Monday, October 02, 2006
Autumn In New York
Today is glorious: the air has a crisp chill, a regata of puffy clouds drift across a robin's egg blue sky, and the resplendant golden light warms the skin and illuminates every leaf, quivering in the slight breeze. The coves of Larchmont's harbor were a rich blue, glittering with the mottles of sunlight, between smooth glassy stretches of still mirror-likewater. I am in my childhood home for Yom Kippur, the culmination of the Jewish high holy days, ten days of annual reflection on our moral and our mortal natures, a day marked by fasting and meditation. It is today that observant Jews self-inflict suffering to bring themselves closer to an awareness of their mortality, and reflect their failures to realize their potential for greatness to inspire another year of striving to live the good life. In a few hours, we will have friends and family over for a bit of a feast, the break-fast, where I will indulge myself with all types of Jewish goodies, from bagels and lox to wine to my momma's noodle kugel in an orgiastic celebration of choosing life (well, orgiastic for Judaism anyway), but for now I'm just hungry.
But rather than subject my readers to a rehashing of my personal shortcomings or a musing on the limited time we have to enjoy life (though, if you would indulge me, I do love the following line from Gates of Repentance, my synogogue's chosen siddur for the holiday: "We are each a shattered urn, grass that will wither, a flower that soon fades, a speck of dust floating, a dream soon forgotten"), or to go on about the awesome technology convention that I took my classes to this week, or the Torquemada-esque priest who presided over my cousin's wedding on Saturday, or to relate a story of animatronic panda stuffed animals singing and dancing inside of Thai girls's clothing that must be told soon, I just want to recall walking to my parents's house from the train station at 2 AM Friday night, after a decadent night of tacos and beer, chocolate fondue and 20-year tawny port, barely catching the last train to Westchester, and walking down the hill in front of the Manyons's old house (which I used to be afraid to ride down with my bike), stepping into a pool of darkness between the orange territories of the suburban streetlamps, and looking up to see that majestic hunter, Orion, rising into the interstellar blackness of a cool night sky, driving out the summer's heat and frivolity, an earnest beacon of strength emerging out of the chaos and disorder to mark a new season, a new age. Sure, in a few months, we will be chummy, Orion and I, and he will again be a familiar sight, a landmark in the winter sky, guarding us through the frost until he is chased away by the Scorpion of watery thaw. But Friday night I was taken aback to see him, and he, moreso than my neighbors reprimanding me for not wearing a jacket, even moreso than the WBGO DJs playing Billie Holiday, he was a herald for the new day, and I stood, shivering slightly, gazing out at these nuclear explosions across unfathomable distances, and I knew that I need no castles in Spain, it was good to live it again.
But rather than subject my readers to a rehashing of my personal shortcomings or a musing on the limited time we have to enjoy life (though, if you would indulge me, I do love the following line from Gates of Repentance, my synogogue's chosen siddur for the holiday: "We are each a shattered urn, grass that will wither, a flower that soon fades, a speck of dust floating, a dream soon forgotten"), or to go on about the awesome technology convention that I took my classes to this week, or the Torquemada-esque priest who presided over my cousin's wedding on Saturday, or to relate a story of animatronic panda stuffed animals singing and dancing inside of Thai girls's clothing that must be told soon, I just want to recall walking to my parents's house from the train station at 2 AM Friday night, after a decadent night of tacos and beer, chocolate fondue and 20-year tawny port, barely catching the last train to Westchester, and walking down the hill in front of the Manyons's old house (which I used to be afraid to ride down with my bike), stepping into a pool of darkness between the orange territories of the suburban streetlamps, and looking up to see that majestic hunter, Orion, rising into the interstellar blackness of a cool night sky, driving out the summer's heat and frivolity, an earnest beacon of strength emerging out of the chaos and disorder to mark a new season, a new age. Sure, in a few months, we will be chummy, Orion and I, and he will again be a familiar sight, a landmark in the winter sky, guarding us through the frost until he is chased away by the Scorpion of watery thaw. But Friday night I was taken aback to see him, and he, moreso than my neighbors reprimanding me for not wearing a jacket, even moreso than the WBGO DJs playing Billie Holiday, he was a herald for the new day, and I stood, shivering slightly, gazing out at these nuclear explosions across unfathomable distances, and I knew that I need no castles in Spain, it was good to live it again.
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I do appreciate the sentiment of your late night walk in suburbia; there is nothing quite so sublime as the feeling of home, the safefy of darkness, and the great emotive chasm between city chaos and quiet unlite streets and the smell of the past (or rotting leaves). I grew up in such a place too, not that far away on the other side of Westchester. However, when I have sojourned back since moving to exurbia--converted farmlands where neighborhoods are still only specks on the blank open landscape formed by many decades, perhaps centuries, of near constant agricultural use--when I go back to Westchester it all seems so tiny. It is if the whole place has been shrunken down and my childhood memories no longer fit, not quite adult-sized afterall.
My whole neighborhood growing up fit into a "big" mile loop, maybe 50 houses at most, all with "large" spacious lawns, that now look puny. Now I have neighbors whose entire properties are about the same size as my old suburban circle, yet because it is so open there is less privacy here. Your post describes (to me) still being able to return to natal suburban womb and feel safe in the night (in contrast to the edgy city), a journey made possible by your self-imposed exile to the concrete jungle. Adding to this, I wish to conjure the issue of relative scale. Places like Larchwoods all look so small to me now ... now that I see deer out my window and can hear the sound of giant lawn tractors on any given day and embrace the night sky daily on long walks with the dogs without ever leaving my property. The sky is bigger than ever here. It smells nothing like a tiny little winding street of upper-middle class NY suburbian memory, whose vibe you have conjured well.
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My whole neighborhood growing up fit into a "big" mile loop, maybe 50 houses at most, all with "large" spacious lawns, that now look puny. Now I have neighbors whose entire properties are about the same size as my old suburban circle, yet because it is so open there is less privacy here. Your post describes (to me) still being able to return to natal suburban womb and feel safe in the night (in contrast to the edgy city), a journey made possible by your self-imposed exile to the concrete jungle. Adding to this, I wish to conjure the issue of relative scale. Places like Larchwoods all look so small to me now ... now that I see deer out my window and can hear the sound of giant lawn tractors on any given day and embrace the night sky daily on long walks with the dogs without ever leaving my property. The sky is bigger than ever here. It smells nothing like a tiny little winding street of upper-middle class NY suburbian memory, whose vibe you have conjured well.
# posted by 
: Oct 2, 2006, 10:04:00 PM
: Oct 2, 2006, 10:04:00 PM << Home
