
Second, I read a thought-provoking essay published by those same bastard hounds. Titled "Why I Have Broken Up With New York," Lina Dunham writes, "Most people accept the city’s chaos as a toll for an expansive life. It took me several decades to realize that I could go my own way."
It's wonderfully written, and Lina speaks from much more experience with New York than I have had. Also, I understand her love of London, by comparison.
But I haven't broken up with New York. I'm still in love.
On visits this past week to the city, I've had the pleasure of people-watching the Manhattan streets from the M50 crosstown bus in the rain, watching an enjoyable film -- "The Penguin Lessons," complete with its homage to a favorite poem, "A Quoi Bon Dire" by Charlotte Mew -- at the Angelika; listening to a friendly and diverse circle of amateur Irish fiddlers and other musicians at the Slainte pub in the Bowery; listening to a nearly private performance of folk covers by Mae & Henry at the new Jameson's on 50th (if you ever see them, ask Henry to play "St. Augustine at Night"); fist bumping Mr. and Mrs. Met in Union Square and meeting Strat-O-Matic founder Hal Richmond at the Mets House; strolling on the new East Side Walkway under the 59th Street Bridge and the trams to Roosevelt Island; and mixing with the crowd huddled around my favorite painting, Van Gogh's "Starry Night," at the MOMA.Today, I also finally toured the sculpture garden outside the U.N. building. Years ago, it was open to the public, but now there's heavy security everywhere. This season's first guided-tour ticket to view the gardens was at 10:30 this morning, led by a French woman with flaming red hair and oversized sunglasses who apologized profusely that the Rose Garden was not yet in bloom.
I took the photos scattered throughout this post, including the ironic shot of Irish immigrants setting foot in America with the Trump World Tower looming in the background.
On the brief walk from my daughter's apartment building to the U.N., I had passed a giant inflatable rat on the sidewalk outside the German Consulate, as construction workers blowing air horns protested Eurostruct Inc.'s wages and work rules. A block further south, a disheveled man carried a large wooden cross, then held it up in front of the Trump building and started to pray.
I could go at least 27 months in suburban New Jersey without hearing all the languages I heard from 10 a.m. to noon today, without seeing all the art I saw, without seeing anyone -- no matter how loud or disheveled -- on the sidewalks in protest or in prayer.
To me, time in this city moves like dog years in reverse. So many things are possible in so short a time.
Here in New York, despite all its flaws... and in the words of another favorite poem... the world still sometimes seems to lie before us like a land of dreams, so various, so beautiful, so new.
