I haven't been out of my house in weeks. This afternoon I hobbled to the dining room to let the dogs out...when I slid open the door, I got hit with a blast of hot, humid air. There was something about the smell that took me far away. I closed my eyes and thought of Fordham Road at night in the 70's.. Coming out of the air conditioned RKO into hustle and bustle of the street and walking among a real multicultural crowd. Black girls and their afros, the rest of us, long and straight. Bell bottoms or straight leg Lees with permanent front seams, platform shoes and tube tops or halters. Button earrings, large Lucite rings. The music streaming out of the open car windows was as varied as the ethnicities on the sidewalk. Rock, Funk, Disco, Salsa...it was all good. Conversation mostly English, but smatterings of Spanish here and there. It started to get less crowded the closer we got to Webster Ave. Passing by Fordham University, we'd cross the street to go to White Castle if we didn't stop at Gorman's before we started home. We would never turn down Hoffman, it was always Fordham to Crotona and 189th and then down 189th past "The Rides" to Prospect to the schoolyard. Later on, after Keith Plaza went up, the route changed slightly to down Crotona and cut through the Big Schoolyard to Prospect, and then late 70's Arthur to 187th.. There were always people out in the neighborhood. Women sitting on beach chairs in front of the buildings, guys hanging at the corners, in front of social clubs, English and Italian, Albanian and Yugoslavian...and we, the Prospect girls, were always in the schoolyard. Sounds of music, conversation, window fans. Ducking the drops of water from air conditioners in windows lucky enough to have them. We were lucky to have had that. To have experienced the good, making the bad more tolerable, easier to forget. It was a great time in a great place. I miss it probably more than I should.

We were the first in our building to have a color TV. My father won it in a sales contest. On July 20, 1969 we sat in our living room with Freddy Sacco and his parents to see the moon landing. I remember Mela Sacco crying "they're on the MOON". I don't recall why watching that on a color TV was important. But I do remember the status. The first night of color, the Saccos were in our living room waiting to see "the peacock"...Chanel 4 .... Vivian and Marie would bring their kids upstairs to watch cartoons in color, The Wizard of Oz was a multi family event....
Does anything hold that wonder these days? That element of excitement? We've gained so much, but lost twice that,....We expect, no, we DEMAND technology to advance at light speed. We buy $500 phones every two years (hell, TMobile lets you upgrade every SIX MONTHS) because its taking too long to load YouTube. The bells and whistles are almost meaningless, a blur of technology that can't even keep up with itself.
If not for the internet I would never have seen or heard from many of you again. I would never have met some wonderful people all over the US and abroad.
But I long for just one more night of wonder in that fifth floor walkup with the Saccos....watching color TV and waiting for the peacock.

I used to walk around the neighborhood ….after the clubs closed, bars were winding down, friends said goodbye.
There was nothing to fear back then. Didn't matter if it was summer, winter or in between…there was just the echo of my heels hitting pavement, the click of the traffic light, the sound of my breath. I can still remember which buildings had the most interesting design on their facade. Ornamental masonry around doorways, faces, gargoyles, tenement names engraved in stone, letters etched backwards. Some had wrought iron fences leading to stairways to basements. I’d let my hand run across the tops, tracing the fleur de lis with my fingers. Sometimes I’d stop to sit on a stoop. There I would follow the loops and swirls under the banisters. A light would go on behind closed drapes, muffled conversation, and then darkness. I would think of the people who lived behind those drapes, their family structure, what they were doing. Were they sleeping? Watching TV? Reading a book?...Making love?
Were they lonely?

The sidewalk had old circles of gum and other things I’d rather not dwell on. I used to wonder how many generations of Juicy Fruit were accumulated there. Chalk, paint, cracks…break your mother’s back…a sparkle of broken glass like diamonds strewn towards the beginnings of a tree that was daring the concrete to stop it. Breathing in the aroma of baking bread (was it late night or early morning?) I’d start to head for home. The closer to I got to Prospect, the slower I walked. As I came up to my courtyard, I’d stop to listen to the sounds of the night. Sitting on the step, I’d tell myself “five more minutes” If I was honest I’d admit I just didn't want to go home, not in five minutes, five hours, or five years. I’d keep walking. To where I didn't know and so I’d stand, turn and walk upstairs, stopping at each landing until the sky became that translucent indigo that said morning was here and there was nowhere to hide.

A lifetime ago there would be New Year celebrations throughout both sides of the courtyard of 2411 and 2415 Prospect Avenue. You didn't have to wonder what you were doing or who you'd be with. With tinsel garland and velvet Christmas decorations still on the doors, each apt would be alive with laughter and all five hallways had the wonderful aromas of cooked food. I’d make my rounds and then go back to my apt. As a kid I’d walk around grabbing olives and dried sausage, dipping potato chips into the requisite NYE clam dip. It was a bittersweet night, because I knew that our beautiful Christmas tree would soon have to be put away..As Mom and Dad were young and typical 60’s parents, we had a gold aluminum tree with clear gold lights, gold and white frosted balls and gold garland. It was beautiful. My father was the creative force behind all Holiday decorations during those early years and they were spectacular. Mom was the party planner. I’d sit by that gold tree and watch the guests enter, breathing the scent of cold air on their coats as I put them in the bedroom. Beehives, Pixies and Flips, thick black eyeliner and big earrings…Goatees and turtlenecks and Old Spice… Everything was magical to me, the sequins and beads on the dresses glittered like our tree, party hats and noisemakers strategically placed around the house, amber colored liquid in short glasses with pretty swivel sticks, some with ornaments or whistles on the end, ice cubes dancing and tinkling like charm bracelets when lifted. Sinatra was the soundtrack of the evening. Close to midnight all the kids would grab pots and pans and head for the hallway……3-2-1…Happy New Year!! Five flights of building slamming those pots, cranking those noisemakers, blowing the horns and popping confetti bottles….peeking at the kissing adults …climbing up to the hallway  window to listen to the roar of the neighborhood….who was better than us?

