It’s quiet in our apartment now except for the murmur of voices from the other side of the bedroom wall and of planes taking off from LGA. Our neighbors are The Happy Family. Dad laughs. Mom chuckles. The boys chatter.
We had supper tonight at Spicy Shallot with Bart and Annet, friends from Belgium. It’s the second time this week that I’ve eaten there with them. Bart ordered duck both times. I had sushi.
Barts have been traveling the world the last seven weeks, and then they came to Queens where the world meets. They especially wanted to see the Unisphere in Flushing Meadows. The large globe symbolizes the 1964 World’s Fair theme of “Peace Through Understanding.” My tour with them continued through Little India: The Hindu store with all its small gods, prayer beads, and incense, the grocery with its spices, dried fruits and nuts, and an aisle stacked with 10, 20, and 40 pound bags of rice. Annet moved very quickly past the live frogs in the Asian market. Afterwards, we sipped tea and ate sweet potato puff and coconut bread in Fay Da Bakery.
Fall favored us with perfect weather for a long, but not too hard, hike on Veterans Day. We took the Metro-North to Cold Spring, walked to Nelsonville, and hiked along a ridge with views of the woods, the Hudson Valley and River. A volunteer told us we were the oldest hikers on the trail. I replied, “We’re here to give the other hikers courage.” A young man reached out a hand to help Laurence when he slipped, and then both he and his companion offered me a hand down the slight dropoff. We trudged back into Cold Spring and dined outdoors at the old train station. When a train whizzed by, I recalled little George’s fascination with it, the time we ate there with his parents and my brother and wife.
Soon after 8 one morning this week, I took the subway to the mission to pick up something I’d forgotten there last Sunday. The trains going into the city at that hour were packed with commuters, and I was smushed against the bodies of strangers. No one talked. Eyes closed as we swayed towards Manhattan. I thought about how these people may be fighting each other in other countries, but here we live in peace.
Now it’s early Saturday morning on the subway platform at Roosevelt Avenue. A rat crosses the track. I board the F train after letting the crazy man with the bags of chips crowd ahead to be the first through the F train doors. He takes a corner seat and falls asleep. A mom hands her little son with black spiky hair some breakfast. The commuters beside him sleep, but the boy curiously watches a man striding through the car, unlawfully opening doors, and stepping into the next car.
I left the Roosevelt Island subway station at first light. The Beaver Moon hung over the city skyline. I chose the river path and was surprised by a turkey landing in front of me.
All’s right in my world.
Berniece
An Ordinary Life 