Friday

Friday began with a neighborhood walk. It’s the ordinary moments that make me grateful to live here. The robe-wrapped monks went into the yard of the Buddhist Temple. One of their number, swept debris from around the decorated Buddha god. 

Later I boarded a train bound for Manhattan. At 34th Street, I left the local M to get an express B train to Brooklyn. I had a 10-minute wait, and, quite unlike me, I began conversing with a man who sat with his bags on a bench in the station. He told me that he’d gone to college to be a doctor, but hadn’t passed the final exam. Our conversation ranged from tasty goat curry to worshipping God. He thanked me for talking to him. He said, “I know I look bad (he did). I know I don’t smell good. Most people ignore me. You are very kind to talk to me.” We connected!

The B train came, and I got on. Two Jewish boys in an animated conversation sat across from me. They seemed comfortable in their black suits, white shirts, and black hats, the kind I remember the preachers wearing in my childhood. The train went above ground to cross the East River, giving me a spectacular view of the Brooklyn Bridge, and then back underground until I reached my stop at Prospect Park where we were once more above ground.

My friend Shelly met me there, and we went to buy a Trinidadian lunch of doubles (curried chickpeas between soft flatbread). The line to the small West Indies take-out stretched onto the sidewalk. It moved quickly and before long we were back at Shelly’s apartment where we ate lunch and discussed life for several hours. Shelly then walked me through a tree-lined Brooklyn neighborhood with its large, old homes and landscaped yards. Allen’s Bakery is a popular Caribbean place. As we waited in line they brought out fresh black currant pastries. Shelly told me that as a New Yorker, I should insist on one of the fresh ones. Afterwards, she took me into a grocery to ask for some tuber that the West Indie people use in their cooking. When she asked an employee if they stock it, the man said, “The plane didn’t come in!” After we left, I told Shelly that I was sure glad she was with me in the store. “Yes,” she said, ” they would have been looking at you and wondering, what is this lady doing here?”

We ate our pastries as we ambled to a subway station where I took the train for home. Soon after I got on the F train, Joel, a Roosevelt Island customer, stepped on. He came to where I was and we visited. Like many of the customers, Joel has a hard time wrapping his mind around that I’ve lived in NYC for 30 years.

The day ended with Laurence and I doing a neighborhood walk. Now that the weather has improved, the sidewalk street vendors are busy. The small tables and plastic chairs by the man selling chicken skewers, pork intestines, pork stomach etc., were filled with Asian young people.

That evening as I knelt in prayer, I got a picture of the homeless man, Shelly, Joel, and me meeting in Heaven.

Have a restful Sunday. Berniece