The Library Walk

This is one of the plaques in the sidewalk on East 41st Street, leading to Fifth Avenue and the main branch of the New York Public Library. We're witnessing the dangers of ignorance, and gleeful misinformation, right now.

Flashback: Macchu Pichu

Processing and tweaking photos is one of the few tasks I can put my mind to these days, so here are two pictures of a llama at Macchu Pichu that my critical eye for some reason (okay, I see the reasons--imperfect focus, less than ideal composition) deemed not worthy of inclusion on this august blog.

But today they make me smile.

A foggy day in New York town

A picture of the Hudson from last winter: fog, a ferry, a gull soaring overhead.

Plus you can't even see New Jersey.

American Tune

Harmony always soothes the soul, but this song—written almost fifty years ago—is almost a little too on point for my broken heart right now.

And I don't know a soul who's not been battered
I don't have a friend who feels at ease
I don't know a dream that's not been shattered
Or driven to its knees
But it's alright, it's alright
For we lived so well so long
Still, when I think of the
Road we're traveling on
I wonder what's gone wrong
I can't help it, I wonder what has gone wrong

Urban poetry

I took this photo with my phone while I was waiting for my car to be inspected a few months ago. I love the color and those shadows.

Because we can probably all use a smile today

Fifth Avenue, during my walk home from school yesterday afternoon.

Saturday reflections

A quote I read today from Molly Housh Gordon, a Unitarian Universalist minister in Missouri:

I think humans in Western cultures often need to feel like there is an upward arc to history and some promised arrival, in order for there to be meaning in our lives.

But the place we are going is just around the sun on a miracle of a planet.

And I want to tell you that we are still alive in a world that is so beautiful and so brutal all at once, and always has been.

Il faut cultiver notre jardin

It's been a long, long time since I read Candide, and philosophy was never my strong suit, but this advice—tend your own garden, don't pay attention to your neighbors, stay out of politics, accept the world as it is and not as we want it to be—is so alluring today.

I am in shock. I want to retreat and lick my wounds and come out in a year or two. Or never. But I don't think I can do that. I'm afraid that it's going to get very very ugly. I might have the privilege of being able to ignore much of that ugliness. But I won't.

I can't.

Evanescent

Some closeups from a fun art installation at Brookfield Place in New York, where I had lunch with my class on Saturday. It's called Evanescent and was created by Atelier Sisu, a design studio in Sydney.

The young daughter of one of my students informed me that the bubbles were “awesome”. And she was right.

Still lifting her lamp

I posted this on a political blog (Balloon Juice) I follow today, about the ugly rally that took place a few blocks from my apartment last night:

...Something that kept me hopeful through the barrage of ugly news yesterday:

I teach English to adult immigrants. This semester we’ve been learning about American elections, and I’ve been surprised by how interested they are in the history of the Constitution, the various compromises that were made, and the struggles for voting rights. So for our class trip, I took them on a walking tour of Lower Manhattan on Saturday. We visited Hamilton’s grave at Trinity Church, Federal Hall on Wall Street where Washington was sworn in and the first U.S. Congresses met, the plaque marking the building on Maiden Lane where Jefferson used to live and where he, Madison and Hamilton had the famous dinner in “The Room Where it Happens,” Fraunces Tavern where all of them used to eat and which was damaged by a British cannonball during the revolution. Then a ride on the Staten Island Ferry for a good look at the Statue of Liberty.

All of my students have kids, many of them have multiple jobs, and they give up their Saturdays to learn English. They are smart, funny, interesting, curious, and remarkably kind. They are everything that is right about this country, and we could use several million more of them. When I vote this week, I will be voting for many things and many reasons, but I want to give them the country they deserve.

I ended up voting today instead of waiting. Voting, for all of us.

Sunday bird blogging

A few seagulls following in the wake of the Staten Island Ferry yesterday, with the Manhattan skyline in the background.

The warmer than usual temperatures have finally cooled down enough to give us at least one week of perfect October: crisp but not cold, leaves turning, our sidewalk shadows stretching longer as the sun moves south.

Saturday reflections

October skies reflected near the 9/11 Memorial in Lower Manhattan today. I took my class on a walking tour to see where some of the history we've been reading about happened. We had a wonderful time, and I am exhausted.

Good exhausted, but exhausted!