Week in Seven Words #565

This covers the week of 11/15/20 - 11/21/20.

capturing

Leaves sink into mirror-like water.

dammed

When he serves us drinks in his home, he talks about his life in a torrent. The words have been pent up by too much time spent alone. Now, his mask muffles them as they pour out.

desperate

She's been overlooked for so long. That's the main reason she's looking for an effortless win.

low-spirited

She's been in a low mood all day. The only things that keep our conversation going are the conventional greetings and the well-wishes we've said many times. Hopefully, these good wishes have some power.

readerly

As I wait in line at the library to return a book, the lady behind me gasps and tells me she has that same book on reserve. It will be going from me to her. I don't tell her that I lost interest in it after 20 pages, because she's happy to see it, and maybe she'll like it more than I did.

repeatedly

Some find comfort in their routines. Others start to question the point of their routines.

squeaky

"What's the special ingredient?" he asks, lingering over the dish, and she's tempted to hint at the raging pest problem in the city, the rats creeping into homes in higher numbers. Might as well put them to good use, right? But she figures he won't appreciate the joke.

Week in Seven Words #564

This covers the week of 11/8/20 - 11/14/20.

boredom

He's under the impression that his boredom makes him unique. He believes it's a sign of superior intelligence.

eventful

Quarantined at home, she wears an evening gown to her microwaved dinner.

inevitability

Was it always going to happen this way? Could there have been another way? Another reminder to shift from what-ifs to what I have to do now.

innocence

There's enchantment in his voice when he points out the leaves whirling, settling on the sidewalk in a cascade of gold.

pasty-faced

We Skype again, our voices subdued. I don't even think it's something we enjoy doing anymore, seeing each other's faces through a screen. There's something tiring and unreal about it.

upcycled

As the sun sets, we stroll among dog sculptures made of plastic bags. They're cleverly done, colorful, a contrast to the loose bags and other bits of garbage along the street. Afterwards, we sit on a bench and talk for a while, until it gets too cold and dark.

walking

The day is made better by changing leaves and weather that's cool, not cold.

Week in Seven Words #562

This covers the week of 10/25/20 - 10/31/20.

deadlines

The assignment drags into the night. At one point I picture myself shutting the laptop, sliding into bed, and forgetting about deadlines. A peaceful thought, but not a realistic possibility.

initiative

On vacant private land, a homeless man is assembling a home. It won't be long before it's torn down. In the meantime, he's brought in materials from other neighborhoods and set up an unsteady shack with tarp. Several feet from it are a barrel and a bucket, some canvas bags and a shopping cart.

nemesis

During two weeks of staying shut up in her apartment, her most exciting moment, she reports, was arming herself with bug spray and a Marble notebook to hunt down a large roach.

profuse

The leaves on the thornless honey locust trees are a vivid yellow. One fountaining yellow tree after another, the pavement spattered in bright leaves.

realism

"For Halloween," he tells me over Skype, "I'm pretending to be an alcoholic." He has a mostly finished bottle of whiskey on his desk, in full view of the camera.

transporting

The idea of buying a house appeals to him much more than the reality of living in one, maintaining it, and cleaning it. So he goes on Redfin and stares longingly at a ranch house in Lancaster, PA that he'll never buy. Because the floor plan is online, he pictures what he would put in each room and wonders whether two recliner chairs would fit in the tiny screened porch.

virion

I spot a kid dressed up as COVID-19, what the virus looks like under a microscope. It's a costume both funny and depressing.

Week in Seven Words #551

This covers the week of 8/9/20 - 8/15/20.

beware

The moment has arrived: We're getting pizza from a restaurant. A milestone during a year like this. As we wait outside the pizza place for our order, we stare into a neighboring window display with a sign that advertises psychic readings. A woman comes up to us and warns us not to see the psychic. "They went to jail for stealing people's fortunes!" Her voice is harsh, her eyes hard and bright. I wonder if she's one of the psychic's victims. Or maybe the pandemic has pushed her into the borderlands between sanity and madness.

crowns

From our bench on a high point in the park, the view is only tree canopies, thick with summer growth. Layers of leaves, subtly shifting shades of green.

nescient

The less I'm exposed to the contents of their brains, the more faith I have in humanity. 

pouring

After a morning of heavy rain and thunder, the sun emerges like yolk from a cracked shell.

rassle

They snipe at each other, sometimes viciously, but I think it's a strange comfort to them, to get tangled up together in long text threads.

 

starkly

On one side of the street, there's a stretch of restaurants with lively outdoor seating, people crammed around tables on the sidewalk as pedestrians and dogs ease past them. On the other side of the street, there's a stretch of shuttered businesses and homeless people asleep under construction scaffolding.

streamlet

On its way to the lake, the stream tumbles over rocks. Dogs dip into the running water and shake the droplets away.

