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.

Week in Seven Words #374

glancing
She wishes her experiences would have more weight and texture. She thinks she's skimming over everything, recognizing but not appreciating beauty.

interior
The suggestiveness of a bookcase, paintings, plants, and piles of papers glimpsed through a window.

jittery
Wind chimes chattering by an empty street.

pangs
The mural reminds her of home - a two-story house in a wooded lot, with a driveway shaped like the head of a cobra.

slip
I try to feel around the edges of her carefully curated personality for what I think is there - her, her self, whatever that means.

strained
Waiting to learn the outcome of her hospital visit. Stomach clenching every time the phone rings.

suburbia
The sidewalk has disintegrated to a narrow shoulder of road, and I'm reminded of the suburb I grew up in. A nail salon, an Italian restaurant, a bagel store, and a laundromat in a clot beside an artery of traffic.

Hike in Inwood Hill Park, Walk Down Riverside Drive

At the end of April, I went on a ranger-led hike of Inwood Hill Park at the north tip of Manhattan, then walked down along the island's west side. The title of the post is a little misleading, because not all of it was on Riverside Drive, but I did cover a long stretch of Riverside Drive too.

The outskirts of Inwood Hill Park look like a typical city park, very pretty in the spring.



Further in, you start getting some more of the local history. Like, here is what some people believe is the exact spot where the Dutch purchased Manhattan for a paltry sum.



As discussed by the ranger, the Dutch and the Native Americans appeared to have different ideas of what the transaction meant (there's an interesting discussion of it here).

The spot, marked by a boulder called Shorakkopoch Rock, used to be the site of a massive, centuries-old tulip tree that was eventually cut down.

Nearby, there are still other tulip trees soaring up.

Week in Seven Words #251

bits
Floor-to-ceiling windows frame a cityscape that looks like the inside of a computer.

diminished
She used to strike me as formidable in social settings, able to charm anyone and steer a conversation to where she liked. This time she comes across as clumsy and out of her depth, as she cuts into other people's sentences or responds to them with expressionless politeness. I feel bad for her, and wish I had more social graces, to shield her.

permeability
Fiddling with a flute of champagne on the edges of a crowd.

pursuing
Her love of science, combined with her family's alarming medical history, have pushed her towards a career researching cancer.

shamed
On top of the mental illness is the stigma, keeping people from feeling human and connected with others.

sighing
His voice is weary when he greets us, as if he regrets remembering our names.

unsullied
On pristine plates, they present dollops of food - three elegant squares of ravioli, or three hillocks of rice with a spray of vegetables.

Week in Seven Words #226 & 227

226

chilling
There's never sunlight on that door, only a cold, still shade.

choreography
A ballerina soars across a corrugated roof.

dodging
I can see in his expression when he knows he's gone too far, but decides to keep going anyway. He forces himself to enjoy his own rudeness, his own petty cruelty, because the alternative is to be flooded with shame.

picturesque
Oval windows frame the reflection of trees and purple flowers.

reboot
Flopping facedown on the couch: Endurance and patience have been mostly depleted - time to recharge.

uneasiness
Is laughter always a fear response? I think laughter and fear are closely linked. Even when we don't think we're laughing in relief or in nervousness, the jokes we laugh at tap into our anxieties about ourselves. We laugh at things we might become or misfortunes we narrowly avoided. We laugh in acceptance of something odd that might have been dangerous, but is merely strange and possibly wonderful.

whispery
Flower-bearing trees rustling against fire escapes.

227

brushing
He runs his hand up and down his face, as if clearing away cobwebs from his eyes.

demitasse
The smell of sweat and coffee beans. Tinny music seeping out of headphones.

disregard
I am, once again, short on compassion for myself.

immobility
He defines a happy marriage as one that hasn't ended in divorce, not seeming to realize that people may spend a lifetime together in varying states of indifference and hostility.

metro
The air quivering, a dim light in the tunnel brightening, then the racket as the train enters the subway station.

purply
Last light of day slanting onto an empty purple vase.

undisturbed
He is calm and diplomatic. Even when listening to an unreasonable request, he has the look of someone contemplating rare wisdom.

NYC Window-Shopping Walk: Columbus Circle to 5th Avenue to Greenwich Village

This past Thursday, the temperatures peaked in the high 40s, maybe low 50s (Fahrenheit), which is practically a heat wave considering what the winter's been like. Good weather for a walk.

It starts in Columbus Circle.


