Grandfather

His freckled hand shakes slightly as he reaches for a glass of wine from the round glass table in front of him, but his fingers curl around the stem with ease. His thin lips, a bit wrinkled with time, reach for the rim and smile as a sip goes down.  He pushes his silver rimmed glasses back up the ridge of his nose and turns the hundredth page of a large book on his lap. His blue eyes scan quickly over the words in a way only someone who has read more than a thousand books could do... Page one hundred and one.

The door to the porch is open, and the few white hairs on his head blow in the breeze. Despite the warm air, his thin skin beckoned a light burgundy sweater. His hips began to ache in his chair, so he places the book face down on the table and slowly stands up. He shuffles to the door, slightly hunched in the shoulder, and steps outside into the sun, letting the warmth sink down into his bones. A squirrel darts across the trees, rustling the leaves. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath in through his nose, bringing the smell of pine into his senses.

Back inside the shelves are lined with picture frames. In the center of the mantelpiece is a black and white photo of a man you would hardly recognize in horn-rimmed glasses posing with his family - a slender woman with short curly hair, a young girl in Mary Janes, and a smaller boy with sandy blonde hair. Surrounding it are the memories of a lifetime gone past - a young soldier boarding a train, a happy couple on their wedding day, a family picnic on a red checkered blanket, a college graduate holding his diploma, a child's first time ice skating, and a young woman on a horse.

After a short walk to the end of the porch and back, he carefully sits back down in his chair. He lets out a soft groan and picks up his book. After a few more turns of the page, he's interrupted by the sound of the front door opening.

"Papa! We're here!" Small footsteps run across the floor.

He snaps the book shut and quickly stands, opening his arms wide to envelope the bouncing curls that were already jumping into his embrace.

Sunday Memories

The bar was dark inside compared to the bright sunlight shining on the parking lot. Peanut shells covered the floor underneath the round wooden tables and chairs. It was anything but quiet. Various televisions played on every wall while men drank pitchers of beer and yelled at the players on the screen. A shaft of light burst across the wide, open room as a man, about in his late-forties wearing a green baseball cap and matching green zip-up sweatshirt, opened the door. Then, a small shadow appeared from under his arm. As it walked through the door the shadow quickly turned into another matching green baseball cap and sweatshirt with long blonde hair bright as the sun. She smiled, revealing a few gaps in her teeth. 

They sat at one of the tall round tables, her feet dangling high above the ground. He ordered a beer and she ordered a soda with extra cherries. As they waited for their drinks, he slid a notecard across the table. "This is your cheat sheet," he said.

On the notecard was every rule of football, the sport of all sports, and what it meant. She had barely learned how to read, but studied it hard, wanting to please and impress her father. As the game began her father would explain what was happening, pointing back and forth between the TV screen and the notecard and making gestures with his hands. "Oh! Did you see that guy move before he hiked the ball? That's a false start."

She nodded her head enthusiastically every time, watching the players run around on the screen. At the end of the first quarter she asked, "Is it over?"

A muffled laugh was heard from the men around her and her father chuckled and shook his head. "Not even close."

During the second quarter she wolfed down a hot dog, no ketchup, no mustard. Just hot dog and bun. She nibbled on some fries and sipped her soda while her father roared at the TV screen with the other men, throwing their hands in the air and clutching their foreheads, thrusting fists above their heads and high-fiving. They argued back and forth about which team was better and whether the referee's call was right or wrong. All the while, she nibbled on her fries, sipped her soda, and watched the players run around on the big screen.

She didn't understand why the time on the screen went by so much slower than on the clock on the wall. Each quarter was supposed to be fifteen minutes, but it seemed a whole lot longer. Finally, after a few more fries and another soda, the game moved into the fourth quarter. Her father seemed eager, as he was sitting on the edge of his seat and had balled his hands into fists on the table. She checked over her cheat sheet one more time and looked back at the screen. The player in the middle of the line threw the ball back between his legs to the player behind him, the quarterback. She could remember that one. The rest of the players ran all over the place, some to the left, some to the right, and some ran right into one another. A yellow flag flew onto the field and the men in the bar all yelled and threw their hands up.

"Facemask!" A little voice piped up over the noise. 

Her father looked down and smiled. "Yes! That's right!" he said and put his hand up for a high-five. 

She smiled, reached back, and slapped his hand as hard as she could.

Should Second Graders Have a Facebook?