Week in Seven Words #523

This covers the week of 1/26/20 - 2/1/20.

apart

Who does he talk to when he needs to confide in someone? Who do I talk to?

groaning

I hear what sounds like a ghost moaning, but it's just a bus easing up to the curb late at night.

marcescence

What is the phenomenon of trees holding onto their brown, shriveled leaves in the winter?

plumpness

A narrow metal shelf bulging with cartons of chocolate milk. 

self-protective

Refusing to stay in the bitter overflow of another person's emotions.

stalled

They present us with a packet of forms and with a platter of purple grapes and potato chips that aren't really potato chips but are supposedly something healthier. The meeting is much like the one months ago. Similar concerns raised, the same pairs of hands tied, but at least we're venting a little.

vaguely

They remind me that they still know I exist. Now and then, I flicker into their awareness.

Week in Seven Words #461

artistry
They give me a beautifully crafted card. It opens like a red flower with many delicate petals.

boneheaded
Two teenaged boys take turns stepping on the head of a rake, to make it fly up at them. They want to see if they can stop it from hitting their face at the last moment.

circulation
The ice breaker activity he proposes: after stating your name, demonstrate your favorite stretch or warm-up exercise. Someone else has already done jumping jacks, so I go with toe touches.

dimension
I've been visiting their house for years and only now discover that they have an attic.

plenty
I study the table in appreciation before the food gets demolished. There are green glistening vegetables, a mound of mashed yam, two small bowls of gleaming cranberry sauce, trays of beef, turkey, and chicken... a feast.

raking
The crackle of leaves. The scrape of the rake. The hiss of leaves compacted in trash bags.

undercurrent
A rough edge of anxiousness and resentment, a perception of favoritism, mars an otherwise fun board game.

Week in Seven Words #459

burnishing
The leaves by the lake light up in a shade of gold seen in Medieval art.

eyelids
The western-facing windows look like eyelids in the fading sunset. Some are peach in color. Others are grayish, creamy, or dusky.

ginkgo
The leaves stamped to the ground are like the handprints of trees. One of them I can immediately identify: the ginkgo, its leaves fan-shaped.

gluttonous
The sleek, rustling zippiness of ducks. They tear after chunks of English muffin on the south shore of the lake. Along the northern shore, people are feeding geese. The geese are impatient and aggressive. They barge out of the water for more food and honk their indignation when their demands aren't quickly satisfied.

relational
In front of a narrow house, in a yard as small as a cardboard box, an old woman tells a young girl, "You're a sister, a granddaughter, a daughter, a cousin..." She spells out the relationships that help the child define herself.

similarity
A man who used to be in the Chinese air force and a musician dressed in military garb from the American Revolutionary War both have daughters enrolled in the University of Pittsburgh.

symphonic
The colors of the leaves are lush and bold. They've erupted against the backdrop of a broad river with cliffs on the other shore. By my waist and feet are delicate purple flowers, a gentle counterpoint to the trees that burst like fireworks.

Floating Pumpkins, the Battle of Fort Washington, and Autumn Foliage

Two recent NYC parks events worth noting –

One was on 10/28 and involved a flotilla of pumpkins tugged across the Harlem Meer in Central Park by two people in kayaks.



Here is the flotilla getting set up, around sunset.



A little earlier, I had walked around some other parts of Central Park, including the Reservoir:


This brilliant glow was in a clearing a little north of the Reservoir:


Without meaning to, I detoured to the northwest of the park, where The Pool is especially lovely in autumn:


And I crossed east again, to where the Harlem Meer is, through the North Woods:

Week in Seven Words #433

ambiguous
On hearing the announcement of her retirement, he isn't sure whether to clap. Would clapping come across as congratulatory, or would it reveal what he really thinks?

beckoning
Dancers in costume have drawn people under the tents, in a pause for music, shared enjoyment, the sense of being part of a larger culture, and a reminder that they're not always locked into the pace of work and errands.

magnificent
The window at the historic synagogue is a giant disc of shimmering blue.

peckish
A robin with a worm twitching in its beak waits to see what else we'll uncover when we pull out the next weed.

refreshes
Leaves are layered, green and purple, in the lamplight. After a day of rain, the air is moist and cool.

retreating
A small, quiet square, a bench, and a flowering tree.

sought
I have a poignant dream of her in which she's younger and in better health. I spot her across a city street at night. Soon after, we're on a train on a gray day, and she's heading for the house of one of her grandsons. She has an older address, one he's moved away from, but insists it's the one she wants to go to.

