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.
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