An Ordinary Life

I leave the apartment early on Saturday mornings to take the subway to Roosevelt Island where I work at a farmer’s market. My boss is Israel Wengerd. At least he’s the one who hired me in 1999. Over 23 years later his son, the little boy who wore boots and a small version Amish hat, follows in his dad’s footsteps, so when Israel is gone, I listen to David. (They are not Amish anymore but Mennonite.)

I love walking along the East River to the market from the subway station in dawn’s early light. The Manhattan skyline awes me at this hour. The red tram might be gliding over the river beside the Queensboro Bridge. Often there’s a tug pushing a barge downriver to the bay.

Usually the Wengerd men are just about finished setting up when I arrive. Mrs. David, Kimbre, might be placing the many price signs behind fruits, vegetables, cheeses, baked goods, coffee, etc., and even freshly ground peanut butter. In the summer, Mrs. Israel, Sarah, will be busy filling pint boxes with berries. The market is beautiful in the early morning, and it’s the best time of day. (Coffee from the deli across the street might have something to do with this.)

In the beginning of my working at the market the other clerk, Mr. Kahn, and I used a scale. We held dollar bills and had change on the table. Who could have foreseen that we’d advance to cash registers and credit card machines and that we’d go from two clerks to seven or more?

Some of the customers from those beginning days have left us for Eternity. Children have grown and are away in college. Poor health and dementia has taken its toll on others. There are so many stories. I ask the father where his handicapped daughter is. He gives me a little smile that tells me he likes it that I’ve acknowledged seeing her and says, “She didn’t want to come out today.” The couple with backpacks and I talk about favorite hiking places. Others ask about my husband, acknowledging his fight with the long tail of COVID . . .

At the end of a workday, I drag back to the subway station. My feet are tired. I only want to be home.

If you’re in the city, stop by the market. Thank you for being interested. The comments are appreciated. And now I need to pack a lunch and check the train schedule for the market tomorrow. Berniece

Laurence works twelve hours on Monday. When he comes home around 8 pm, we eat a little supper, and call it a day. It’s good to have that behind us at the beginning of the week, so we can move on to more interesting things.

It isn’t that we don’t have any social life during the week, and especially now that the pandemic is behind us, we’re happy to spend time with friends. We did this week on Wednesday after a service at Sugar Hill. Food is the tie that binds, and we enjoyed a snacky supper with three other couples around the table of the missionary’s apartment. Even better than the food was the fellowship – the kind of conversation that feeds the spiritual person.

Tuesday evening, Laurence and I took the Q53 bus to Forest Park. We didn’t have a plan but decided after we arrived there to walk the orange trail. It mostly took us near the perimeter of the woods. We could have been on any woodland path except for the sound of traffic. Birdsong thrilled me as we walked deeper into the hardwood forest. As often happens, we walked further than planned, so Laurence says, “This can be a once a year outing.”

“Once a month,” I replied, because I was having such a good time. Laurence is right though because the list of places to go and things to see stretches from the shore of Rockaway to the East River. (That reminds me, we went to the ocean on Saturday and then ate lagman soup at Umas.)

Last evening, Laurence and I took the G train between Queens and Brooklyn to Greenpoint. Sadly, the G is the only train that doesn’t go through Manhattan. Last evening, it was packed with well-heeled commuters.

It’s been years since I was last in Greenpoint. I remember it as a gritty, Polish neighborhood. It was there, back in 1990, when I first learned the meaning of agnostic. A real estate agent driving Laurence and me around said, “It’s interesting that you are missionaries. I’m an agnostic.”

We came out of the Nassau subway station by a darling little coffee shop. I could hardly believe how gentrified the area has become. We went to check out a couple Japanese stores. I am not going to try and describe them to you. We did buy mochi and ramen soup, but we left the $89 pottery mug.

Gentrifying is ok. Until it’s not. We walked into a plant store with vintage clothes in the back. Music played and the forces of evil felt so strong that we could not leave fast enough. It took a prayer on the sidewalk to be free of that force.