Happy New Year my friends. Keep the old memories close as you make new memories, and never forget where you came from....

Do you remember:

...how the snow looked on the fire escapes? It would look like long lines of marshmallow puffs, perfect and unmoving. It was how you judged how deep the snow was. Or on the tops of the garbage cans? On the windows. The "Jack Frost" that would occasionally occur. Fascinating to a young girl with imagination. Swirls of fairy fern and ice trees....above the ice cycles hanging from the window sills.

How quiet it was? The only sound the scraping of the occasional shovel. I wish I could replicate that quiet... The almost sound, how snowflakes sound as they fall. 

The feel of the air..cold in the lungs, cloud of smoke from your breath. How your skin felt alive and fresh. Did you walk for hours, or just stop to look around and take it all in like a snapshot hoping not to lose the memory with time?

The sound of the snow swirling across the sidewalk as it drifted up against the buildings. That blue-ish gray cast all around that made everything seem like a dream?  

Did you ever stop to watch it accumulate on your arm? Hand?
Watch the flakes melt into each other? See it on your eyelashes? Smell it in your hair?

The hollow sound of the hallway vestibule when you stepped in. An echo, but not quite. Stamping feet on the rug. Hiss of the radiator. Dark but comforting. Climbing the steps, the only sound the slide of your boots on the marble, opening the window on each mid-landing to look at it swirling around the buildings and trees, all the while wanting nothing more than to head back down into the quiet, wishing it would go on forever.

There are songs...and then there are songs...

There are songs…and then there are songs.  
“When I was seventeen…” I see my father, sitting in the dark, cigarette glow brighter with each pull, one arm over his eyes. I often wondered what he was thinking as he listened to it. I’d sit on my windowsill staring at the stars, listening along with him. Instinct said don’t make a sound, don’t put on a light. He sat with his thoughts, me with mine. Not yet seventeen, I wondered what my lyric would be. Wondered what his was. I stood up on the fire escape and leaned over the railing. Prospect Ave on a summer night was filled with the sounds of whirring fans, leaking air conditioners and laughter from far away beach chairs. Ahead was the sound of rustling leaves as the warm wind blew through the Zoo, bringing with it that musky scent that a friend once called “Eau de Buffalo”. And yet, it was quiet. “When I was twenty one…” When my father was 21 he was engaged to my mother and was living on Hoffman St. How far was he was from Hoffman St, I wondered. Where did he think he would be now? Where would I be at 21? I thought the answer to both would be “not here”. I sat and listened to a cappella versions of Beach Boy songs drifting up from the corner of Prospect and 187th. When they listen to this song in years to come how far from Prospect Ave. would they be? And as the song fades into the autumn of the singer’s years, I realize that is where my father is. And I know he has regrets. And what-ifs. And resentment. But I can’t yet process it into something I can analyze and forgive. I just know. And feel helpless. And afraid for my eventual regrets. A light goes on in the bedroom next door and casts a glow over the fire escape. The song changes to another, my father coughs and the spell is broken.
I am my father. I have his creativity, his humor and compassion, and I also have his self destructive streak. But he was so much more than that. When you are young, you can’t see beyond what is presented to you. Happy Birthday Daddy. You did the best with what you had, with what you knew. I know that now. I can only hope that you know that.

I woke up thinking of you. Kevin.
I’m sure you can read my thoughts, but I know that if Facebook had been an option we’d be reading funny stories and trading cartoons  and friending all the Monkees and Pink Floyd. We'd get lost in endless YouTube loops and argue about whether Robert Plant or Ian Astbury was the better frontman.  And I’d like to think that God is technologically advanced. I can picture you with your wings and halo, sitting on a cloud with your laptop. Laughing at me. Or maybe you’re looking at my pictures, or searching for my memories of CSN&Y at the Garden. I can remember your face and what you said when Graham Nash came out, still barefoot. You had the look of a child on Christmas morning. You said “He’s still young behind my eyes” and saw they were closed.
I still kill myself when I mimic you. What’s half a chicken? Laura tells me I channel you whenever I do the slicing thing with my hand. Do you still safeguard your distributor cap? Do you still have need for one? Have you seen George? Or John? Is it cold? 
Can you see me? 
You faced your demons better than anyone I ever knew, or will know. I cursed you that weekend. You never answered me. We had plans. Allman Brothers. 
The phone rang and I was alone.
I woke up thinking of you. Kevin. You’re still young behind my eyes.