Walk south to 57th, and then head east, past Carnegie Hall and the Russian Tea Room:


And an antique shop offering wares that look enchanted or cursed:

Week in Seven Words #195 and #196

#195
ambiguity
The child finds the balloon entrancing. The dog backs away from it with a growl.

appraising
He's young but speaks like a savvy consumer, confident of what's a quality product and what isn't.

erratic
I've bumped into them, careened off of them, and have no particular desire to see them again.

facade
When you speak with him, he'll look past your shoulder at the next prospect. I feel like I'm standing outside a vacated building, talking at it.

mold
She will only be satisfied when she breaks me. Of course, she doesn't see it that way. She sees it as helping me.

partisanship
He makes it a point, wherever he goes, to wear a hat covered in political pins, with additional pins on his lapel and the front of his jacket. His appearance is more an endorsement for the other party than for his own.

pollyanna
Sometimes I find it difficult to believe that he can look at us all and really believe in what he says. His words come up against the harsh reality of who we are.

Week in Seven Words #136

hibiscus
The narrow lot has been abandoned by everything but hibiscus flowers, promiscuous against the brick walls and chain-link fence.

naturalness
With me she doesn't have to put on a pretense that all is well.

opportunity
Beyond a red door and up a narrow set of stairs I find a new foothold in the world.

peekaboo
Yes, roaches can be found in computer keyboards. (But thankfully not mine!)

propagation
Well-meaning and self-important men are sometimes thwarted by poor acoustics.

self-effacement
I get a sense that it's a welcoming society as long as you're a certain sort of person, otherwise you must oblige them by remaining invisible.

unnoticing
During the two hours I spend in a room with stained glass windows, a storm blows over the city.

A long walk on a beautiful day

Sunday afternoon in Union Square (NYC) people were asked to write or draw what makes them happy on a post-it note, to add to a growing collection.



Many things make me happy but the one I put down was a "long walk on a beautiful day," which is what I got to enjoy Sunday afternoon (in case you're wondering, the lady in the photo isn't me - for one thing I've got dark hair, and it rarely stays in a neat ponytail).

I could have also put down "upside-down elephants." Those make me happy.



So do pretty flowers by the sidewalk.





And eerie or mysterious window displays.





I was also treated to a display of raw nature. It's not that I like watching pigeons getting eaten, but I've never seen a hawk feast on a pigeon before.



In Tompkins Square Park there was a hawk up in a tree relishing pigeon innards, as about thirty people stood around taking photos of it (that's what drew me to the scene to begin with - that, and the way the hawk would occasionally lift its head and cry out, maybe to warn us off, as if we'd be interested in taking the pigeon from it. The cry of a hawk is startling, especially when you hear it right off of Avenue A).



I'm pretty sure it was a hawk. There were some people present who seemed to be experts on birds and called it a hawk. But if any of you know for a fact that this can't be a hawk but must be some other predatory bird, leave a comment.

What else caught my eye on yesterday's walk...

Not only upside-down elephants but pink elephants. And yawning lions.



It really was a beautiful walk.

Week in Seven Words #101

anamnesis
This past fall I visited the 9/11 Memorial in New York City; where each tower stood, water spills for thirty feet into a pool and then descends into a dark square hole that looks like the mouth of an abyss. I think of the memorial as I walk in Times Square, where the city doesn't seem to have a past, but exists only in the colorful flashy present.

bird's-eye
High Line Park in NYC was built on a long section of elevated train tracks, now half-buried in long yellow grasses and shrubs. There are many interesting perspectives from the park: streets flowing across the city, the Hudson River bearing its freight, a view of slanting roofs, balconies and elevated patios, the Empire State Building peeking over a swarm of apartment buildings.

coasting
New Year's Eve: a fun movie, some intense video games, and a couple of hours of noise music made more bearable by the vodka cranberry I've been nursing since half past eight.

daredevils
Balloons tumble down East Houston Street between the wheels of buses and cars.

glaciate
A cold unyielding wind that numbs my jaw.

shifting
The street is full of bright signs with Chinese characters and tiny restaurants accessed via basement stairs, a center for Buddhism and red banners everywhere, and then suddenly you find an old splendid synagogue rising into a blue sky.

splashy
It's a day for walking and peeking into shop windows along the way. Mannequins in glittering dresses are on display, flowers entwined around reflections of the street outside, earrings and brooches in neat rows, stacked cups in different rainbow colors.

Autumn in Philly

I've posted twice on Autumn in New York, but Philadelphia is beautiful too in the fall.