Observations

  It’s the kind of day where you’re crying before breakfast and you don’t even know why.     The temperature crashed into winter last night and I’m not ready.     I got exactly one window covered yesterday, and I woke up to the sound of Smokey trying to get it loose so he can sit outside on the upstairs windowsill.   I used to like the winter, the silence of walking home late on a January night through empty streets with nothing but the frosty air and dark blue starry sky above.   I enjoyed the visceral crunch of the fresh snow hiding the drab and grubby sidewalks.  I used to laugh at the cats’ puzzled faces when I brought them a bowl of snow from the front yard and it disappeared while they were sniffing it and taking tentative licks. Now I’m afraid of it.  Getting through a NYC winter without heat takes a lot of determination and creativity, constantly figuring out workarounds like using paper plates when the bitterness ...

            A cold wind was blowing this morning, and I knew I needed to bundle up to spend an hour outside protesting, so I was digging into the bottoms of bins, dredging up things I hadn’t worn in a year, when a message came from A., a client we are trying to save from eviction because she was so deeply depressed that she did not recertify for her housing.     I can’t imagine what would have happened with a housing court case on a Saturday but it turned out to be a whole different issue.     A was contacting me from her mother’s house, where they had just returned from the hospital.     Her mother, a 50 year old with a pile of psych diagnoses and crack addiction, was demanding another of her opiod pain meds even though it was way too soon.     Afraid of an overdose, A refused and then her mother attacked her and attempted to strangle her to try to get the pills.     Afraid of her mother’s reaction if...

       Rushing into Manhattan, I started to feel a little dizzy and it occurred to me that I hadn’t stopped to eat breakfast.     I needed to get my blood sugar up fast, but the options are kind of limited on 57 th   St,     where there are multiple expensive, formal restaurants.     I spotted a Duane Reade, hurried in, grabbed a Twix and paid the cashier.     “Enjoy     it, young lady,” she said to me.     I was surprised because, at almost 51, I was pretty sure I’m older than she is.       I figured maybe she addresses everyone this way, regardless of age, but then she said “enjoy it while you still can, unlike me,” gesturing at herself. I was too behind schedule to ask what she meant, so I dashed out the door. At shoulder therapy, I sat on the table with my feet not touching the floor because I’m so short.  I had to keep myself from swinging my legs like a little kid. ...

  Far Rockaway   Tired after shoulder therapy and sore from the effort of trying to get just a little more motion from my damaged shoulder, I got on the express bus back to Bay Ridge.  I noticed right away that the driver was talking out loud, complaining about traffic and pedestrians to no one in particular.  A couple of stops later a woman in her 60s in the suit skirt and dress shoes of an office worker got on, and I didn’t hear what he said, but she said, with traditional Brooklyn grammar, “I’m here, what are you, taking attendance?”  “I’m following you,” he replied which could have been a reference to our social media obsessed times, but wound up sounding creepy from a man his age.  “Actually, we’re following you,” she retorted, turning the statement on its head.  He went back to driving and muttering about the heavy traffic and I fell asleep before we had reached the FDR. Back in Brooklyn, I had just finished serving the M...

  Juggling my work bag and the compost, I stepped out into the cloudy day, reluctantly ready to head to Dad’s place for the first time in at least ten years. I need to get a sense of the situation so I can start emptying it out and prepping it for sale. The magnitude of the project is overwhelming.        Latching my front door, because I lost my keys again and can’t lock it, I’m thinking about keys and I suddenly realize I didn’t take Dad’s keys. Somewhere in my brain, I seem to think he’s still there to buzz me in like he did so many times when I found myself in Manhattan with a gap in my schedule and just showed up.     Keys retrieved, I stopped on my way into Manhattan for some cleaning supplies - if nothing else, it must be very dusty.  As I approached, his door I was struck again by the names on the bells- not only his, but neighbors I know aren’t around anymore, especially his dutch friend Mia from the apartment above him. Unlocking th...

       Super stressed, I woke up in the middle of the night.     While my hands, on autopilot, started opening cans for the cats who think that they must be fed immediately whenever I wake up, my mind was focused on the image I woke up with – a seashell.     Not just a random shell, but one that had housed a hermit crab.     On their own, hermit crabs are not pretty animals—they look similar to other kinds of crabs.     But hermit crabs are nature’s recyclers – they live their lives in shells discarded by other creatures, carrying the shell with them as they move like a part of them. As I focused on the image, the hazy wisps of a dream took shape in my memory.  In the dream, I am the crab, detaching from my constraining shell and leaving it abandoned on the beach. Still not fully awake, I thought to myself that the shell is my life with all its stress and sadness- the impossible to pay bills, the physical pain, the fa...