This Week

I’m looking past the red fire escape to rooftops with brown shingles, and on to the treetops wearing the new green of spring. I hear a siren near the hospital and small noise from the neighbor’s apartment. I visited with Carlos the neighbor one day this week. He told me his wife is a queen, that he sees how much Laurence and I love each other, and how he likes the singing coming from our apartment. Thank you for the music Jerrold and Jan, Todd and Donna, and Stan and Marilyn.

The Irishman in the elevator today told me, “It’s sure hot out.” Earlier the building superintendent inquired how I’m doing, and then he also remarked about the heat. Laurence says New Yorkers take to the cold better than the heat.

Laurence and I had chicken salad/cranberry wraps in Forest Park Thursday evening. Friday evening, we dined with friends at Kingsland Point Park in Sleepy Hollow. We talked and walked, ate and played there by the Hudson River. I am mystified at why two baseballs landed in the river. The sun slipped behind the hills and darkness fell as Laurence and I walked the mile alongside the river back to the train station at Tarrytown. Words do not suffice to write of the beauty of the view from a landscaped park by a lighthouse on the Hudson. Lights twinkled in the hills opposite the river and the lavenders (Laurence says blues) and greens of the Tarrytown bridge reflected in the water. These sights will keep us in NYC, I thought as we rolled along on Metro North into Grand Central.

I rode with Todd and Donna to the park last evening. I’d been in Poughkeepsie for a writing class with Elizabeth and Josiah Akinyombo. After two years of classes, we are finished. I am sad about this. Josiah got it right when he wrote, “It was fun looking at how we went from basically being lectured by Mama Berniece on the dos and don’ts of writing, to talking on closer planes and even having relatable writing experiences.” I learned right along with the children and stand in awe of the writings they produced. Where will they, and where will I go from here?

It’s been an eventful week. One that included telling Jerrold and Jan goodbye, having bubble tea with my sister-in-law Kris, making lunch for a former unit boy with a layover at LaGuardia Airport, and my very first ride on the Long Island Railroad out of Grand Central. Thanks to brother-in-law James for that!

I’ve enjoyed the ordinary of today: laundry in the basement laundromat, making French bread for Sunday lunch at Sugar Hill, cleaning the 755 square feet of this apartment, and dinner in our submarine kitchen with Laurence. This evening we’ll go for a walk – it isn’t hot!

Happy Mother’s Day to all the special moms in my life! Berniece