A block over on a street running parallel to the other, were the ordinary, the gritty, the Polish stores. While we could not read the labels, we felt more at home among the beets and borscht. Laurence found his favorite cheese perogies.

Now I need to pack a lunch to take to market tomorrow, and I want to check the MTA site to see what the weekend trains are doing. They’re often not running normal due to track work. I like to have my work done before Laurence comes home, so that our evenings are free to walk and explore.

Thank you for being interested. Have a good weekend! Berniece

It’s the most beautiful time of the year! My view beyond the fire escape brightens with sunlight on brown-tiled roofs backed by treetops wearing the new green of spring. It’s time to stock chips, sandwich stuff, yogurt, and cookies for the evening picnic after Laurence’s workday at Elmhurst Hospital.

Pink cherry tree blossoms carpeted the lawn of Brooklyn Botanical Garden. The lilacs’ scent carried me ‘back home’ to a playhouse in the bushes west of (I say west because that’s how Kansans talk) the farmhouse. (The nieces and nephews also had a playhouse there. Will Emma Claire, Max, and Levi of the next generation?) Tulips circle the Dancing Maidens in Central Park. And a row of white redbuds bloom at the head of Juniper Valley where I walked alone one day this past week. Did you know there are white redbuds? The red redbuds look magenta to me and bloom as beautifully here as they did behind the Melvin Becker family vacation rental in the Ozarks.

My friends and I ate a packed lunch on the picnic lawn of Prospect Park. Olmsted and Vaux designed this park after doing Central Park. It’s said to be their crowning jewel. The park saw two million visitors in 1868, the year it opened.

It’s the time of year when the city cannot hold us, and we’ll go into Grand Central – that magnificent station – to ride the Metro North train to a stop in the Hudson Valley. Yesterday, after a writing class with the Akinyombo children in Poughkeepsie, I went with Todd and Donna Schmidt to walk a few miles of the wooded Aqueduct Trail near Sleepy Hollow (think Washington Irving and the Headless Horseman). Most notably, we spotted the 1.4 million mausoleum of Lenora Helmsley through the trees and also of Walter Chrysler. If beauty mattered, I’d ask to be buried at the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery.

Meanwhile, Laurence had arrived in Tarrytown, and was waiting for us in a park by the river. We picked him up, ate barbecue on Main, and then went back to the river to see the sunset. The fiery orange ball colored the sky and slipped behind the hills. The architectural wonder of the Tappan Zee Bridge glowed with lavender lighting. We rumbled back into the city on the train with its view of the Hudson River.

Soon now we’re going to meet friends in Flushing Meadows. I expect thousands to be there with their soccer balls and barbecues. It’s spring, and our small apartments cannot hold us.

Happy spring to you. Plant some radishes and garden lettuce for me. Berniece

The plane landed at LGA and quickly halted so as to not dump us into the bay. We walked and walked to exit the Delta Terminal and waited for the Q70 bus that brought us back to Roosevelt where we had a short walk home. I overheard tourists trying to figure out the bus and subway system. As Laurence pulled the suitcase home, he said, “It feels different than when we’ve been gone for two weeks.” We hadn’t gotten so disconnected.

However, I was lonesome for early morning on the deck with my great nephews: Carson, Max, and Ethan, or for the evening Peter, James, and John songs with these and Emma Claire, Drake and Bella. Or the time Laurence and I went with them to throw rocks into the lake. I missed my parents, my brothers and their wives, the grown up nieces and nephews, and the babies: Tobias, Hannah, and Levi. We’d just spent a few days with them in the Ozarks to celebrate my parents’ 65th wedding anniversary.

But then I took a walk, and a building superintendent sweeping sidewalk greeted me. I said, “It’s a beautiful day.” After he agreed. I replied, “I love it.”