Theodore Roosevelt Park on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It's a warm day and I'm sitting on a bench reading Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes when a couple of young girls sit down to eat lunch on the bench next to me. At first, I admit, I was annoyed. I wanted to sit and enjoy a quiet afternoon in the park, not listen to little girls talk about whatever little girls talk about - Barbies? Horses? Okay, it'd be alright if they talked about horses.

From eavesdropping on their conversation I learned they were in the third grade. Several other children sat around the benches to eat their bag lunches. One of the boys had a 'make your own pizza' Lunchable and I have to say, I was a bit jealous. Yes, it is immature, but those things are both fun and delicious!

Anyway, I tried to ignore the two girls next to me as I read my book, but then this question caught my attention:

"Should second graders have a Facebook?" One of the girls asked the other.

I stopped reading.

"Maybe if they're really talkative," replied the other one.

I laughed a little bit.

"But, I mean, they're second graders, they're so small," she said, gesturing to some of the other kids who, by the way, did not look any smaller than these two girls.

"Yeah."

"Do you think fifth graders should date?"

I'm so glad I'm listening to this conversation, I thought, smiling ever so slightly.

"I don't know."

 "It's so weird. They're 10. I told my dad about fifth graders dating and he was like, So what? I kissed girls when I was 10," she said as she reached into the Michael Kors bag on her lap and pulled out an apple.

At least this girl had a sense of style. And good eating habits.

"That is so sad," she said after a brief pause.

I dated a boy when I was 10.

"Yeah, like, you kissed your mother when you were 10," laughed the other girl.

What?

The two girls laughed together and then continued talking about something else that wasn't as interesting, like play dates or whatever.

Kids these days.

The Big City

New York glitters from afar. Even on a dull gray morning from the Staten Island ferry, the city shines beneath the clouds with a light that nothing can overshadow. A million eager eyes gaze longingly at the mass of concrete that rises out of the ground like a mountain standing on a tiny island. It is the city of opportunity - where anyone can do anything and be anything they want. In New York, nothing is impossible.

The streets are filled with rushing cabs and pedestrians, and even underneath the city it's busy. Trains rumble underground carrying people to work, to play, to almost anywhere. Anyone is welcome on the subway - from the homeless man wearing garbage bags for shoes to the two older ladies wearing Chanel tweed jackets and pearls. At rush hour there is no such thing as personal space. Everyone gets real friendly with one another - sometimes too friendly.

At 96th Street everyone begins to clear out. The further up you go, the less crowded the subway becomes. On a hot afternoon in Harlem, the kind of afternoon where it seems that heat not only bears down on you from the sun but also up from the ground at your feet, children dance and play in water rushing down the streets from a nearby fire hydrant. A group of older men sit in their folding chairs under the shade of a tree on the corner, listening to music playing out of an old portable radio and arguing with each other across the sidewalk as people walk by. The Hudson River gleams under the sun off Riverside Drive and offers a cool breeze to families in the park.

As the sun goes down, the lights at Times Square shine brighter. The heat of the day gives way to a warm summer evening and friends gather at their local watering holes for drinks and dinner (it's impossible not to find a good meal in New York). All those pedestrians walking anonymously through the streets earlier in the day don't seem so anonymous now. They are your friends, your neighbors, your fellow New Yorkers.

There is nothing better than a night in the city. You drink, you dance, you meet all sorts of new people, and you end the night with a giant slice of pizza. When you wake up the next morning to birds chirping through the open window, the city doesn't seem so big, so ominous as before. Day after day, this apple gets a little bit smaller and one day, you'll be holding it in the palm of your hand.

Central Park

The gentle melody of a saxophone lingers through the air and thin leaves and flower petals fall over the cobblestone walkway like snowflakes drifting in winter, but, unlike in winter, the curling tree branches are covered in lacy green leaves that flutter and sway in the breeze and far below the grass thrives in the warm sun while birds dart about playing games among the bushes. It is a veritable paradise amidst an industrious urban empire. One moment you are among the swift taxis and brusque traffic of Fifth Avenue, the next you are walking around Wonderland.

All types of people ramble around the park- men, women, children, artists, dancers, crafters, tourists, residents, wanderers, idealists, realists, runners, yoga enthusiasts, and so many others. Paths wind this way and that, around lakes and ponds and reservoirs, under dark tunnels and over bright bridges and through branch covered passageways. In the distance, atop the trees, are sky reaching buildings with golden tops.

The sun sinks lower in the sky and shadows of intertwining branches dance across the walkway. Gray and white pigeons peck at the ground and squirrels run between one tree and the next. Laughter echoes in the breeze that scatters leaves across the ground. Horse-drawn carriages go slowly by as children run in circles around picnics where their parents sit on blankets sharing food and glasses of wine. Not a single soul seems troubled or discontent; it is a world of happiness.

