Try to Remember...

Quite by accident, browsing on facebook, I came across a tape of Jerry Orbach singing Try to Remember, from the Fantasticks. All of a sudden my mind shot back to the summer of 63; during that summer I listened to the recording constantly. I was home, working in a park near the Bronx Zoo, (watching the changes in the neighborhood) and preparing for my senior year at Hopkins. 

Two images immdiately came to mind---the first, of myself in my family's apartment on Thwaites Place, listening to the record, and the second, was of course of J. Who was J? A freshman at Goucher that year when I was a senior at Hopkins. She had come to Goucher to act--and since I was the President of the Hopkins undergraudate theater group, we had to interact. She was thrilled by what I was---incredibly empathetic and wanted to be close to me. Only one problem: she was comitted to a boy friend who was a sophmore at Hamilton. That would not stop her from spending a lot of time with me---but of course--no sex, or even simple hugs and kisses. So what could I do? Once I made up my mind to leave her alone---then she saw me after my performance in J.B. by Archibald MacCleish. "I have never seen you so happy", she said. That was it---I could not give her up---and so for the next six or so months---our relationship, based on this "compromise" continued. Did I believe that at some point she would change, that she would leave her Hamilton boy friend for me?  As I sit here now, all I remember is her ability to "absorb" me. It did not end well; you can understand that. There are moments when I remember another side to her---an ability to push away, to be harsh, if she felt threatened or imposed upon. There were rules to our game.  Yet Try to Remember only made me feel her warmth--the energy in her that I believed in. Perhaps I am "distanced" enough now (well it is only 57 years later)  to simply focus on the warm memories.

The phone rings---a friend unexpectedly is in the neighborhood; we meet for coffee, discuss the state of the city; the pressure on possible Mayor elect Adams to move to the left; black theater, etc. I return to the computer in a very different place; memories of closeness seem to have vanished. I am ready for the next moment in my life.

And what of J? She is now 76, living, I think, in New Jersey (she is not on facebook!).  My fantasy of her is that she lives with a  'boyfriend" around her age---close to retirement--you know the whole thing. Has she "blown out her candles"? I don't know---probably at some point, some other song or play will evoke more memories of our relationship. Oh how I longed to have a girl friend in my senior year at Hopkins--how envious I was of those boys who had them. But that was a long time ago--- in the present.....

A day of Darkness.....

Sunday morning---already it has been raining for a while--seems to be letting up a bit now---are we just waiting for the brutal downpour that has been promised?  It means spending the whole day in the apartment---I think I have enough food for it---but just being hunkered down. Well, have to put up with it---lots to read, am reading a "tell all" now---kind of grim; don't really want to go into it any more.

Yesterday--my second trip to Brooklyn--this time to Bushwick--a place where in the past few years, I have spend many hours. Looked for my old "haunt" the Cobra Club, only to find that it was closed.  I went becasue the Bushwick Starr, one of my favorite theaters, was organizing an arts festival in Maria Hernandez park, right near the theater. But it was early, so I stopped off at a new "hangout" called Nook. It is a large, friendly venue---lots of room to "hang"---I really went there to check on my "bag", to make sure there would be no "trauma" in the park. But I ordered an ice coffee---and after a while it came (they were, at that moment, a little understaffed) and was very good. Outside, Irving Avenue seemed like a dream palace---a place that I knew, but now, even if I was there, was just imagining. But remember, in the last few years before the pandemic, especially after South fourth closed I hung out  there almost every Sunday Finally it was time to enter the park. Glad that I did---had good conversations with Noel, artistic director of the Starr, and Flako--my buddy who acts, directs, and runs acting classes for the neighborhood kids. Both of them were glad to see me---all of a sudden my trip had a purpose. 

Then I left them, and sat on a bench, near one of the places where they were distributing free fruits. The park was full of hispanic families---parents and kids; very few of the gentrifiers that Bushwick has become known for in the past seven or eight years. The kids, and their energy, were very mellow and self contained---both the girls and the boys. Most of them seemed around 8 or 9. I had a strong desire to ask any of them if they needed help in math---I wantd to help them right away, but I did not. After about an hour, I felt ready to leave---probably could have and should have stayed longer, but I was worried about the bag's behavior, so I went. Stopped off at Nook again, and took the risk of cleaning the bag---not perfect but needed to get some junk out before the long trip back to Manhattan. Would the bag behave? Walking back to the subway, I passed a packed beer hall, filled with twenty somethings and such from the neighborhood, all relaxing and deep into conversations. So that is where the gentrifiers were at that moment! Just as the atmosphere in the park, seemed to be about the hispanic population, this atmosphere, was completely white and (I suppose) privileged. Anyway, made it back to the subway, the L going into Manhattan came--very crowded; I sat down next to a few people hoping that all would go well---it did, and I made it back to the apartment without any incident! Yay! Just as I had felt the week before when I returned from the production at the Navy Yard, I felt strong and felt very satisfied. Going to Brooklyn in the future was going to be possible!