Week in Seven Words #411

appeal
Before the clouds release their cold drizzle, he sits on the lip of an inactive fountain and sings "Stand By Me."

cutouts
Some of the leaves are wrinkly stars. Others are broad hands and tear drops. They're everywhere; above, below.

defending
They make fun of the way she talks, so I stand up for her.

solo
A grizzled man dances on roller skates by himself, the music from his radio subdued.

speckle
The leaves spatter the surface of the lake like gobs of paint. The trees lean over the water to examine the painting in progress.

steampunk
The water tower crouches at the edge of the building like a great mechanical spider about to pounce.

whey
At the post office, a long, shuffling line. Everyone has the complexion of cheese under the sickly lights.

Week in Seven Words #410

curtailing
On a walk down the dark path, I hear the rat traps popping by the side of the building.

enchantment
Leaves are spiraling down, swirling around my head, and a bright moon is peeking past the edge of a skyscraper.

fueling
One chocolate chip cookie helps him through math. The second cookie remains uneaten, and he has poked his pencil through it in frustration.

one-time
I don't know what else is going on in their lives or if they'll even be back next week, but I appreciate that they're here now - a group of men and women playing folk music in the waning light.

rapport
I like how she and I slip into easy conversation as if we haven't not spoken for several years.

slackening
Now and then, I dose myself with an episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, a show that's funny and undemanding.

tectonics
The assignment moves towards completion, one paragraph after another. The paragraphs sometimes shift position for greater flow and cohesion. It's a slow but inexorable process.

Week in Seven Words #396

businesslike
There are several groups meeting in the atrium. One is for learning Spanish, another for figuring out how to make your home more neat. Although the neater home group is the one I should be signing up for, I've joined a discussion on streamlining business processes. It takes a while to get started. The host shows up late; most of the people who RSVP'ed don't turn up at all. (The conversation is interesting anyway.)

entertaining
A mariachi band steps into the subway car with the suddenness of a channel change. Everything's bright and lively and loud for a couple of minutes. Later on in the ride, as the train stalls on a bridge, breakdancers appear, a hair's breadth away from head injury as they swing wildly from the poles and do backflips.

gratified
A young boy and his mom sit in the mouth of a blue tent that's backlit by the sun. They take turns blowing bubbles.

happenstance
The different parts of Prospect Park feel only loosely connected. We explore a forest where a stream slips through tumbled rocks. We come to a dog beach where people wade ankle deep and throw toys for their dogs to splash after. A picnic area floats past us at one point, in a mist of smoke. We follow the tail of a larger body of water; it's serpentine and keeps changing shape. Clearings open up, criss-crossed with shadow, and large meadows suddenly spring into view, bared to the sun. These places don't feel like parts of the same park, only that they settled next to each other by chance the day we visited, so we could walk from one to the other.

overspread
In these narrow streets, a theme emerges of brick submerged in leaves. Trees screen polished windows, and plants spill out of window boxes.

preaching
A passionate sermon in a woman's voice resounds through a barred door. It's a storefront church that contains a cauldron of apocalyptic feeling.

transportation
The lower level of the museum is home to vintage train cars, one of them displaying an ad for cocoa with eerie children. The upper level shows a history of city transportation and its challenges, from overcrowding to extensive flooding.

Week in Seven Words #391

artwork
The pond reflects a mosaic of leaves.

blink
If I'm not in front of them, do I exist to them? (Like an object permanence test, but for relationships.)

botheration
How much I've entrusted to computer systems I don't control, and the irritation and sometimes fear when they don't work for reasons poorly understood.

breather
She takes her break at a picnic table, a mason jar of flowers at her elbow, her clipboards laid aside.

foil
The water spreads across the harbor in overlapping sheets, the edges stained with sunlight.

plumping
They've brought what seems to be every kind of greasy, salty, sweet processed food to their picnic and the kind of folding chairs that cut your legs out from under you and make you give up on standing. We're in for a satisfying, sedentary stupor.

rarity
Coming across a small bookstore. Feeling wonder and a pang of worry, as if I'm in the presence of an endangered species.

Week in Seven Words #358

bundled
There's a bundle of blankets on the couch. It takes me a few moments to realize it's a child, staring at the TV through the fog of a cold.

fidget
I need to guard against the antsy expectation of the next thing, the unsettling need to keep scrolling down the page or refreshing it.

genre
They're reading young adult novels set in dystopian societies, and I like their analyses of these books - what makes sense to them, what doesn't, and their take on the characterizations. Their thoughts on what they read have become more complex.

gravel
He's bought neon orange gravel for the fish bowl. When he cleans it in the sink, it makes a crunchy, rustling noise in the spray of cold water.

mortify
I speak to someone who calls himself progressive. To him, being progressive means using certain tortured terminology and immediately shaming people who don't. It's likely the correct terminology will change soon, so he'll have to keep a close eye on developments. Signaling correctness is a key way to avoid ostracism.

pattern
Wine-colored leaves shaped like stars, suspended in perfect stillness under a streetlight.

sharing
The waiter brings out a slice of cake with a candle stuck to it. It's meant for an adult's birthday, but mostly the kids devour it, after it gets sectioned with a steak knife.