He innocently replied, “I love you too.” There’s a lot of love in this city. The customers at the market today asked how I’m doing. Those who know about Laurence having had Covid inquire about his health. Today I could tell them we were married 41 years on April 11. I got coffee and joked with the young man how the other clerk thinks I’m old; “She gives me the senior discount.”

He said, “I think you’re young and pretty,” but then he gave me the senior discount too.

One evening this week we took our picnic supper to Forest Park, and then walked in the woods. Another time, we rode the bus to the wildlife refuge and walked there at sunset. We stopped to visit with a man and his son about the osprey nest. And the man wanted to show us the picture he’d taken of a swan on the lake. In the distance was the Manhattan skyline looking ethereal in the fading sunlight.

Laurence just made us tea, and we’re relaxing in our bedroom, happy to be home. Berniece

“You’re looking good this evening, Mama.”

“It’s morning,” I replied to the man by the food cart in front of Elmhurst Hospital. It was 4:30 a.m. as I walked towards the bus terminal a half mile away this morning. I’m waiting now in Terminal B for a flight to Chicago and on to Wichita. They’ve demolished grungy LGA. A world class airport replaces it. I love it.

Laurence and I watched the planes landing last evening from our view at Plane View Park. We marvel to see how the silent runways of the Pandemic have come alive with planes that fly the friendly skies.

Like we usually do, we walked the two miles to the park, and then took the bus home. After getting off on the corner of Roosevelt and 82nd Street, I told Laurence, “One thing consoles me: A week from now we’ll be back here,” so while I’m excited to be with family, there is no place like home in Elmhurst. (Laurence flies Saturday. We’re celebrating my parents’ 65th anniversary. Laurence and I will have our 41st anniversary celebration Tuesday.) That corner on Roosevelt hops with music, taco vendors, a food stand where a salesperson hawks his avocados, with people, and always, the Mexican women with grocery carts that hold kettles of tamales. The overhead 7 train adds to the cacophony.

I heard on Saturday that we’re moving from the city. Let the rumors rest. We have nowhere to go. Not now.

“Group 9, you’re welcome to board.” God bless. You’re looking good. Berniece

How could I reach out to the young man across from me, the one with studs piercing his nose, lips, cheekbones, and eyebrows? A tattooed skull peeks at me from the ripped jean hole of his knee. The passenger to the left of me reads in the Spanish language on her phone while the one to the right watches a Korean movie. We have this closeness, but we don’t talk or make eye contact. I don’t reach out to say, “Young man, Jesus loves you.”

“Stand clear the closing doors.” Ding dong.

“Due to a track fire, this train will be going over the F line.” The passenger beside me gives a sound of disgust. A few seconds later, there’s another change, and we hear, “Attention passengers, this train will be going over the E line. However, there is a circuit problem, and we may go at slower speeds.” The train proceeds through the East River on the E line. This is ordinary train travel.

Since selling our car in 2004, we traverse the city by train and bus. It’s a relaxing way to travel, though it requires patience. I will stand on a subway platform early tomorrow morning with others from this city’s vast workforce to wait for an F train to carry me to Roosevelt Island. (Note: Israel’s market is moving to the Good Shepherd Church plaza.) A crazy person or two from Friday night’s revelings may be making a fool of themselves on the platform. No worries. Often now we hear the train announcement, “There are officers on the platform if you need them.”

The MTA rolled out the futuristic R211 subway cars on the A line in March. We spied them going downtown when we were going uptown, but we didn’t dare cross the third rail for a ride. We hoped for one of the new trains last night when we left the mission after tract packing, but the D arrived first at 145th, so we ran down the stairs (yes, I can run; yes, I am careful) and took it to 7th Avenue.

Our stop is Elmhurst Avenue on the R or M line. It means four flights of stairs to get out of the station. We walk one block to Layton Street and home.

The day of the token is long gone. Soon the metro card will be phased out. Today it’s “Tap and ride.”