Looking out the window, I see the rain falling steadily, though without much force. Maybe that is all that it will be...well, I can hope...will report soon.

Tuesday morning....

 have just returned to Jhumpa Lahiri's book of novella's called Ubnaccustomed Earth. The writing is beautiful, so effortless, the earth is America, actually Cambridge Mass and its environs, and those unaccustomed to it are the newly arrived Indian families. The husbands are college educated and have settled in Cambridge because there are jobs in engineering and such there. The mothers, who have met their husbands through arranged marriages in India, stay home. The children are caught in the middle. They go to Ivy league colleges or thereabouts, and have good professional jobs, but....It is the final novella called Henna and Kaushik that I have been reading this morning; I have read it several times before, but it calls to me, envelopes me---really takes me in. Her sensitivity, her sense of place, her sense of a person's isolation and the opposite of it---the bonding of two people either for practical purposes or sSometimes for totally romantic purposes---this is what draws me in. 

Yesterday I took two books out of the library, one a novel, one a tell all, both of them seem negligible to me at this point, I don't even want to name them in this post. Their writing is so ordinary compared to Ms. Lahiri's 

Saturday took my first trip to Brooklyn since the pandemic and the onset of my illness. To the Navy Yard on Flushing Avenue---wow! even in the short time (17 months) that I have not been to Brooklyn I saw so many changes---mostly new luxury buildings, of course, what did I expect, but I could not believe that they could have been built this far north. No subways near the Navy Yard, where friends of mine were putting on a pop up theater afternoon. Nice to be there and see and interact with some people who were part of my community before the pandemic. But the walks in the heat! First from BAM to Flushing and Carleton--how many blocks..six or seven long ones. But then the return: in the past, I had approached the Navy Yard from the F, so I thought it would be a fairly easy walk to go back that way---but I was wrong. A long walk in the blazing heat from Carleton to downtown Brooklyn, sweating all the way, fearful of taking off my long sleeved shirt lest my ostomy bag reveal itself. Would not opt for a cab;  even as I saw one as I got near the bridge, instead, continued walking until I found the High Street station on the A line, which would bring me back to Manhattan.  All during the intense walk---with all the frustration of not being able to see a subway entrance, I thought to myself: "you are sick, and you can still do this?" Yet I pushed on, my body obeying my need to move.  Finally I returned to the apartment, amazed at the story of this trip.

So it is Tuesday morning---a day of unstructured time. Will find out how events evolve....

Thursday morning...

 Interesting day yesterday. In the early evening, I participated in an online trivia game created by the Kaslynn, who is the Assistant Head of Equality for Flatbush. She expected a bigger online comittment from the members, but in the end, it was only myself and "Miss Elias", a Jamaican grandmother and member of E4f who played. Had a great time, the liveliness that Kaslynn projected and the idea that I was really keeping all of this going, made me feel very strong. Very focused in a world that I really like. Nothng "romantic", nothing moody or reflective--just living in the moment. Very different from earlier in the day. I was in the library on 82nd and Amsterdam. There is a book that I have reading there---I don't take it out, It is called The Power Notebooks and it is by Katie Roiphe. The book is a diary-meditation, on her life, but it really focuses on her relationships with men--both permanent and fleeting. I get lost in it---why? The loneliness, the search for contact, the search for immediate contact--that gets to me. Sometimes she admits that she chooses men to sleep with whom she does not have much feeling for, ;yet she does it. Where am I in this? Somehow I see myself--the way I present myself to women---"non manipulative--forthright" as exactly the kind of man she would NOT choose to have a brief affair with. But I read on--perhaps I am attracted to the excitement I identify with her choices, or feelings. 