Moving East

           I sat on the floor with my hands in my lap. I had four suitcases total. Two for clothes, one for shoes and one for decorations, like my photos and books and those kinds of things. I sat there and stared back and forth from my piles of stuff to the suitcases to my piles of stuff and back to the suitcases. I did this for probably about fifteen minutes. There was no way it was all going to fit, but how do I decide what to bring and what to leave? Maybe if I stared at it for long enough, it would all just magically fit.

            I have a pretty good collection of books and DVDs. There are the classics like On The Road and The Breakfast Club, nonfictions like Into The Wild and Anthony Bourdain’s Medium Raw, and then there’s the bestsellers like The Help and Crazy Stupid Love. I also have that collection of magazines. A giant stack of European Vogues and other random magazines like Wonderland and a National Geographic featuring the fifty best NG photos of all time. I have tons of kitchen stuff too, like a clock shaped like a chef and a pot made solely for making hot chocolate and probably about ten different mugs and twenty different shot glasses (my favorite is the crooked one that says ‘Tipsy in Indiana’ that I bought at a gas station when I was passing through). I have a porcelain elephant, a couple of small African masks I found at a street fair, and a large poster of a monkey getting drunk. I also have a Jimi Hendrix record, but no turntable. How could I leave any of that behind?!

            Yes, I do have a lot of random ass shit. Very few of it makes sense when put together in one place, but I love it all.  Now I realize that moving across the country may not be as easy as I thought it might be. I don’t even have an apartment yet, let alone a job, and I’m leaving tomorrow, but I’m sure everything will work out. Must stay positive!

            I left the shoes for last. This would also be very hard, as I had picked out more than twenty pairs from my closet that I wanted to take. Four pairs of boots, four pairs of ballet flats, a couple pairs of Sperry’s, umpteen high heels, a pair of kitten heels, a few pairs of sandals, and so on and so forth. The same notion came over me as I sat on the floor looking from shoes to suitcase. Maybe if I stared at them long enough, they would all magically fit. I started with a couple pairs of tennis shoes, then some heels, then the flats and sandals. In total, I am bringing fifteen pairs of shoes to New York. I’m not even sure how that worked out. Possibly it was all the squishing and shoving until not even a baby shoe could fit in there.

            As we arrived at the San Francisco airport the next day, my mother and I that is, I noticed a few odd looks from passersby as the driver unloaded one large suitcase after another after another. They probably also noticed that I was wearing boots, a jacket and a hat as well as carrying a wool coat and a large stuffed purse even though it had to be almost seventy degrees out. With six bags in tow, four of which were mine, we looked like a couple of gypsies walking up to the United check-in desk. And, as you can probably guess, we were those people at security. The ones who have too much stuff and take forever and end up having to have their bags checked for possible weapons. The weapon turned out to be a candle. Watch out! It’s a weapon of mass nasal sensation!

            We arrived in New York and took a car to our hotel, The Warwick, where we finally got to unload and change out of the clothes we had been travelling in all day before going to dinner at a hip New York restaurant, Tao. We sipped on cosmos, got rather inappropriately hit on by a man who invited us to sit with him and his friends (I mean come on, I’m with my mother!) and ate some of the most delicious coconut shrimp tempura and orange chicken I have ever tasted. So far, New York was off with a good start.

            Next, apartment hunting!

Welcome to the World, Little Filly

As I peered through the bars of the stall door and as my eyes began to adjust to the darkness, Sara's chestnut ears perked forward and she took two steps toward the door. There was a shuffling behind her as the filly stumbled around trying to stay close to her mother's side. Her long legs splayed out in front of her to keep her balance and her short black tail tucked between her legs. She was light brown all over save for a small white sock on her left hind foot. She had her mother's beautiful eyes.

Outside in the grassy field, two more fillies ran circles around their mothers. Butterflies fluttered through the air in the sun and off in the distance you could see the shining ocean. Tall trees swayed back and forth in the breeze. One filly slipped and fell to the ground and lied there as if it were on purpose. Her mother crouched to her knees and bent her hind legs down and heaved her body to the ground to roll around in the grass next to her baby.

Back inside, the filly was trying to figure out how to scratch an itch on her neck without falling over. She attempted to lift her hind leg toward her neck a couple times, but gave up in the end- balancing on four legs was difficult enough. It was only eight hours ago that she had first come into this world.

Welcome to the world, little filly.