The lives of New Yorkers play out on the train. I lift my eyes from my phone to see a passenger praying, and then I pray for the young man across from me. God sees us all, here on this E train.

Berniece

Do you have a subway train story?

A former unit boy mentioned in a comment on this blog, the Woodside mile between here and the apartment rented by USA Missions from 1988-2001. This morning, I walked that Memory Mile. I remembered how Lonnie would walk there to visit with the Mexicans while they stood waiting for a van to pull up and offer them work. I smiled to remember Ron asking if we have our body armor on, and the mom who asked if it was so that we wore such protection. (We do not!) I passed a school and churches, including the Seventh Day Adventist Church where the young men would come to volunteer at a food pantry. So many memories.

Today, I turned into the u-shaped road beside the Brooklyn Queens Expressway. The forsythia blooms again just as it did in March 2020 when I walked there alone; my husband being too ill to care about going out. The Long Island train glided past, and I happily recalled riding it last evening to meet the NJ tract workers on Long Island for supper.

Today, I walked on past Moore Park. Recently, a city project hung a banner there listing the obituaries of just a few of the 45,000 New Yorkers who lost their lives because of COVID. In the park, men played basketball, board games, and ping pong, Asian women synchronized in fluid exercising. Children played. On a Wednesday evening, the Tibetans circle in native dress to the music of their homeland. This community though having been impacted by death celebrates life.

One day this week, I rode the 7 train along Roosevelt to our stop at 82nd Street. Laurence worked late at the clinic that day, and it being evening, I was hungry. Therefore, I did not resist the tempting taco truck on the corner. I ordered a beefsteak taco: two corn tortillas, meat, cilantro, onion, slivers of lime, and a small container of picante sauce. Muy sabroso! I felt like the luckiest person in the world, standing there with the train rattling overhead, Spanish music playing loudly, people swarming around me on the sidewalk, and that delicious taco (in front of an Asian bubble tea joint!).

I want to use this blog to say thank you for the many prayers for us when Laurence had COVID. I believe it is because of these prayers that today we celebrate life. These prayers give me the faith that one day his healing will be complete.

I give to you the words of the school crossing guard this morning: “Be safe. God bless you today.” Berniece

Tonight we walked a couple miles through Flushing Meadows, site of the 1939 and 1964 World Fair. I remembered the sheep peacefully grazing when we walked past the zoo there in the beginning of the Pandemic, in that time when we weren’t supposed to ride the train or bus so we walked to the park. Tonight, we saw longhorn cattle and we heard the parakeets.

We came to the grove of cherry trees, the early blooming kind. It made a beautiful setting for taking pictures, and I snapped one in my mind to be held there for the cloudy, cool days we’re sure to have this spring.

We sat awhile beside the Unisphere. It’s the picture on this blog post. All the world gathers there, and while it was nothing like a summer Saturday, children played, the ice cream truck sang, a South American food truck offered chicken, tostones, and fries, dogs frisked, and an exercise group jived. The cherry trees by the Unisphere were just beginning to bloom.

We walked on past serious soccer games and past the Whispering Column of Jerash that stands quietly in the trees. Built by the Romans in 120 A.D., I like to imagine the disciples grandchildren leaning on it. (I know that’s far fetched, but this column is old, and hidden, and the Colombian soccer players don’t care a thing about it being there.)

The Night Market opens next month in Flushing Meadows, a foodie lover’s delight. We’ll return to eat reasonably priced ethnic street food with the multitudes who understand the diversity of a world that gathers under the Unisphere.

We did not sit by the lake tonight or stroll through the Meditation Garden like I do when I walk there alone. But as the setting sun glinted off the globe and shone on pink blossoms, we rejoiced in being outdoors.

The walk ended not where it began at 111th Street Station, but rather by the 7-train yards at Shea Stadium where the Mets play.