When I have read about fifty pages, and kept myself cool---for that is what I have really come to the library for---I replace the book on the shelf. I know that the next time I go to this library i will go right to it, but I don't want to take it home with me. On these hot days, the libraries are my only destination---I build the vision of my day around them. Today the plan (in my mind) is to go south, and spend most of my time at the Lincoln Center library---lots of books or plays or essays on Shakespeare to browse, but also I will bring the book that I am currently reading---a biography of Ethel Rosenberg---to the library and make that my essential reading focus. Quite a contrast: the musings of Katie Roiphe, played against the totally realistic life that Ethel Rosenberg lived, before she was jailed. Ethel had no time for reflection---a husband who was living pay check to pay check; two young sons that she was very comitted to taking care of--no, this was a very practical life, built around the attempt of a young couple to rise above the poverty that they were born into. 

The "poor Jews" of the twenties, thirties and forties---why does that life resonate with me--born and raised in a comfortable middle class environment---far away from the horrors of poverty. And yet I know them. What does that mean...?  Will return to this at another time.

Saturday night, between

 Schubert's Trout quintet and the end of the Met game, here I am. (Maybe also the end of the Mets). Spent the day, an extremely hot one, at two libraries: the one by Lincoln Center and the one closest to me, on Amsterdam and 82nd. Both good places to go into, just to get away from the heat, but I was able to read some of tomorrow'sTimes at the second library. Did not choose any book from either library; just could not make up my mind and did not want to commit to any one book or vision. Still have Lopate's collection of Essays and a play called Take a Giant Step, from the fifties, out. But neither interests me very much. Three books that I wanted are at different libraries,and with the heat, and my "tiredness" which I think is caused by the zeloda (chemo) pills, I did not feel like going to any of them.

Here comes the "Trout" theme from Schubert's work. How long ago did I become interested in chamber music? Probably early twenties, about the same time I was listening to as much Mozart as I could get my hands on. That would be summer of 67. A bridge from seven months sorting mail at the Post Office on 33rd street to my second social work job. Only three years from my "triumphant" last year at Hopkins. But this was so different. Confused, working nights at the Post Office so that i could audition for stage work during the day, but found myself unable to deal with that system---very few friends---most days spent reading---read Roth's When She Was Good, Malamud's The Fixer, and Kohl's non fiction book about teaching in Spanish Harlem---36 Children. Had to change my life style; wanted to be alive in the evenings---to date, interact, etc. So I made the transition, and got a job at Riverdale Children's Agency--an agency that worked with black foster children and their placements.  I liked the work--i remember two brothers, Turan and Maurice--knew them well; I wonder where they are now? Can't believe that they are adults--they are stuck in my mind as teen agers. The change worked---I was free enough to have my first serious "affair" that winter and spring. But my vision of myself as an actor had ended. 

Schubert's music is ending soon. Back to the baseball game, if it is not finished? Must get out, walk again---far too much time in the apartment and looking at this "screen".  Will report soon.

sunday evening....

not much happening---did have a nice talk with an old friend, Alvin A, today. I should have called him sooner, but the occasion of my calling him was the news of the death of Arthur French---a terrific actor---also somone who I knew a bit, but who I loved watching create roles. He instinctively could create any type of person---first saw him doing the opening monologue in Van Peebles' Aint Supposed to Die a Natural Death---a play that gets stronger in my memory as the years go by. It is a virulently anti-racist work--never received the acclimation it deserved, probably because it is much more confrontative then say, the work of August Wilson. But Arthur, there was something so pure about his acting---he was 89, but I feel such sadness at his death. 

Yesterday voyaged to the new re-done library on 5th avenue between 40th and 39th street. An amazing place---even has a snack bar on the top floor. Saw many books that I was tempted to borrow, but ended up taking out none. Why? Committed to finishing the one I am reading now---1066, about the Norman Conquest of England. Almost finished---really enjoying it--I love English history---I see so many books in the library about England's history that I could take out and absorb myself in, but is that the  direction that I want to go?  Also in that library--the five autobiographical novels of Henry Roth---I have re read two in the past couple of months; very tempted to take out one of the others---but ofcourse, I stopped myself. It did not help that I had a vicious stomach ache---I did not want to carry anything back with me to the apartment because of that. I returned to the apartment---took a nap, and the pain went away---almost washed itself away, and my body felt limitless.

Rest of the night---chill and follow the one remaining baseball game being played this evening.  Tomorrow dentist---possibly a hair cut (I need one) and the rest---all up to me. Some traveling to a different neighborhood or borough---possibly, must play it by ear, will report soon.