Tag: NYC

  • ODDS and ENDS: Playing Dumb, Vacation, and The Next Stage of Life

    When I went to pick up my daughter from school yesterday, she was super excited to tell me all about these new Solar System facts she just learned! How the sun is a star, and Venus is the hottest planet, and Jupiter Saturn and Uranus and Neptune were giant gas planets, and Pluto was a dwarf planet, and on and on. She was bubbling over with how cool space was, and how there is an international space station, and that we send robots to the planets and even to a comet! And each new fact that she presented to me was in the form of a question; “Dad, did you know Pluto is a dwarf planet?” Well, yes I do know that, and I was alive when Pluto was considered a normal, regular planet. But I don’t say anything. I just smile and nod my head because I have come full circle. All the years I went rattling off facts to my parents, which I now see they clearly already knew, but they let me proudly prattle on. Now, I am being prattled on, but I see the excitement of learning in my daughter’s eyes. That feeling of the world being knowable and accessible at the same time.

    I want to go on vacation. As it starts to get warmer out, I have this need to get out of the City. It would be great to get away, even for a long three-day weekend. I like living in New York City, but I also love getting the hell out of New York City.

    Another friend of mine lost their parent last night. They put up a post on social media, and I commented, telling them how sorry I am, and love them. Sadly, this has been happening more and more often with my friends, and this isn’t due to Covid. This is life. Me and my friends are hitting middle age, and our parents are reaching the end of their lives. Before, when a parent passed, it was a rare and unexpected occurrence. Now, it is becoming a bit more common, as, sadly, this is the next stage in life. And these things happen in waves. First, we all got married, and then started having babies, and then there was the small divorce wave, followed by more babies and second marriages. Now, we are at the time when on parents start to leave us. I wish there was more I could do or say to my friend at this time. I do remember when my Ma passed, and I received many posts, messages and texts. It meant a lot to me, knowing that people cared and were still decent. I hope my friend is getting some comfort at this time from all the people that care for them.

  • What I Allow to Define Me

    Lately, I started to observe something about myself; When I meet someone new, the question of “What do you do?” comes up, and I say, “I used to be in theatre, and arts administration.”

    Now, I haven’t had an arts admin job in two years, and I haven’t worked in theatre for three and a half years, and though I did use the pass tense, I still use these jobs to define me, to explain who I am. Maybe, subconsciously, I think I’m going back to these fields, but I am no longer sure that I will.

    I am self-conscious of where I find myself now, and I am not sure how to describe it to others. I am a stay at home parent, and I have trouble saying it out loud. Part of it is that I feel like I defaulted into this position, and the other part is that it doesn’t cover the whole picture. I am a stay at home dad because I became unemployed over COVID, and I started taking care of the kid, and her remote schooling because my wife was working remotely and she needed to focus on that. What started as a temporary fix, until I found another job, evolved into where we are today.

    I am happier than I have been in a long time. Sure, I still have stresses and worries about the future, but what I have noticed lately is that I no longer dread getting up in the morning. I don’t hate the day before it begins. I don’t fear going to bed, because what the next day will bring. I see now that I had lived so much of the past ten years like that; angry and frustrated at every place that I worked.

    I do have to take some responsibility here. Yes, the jobs were toxic, but I also made the choice to go to work there, day after day. Maybe I thought I could change the people and places that I worked at. Maybe I thought I couldn’t find a better job. The bottom line is that I actively made the choice, for a long time, not to find a way out.

    The only thing that kept me from imploding was the theatre work that I did over those ten years, and the friends I made from it. And the overwhelming majority of the work was in puppetry. Every time I got a job, I would throw myself into it, just commit and do it. It was rewarding, confirmed the reason I moved to NYC, and also validated my existence, at least on an artistic level.

    And here I am, years removed from both, and still I present these titles to people, as if they are relevant to who I currently am.

  • Mask Free NYC

    Today is the first day that New York City has sort of done away with their mask mandate. Well… You still have to put on a mask if you use mass transit, but I think I will be doing that from here on out. The most important mask free part of the City are in the schools; no more required masks in the classrooms.

    Last night, the principal for my daughter’s school sent out an email, reminding parents that masks would be optional starting on Monday morning. Then she went on to request that parents talk to their children about respecting each student’s and family’s decision on whether to wear a mask or not. No teasing will be allowed, and we must respect each other’s choices.

    And we did talk to the kid about all of this. We asked her if she wanted to wear a mask or not; her choice was not to wear a mask. Then we talked to her about respecting her fellow student’s choice to have a mask on or not. That each family has to make that decision for themselves, and what might be right for them, could be different from us, and that’s okay. She said she got it, and would treat everyone the same. As we headed out for school today, the wife and I put a mask in her coat pocket, and another one in her backpack. We reminded her that it was okay to change her mind. That if she wanted to put her mask back on, she could.

    At the schoolyard, where all the kids line up before going in, I have to say that it was a 50/50 split of all the people there. The kid’s teacher had a mask on, and so did the vice-principal, and I understand that decision. They are the ones on the front line, but also, that mask will also help cut down on catching colds and the flu. So, I respect that decision.

    But what jumped out to me was that here we all were, (parents, students, teachers and staff,) doing what we think is best for our kids and ourselves, and everything was fine. Tomorrow might be a totally different situation, but at this moment, everyone is cool with everyone else’s choice.

    Walking home, it really didn’t feel like that much of a change. It still felt like it did the day before, with people in and out of masks. Everyone going about their business; Coming and going, still looking kind’a annoyed. You know, the New Yorker face.

    For me, it feels like a small step forward. I know we aren’t back to normal, and there is a good chance that we will never return to what normal was. But a step, even a very small one is progress.

  • My Little Apartment

    I just might spend my whole life in this little Harlem apartment. As funny as that sounds, this is a new thought for me. I have lived in this apartment for fourteen years, and I have always thought that one day, we would leave this place for another apartment, or miracle of miracles, a house. This apartment was always seen as a stepping stone to something else.

    But you know what… after fourteen years, I think I am coming around to see that this apartment is my home, and I will always have this place as my home.

    Sure, it’s tiny. In fact, it is very tiny. Two little bedrooms, a small kitchen, an even smaller bathroom. Two adults, a kid and a dog live in its confines, and if you add one more adult in the space, the apartment feels over-crowed, like it will explode, but what you are actually feeling is the anxiety of people being on top of each other.

    Yet, we are next to two subway lines. And a park. And a library. The kid’s school is walking distance and it’s a pretty good school. We like our neighbors in the building, and a police and fire station aren’t too far away either. We have made the apartment cozy, and each person has their own space to relax.

    Just wish we got more sunlight in the place.

    Maybe we might get a place upstate. Maybe a small farm house with a root cellar, and a place we can put all of our books. Maybe have enough land for the dog to run, and an old fieldstone wall cutting through the property. Maybe, one day.

    But in my little apartment, we have marked the kid’s height on the wall. The apartment is near a grocery store, and a place where me and the wife can get a dozen oysters on the half shell, and a pretty decent dirty martini.

    Maybe I will stay her forever after all.