We did not take the tourists of last week to this park, but we may have been there with you. You’re welcome to join us there. Berniece

The apartment is quiet now. The sheets and towels churn in the basement laundromat. I pulled the privacy curtain from the arched hall entrance, deflated an air bed, and the sofa bed is folded away. Suitcases sit waiting to roll out the door and onto a train. The freezer holds enough leftovers to feed Laurence and me for a while. No one is waiting for our one bathroom! The noise of the past week is silenced. I hear a mourning dove.

Tyson and Kari Boehs with 10-year-old Jacob came a week ago for a coffee fest. They also came because a part of their hearts stayed in the city when they left here after being houseparents. They drove away and my niece Erin came with her coteachers from Faunsdale – nice girls!

Jacob and I rode the Seaglass Carousel. Jacob climbed in the biggest fish but when they told him the big fish doesn’t go very high, he chose a small fish. (Choose small fish!). The two of us sat on a park bench and ate mango and talked. We joined his parents at the top of One World just as a full moon rose over NYC, an awesome sight!

Our Liberian Brother Benn brought the girls to the city. 9/11 truly is behind us but there are still so many reminders when I get to lower Manhattan. I pointed out where I’d worked, the Burger King that became police headquarters, where I’d go for coffee, and finally, the Winter Garden to the girls as we toured down there. We walked many steps with going to Frances Tavern, Federal Hall, Trinity Church, Manhattan Library, Grand Central, Bryant Park, and then a train back here from Times Square.

The girls also went to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty yesterday. Today, they are at the 9/11 Memorial Museum. We have not been there nor will we go.

Did I write that 9/11 is behind us? Some things change our lives forever. The Pandemic did. This week two young men from the Mifflinburg congregation passed on to a much more beautiful place than this earthly realm. The family and friends left behind will never look at life the same. All week while touring and entertaining guests, I remembered these deaths. (And I prayed for you who have so often prayed for me. You know who you are.)

Three years ago in March, Laurence stood in the foyer one day after work, and told me he has COVID. Today, he says, “I am getting better.”

Let’s pray for each other. Thanks for reading.

Berniece

Summer, winter, fall, and spring evenings are meant for walking. These places of our city wanderings do not stand out on the tourist map. Often, we take a bus to walk the wooded trails of Forest Park, or around the perimeter of Juniper Valley, or through the gardens and by the bay of the Jamaica Wildlife Refuge. We leave the chaotic city behind to stand on a deck at sunset and watch an osprey pair feed its young. In the distance, a ferry docks at Rockaway. Peace washes over us, and we feel humbled and blessed to live here.

Last evening, we walked past the old buildings and alongside the Civil War fortress at Fort Totten. Sometimes we’ve stopped at the top of a hill there to watch the sun set behind the Whitestone Bridge. I know of no prettier sight then when the sky above the bay is awash in oranges, the bridge lights come on, a lighthouse blinks, and the “lower lights are burning.”

Without a doubt, the walk we’ve taken more than any other is to a strip of lawn with cherry trees across from the runways of LaGuardia Airport. During certain weather patterns, it feels like you could reach up and touch the planes coming in for a landing. We take a bus back to Roosevelt and 82nd Street instead of walking the two miles back.

It isn’t Brooklyn Bridge or Central Park where we might take you for a walk, but rather, South Hunter’s Point, a beautiful park along the East River in Queens. We like to climb to the top of the hill to sit on a bench that overlooks the river, bridges, and the Manhattan skyline. (We don’t enjoy hanging out in Manhattan, but we are awed by the memorable view of its skyline.) My nephew Jonathan fell in love with the view from that park. I remember Greg and Trish’s girls tumbling on the grass there with Bee, and eating street food while perched there with Lee and Michelle and their lively kids. It’s the one place we took the women of the writing group and their spouses when they passed through on their way to a writing retreat. But mostly, Laurence and I go there alone.

So many walks stream through my mind. They can wait. Keep walking. Berniece

p.s. I’m not posting this on my status. You can pass it on. The comments keep me writing. Thank you for being interested.