Van Cortlandt Park and a Laura Mvula song

This past Sunday, I went on a hike through Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx. The hike leader also gave a talk on the role the park plays in the city's water supply, and the challenges of supplying water to a city of millions.

This is a memorial on Katonah Avenue, right outside the northeast corner of the park, for tunnel workers who lost their lives building Tunnel #3, a major piece of city water infrastructure.



Some photos from the hike:







Also, because it's summer - and Laura Mvula's "Green Garden" (and its music video) is full of what I like best about summer - I'm sharing it here.

Week in Seven Words #353

anterior
She wears a shapeless black dress. A shawl patterned with pomegranates covers her head and trails down her sides. She is standing still. For a few moments, I can't tell where she's facing.

anticipating
Books they can't yet read are open on their laps, as they imitate the adults around them.

breaths
I reach a tipping point where the room gets too crowded. People are starting to edge into the aisle and block the exit. I slip by them and out to the sunlight and cool air.

connecting
A phone call that fills an hour and more, and makes me feel like I'm soaring.

pennies
Leaves suspended in late afternoon light, against windows that have a copper shine.

recrimination
Where does your responsibility end and another person's responsibility begin? What are the best ways to map these boundaries fraught with guilt and anger?

red
The red chrysanthemums are the essence of red. They're strawberries and blood and fire engines.

Week in Seven Words #343

bower
Fat green leaves ripple against the railings of the balcony.

clack
Cicadas sound like crackling wind-up toys.

edged
The broad reservoir is rimmed with trees and buildings. To the north, stumpy apartment houses mostly, and to the south, silvery high-rises.

indulge
She reads a lot, and mostly on her own, but she sometimes wants to be read to. She can close her eyes whenever she wants, or jump in to share her ideas with someone who won't have a problem pausing to listen.

knucklebones
The rubber ball from a game of jacks shoots away and pings the table legs.

mise en scène
They could stage one of Shakespeare's plays here, in the garden where the paths whirl up a hill among flowers and low-hanging trees, and the rats scurry around at dusk.

reassure
They don't make hide-and-seek too scary for him. His mom hides, but he can still see her elbows and purse poking out from behind the tree, so he's laughing and stumbling to her immediately, without a fear that she left for good.

Bye, Autumn

These Central Park photos are from a beautiful day at the end of October. It had unexpected warmth. (And, towards the end of the day, I got an unexpected sting from what was probably a bee. This was followed by a massive howling rainstorm. But up to that point, the day was a dream.)

Week in Seven Words #289

burnished
She speaks like a job applicant. Her voice is smooth and bright, and she's stocked up on polite exclamations. I wonder what she sounds like angry or melancholy. Or better, honestly in love with something.

debate
They act like dogs displayed in a pet store. In short turns, they strut and yap, trying to get a reaction from customers. They respond to cues. When they hear a word, they perform a trick or bark in a certain pattern. "The Economy." "Yap, yap, yap." "Immigration." "Woof! Woof."

dodgy
"Who are you?" she says. And her friend replies, "I'm afraid to find out."

reminding
We're in a warm, dense forest. We could be miles from the city. Except sometimes, through the trees, we hear rap or reggae. Or a truck rumbling by.

scaly
The towering shrubs in the forest look like reptiles, rippling green and gold as they sun themselves.

unexpected
I find myself in a situation, that isn't trivia game related, where knowing the capital of Zambia comes in handy.

vestiges
Beyond the imposing gate is a field of weeds, waist-high. All that's left of a formidable estate.

Week in Seven Words #281

airborne
A dragonfly, a branch and a monarch butterfly, suspended against the blue-white sky in a mosaic.

buzzed
The dip has been sitting out for hours. The chips and crackers have been pawed into crumbs. The guests have had too much wine to notice.

etiolate
She painted the sunflower drooping against a faded wall. The sunflower looks like it's losing color the way people lose blood.

glint
She twirls in a dress made of soda cans and playing cards. Silver streamers run through her hair.

grubby
At the coffee shop, the outdoor seating is a bench encrusted in cigarette butts.

materialize
Walls of sloppy, spiraling graffiti become, just one block down, a series of murals: blue faces, owls, the moon's surface.

unfolding
Depending on the light, the leaves on the tree look like paper sometimes, and other times like moths about to break into flight.