sunflowers

i've received lots of sunflowers for my birthday this year. my good friend lizette bought me a bouquet the day before my birthday, and jeff bought me a bouquet the day of. they look beautiful in the window and make the room very cheery.

birthday celebrations

purple and blue hydrangeas,

yellow lilies . .

and dusty pink lilies greeted chanda and i this morning as we passed through the courtyard to begin our walk to ballet school.

the sun always feels hot and we like to stay on the cooler west side of washington street as we head south. today we passed along charles street as we chose whether we should take the subway or walk. taking the subway won (we were running a bit behind schedule) so i got to stop at il cantuccio for an espresso. a nice way to start my birthday day!

after dropping chanda off at her class (where i always take a moment to sit on the bench and sip my espresso while waiting for her to come say good-bye), i walked to the east side and stopped in eataly before meeting morgana after her sokolow intensive at peridance. i picked up olive oil, italian bread, mozzarella, fresh basil and a few tomatoes. we took it all to the river where we met uncle jeff for a picnic. he was in town to pick up my nephew ryan at newark airport in the evening. ryan is returning home from scotland where he attends st. andrew's. jeff had the most beautiful birthday present for me that was put together by my cousin and uncle from my aunt's jewelry. it was a brooch in the shape of a violin, along with a card from my aunt's extensive card collection (she always kept a few on hand for special occasions!) the violin brooch was wrapped in an embroidered handkerchief. it's a truly special gift and one i will cherish.

afterwards, (and the mozzarella was incredibly delicious, by the way!) we walked along the river to morton street. we showed uncle jeff our children's garden in the site one complex (also known as the death star by us rebel fighers!) we were on our way to . .

rocco's!!! uncle jeff treated us to cappucino and pastry. so good! i chose pignoli cookies, morgana had key lime pie and jeff had new york cheesecake (always one of my favorites). it was really fun and we had a great time.

oh my goodness . . where are we now?

at el charro's on charles street with clyde! he treated me (and the girls) to dinner in honor of my birthday. isn't he sweet!

i had paella a la valenciana. it was so good! and we all had flan for dessert. we had a great time, and when we returned home, greg was back from his business trip. (thanks so much for a lovely birthday dinner, clyde!)

running through my brain this morning . .

Sunflower Sutra

I walked on the banks of the tincan banana dock and

sat down under the huge shade of a Southern

Pacific locomotive to look at the sunset over the

box house hills and cry.

Jack Kerouac sat beside me on a busted rusty iron

pole, companion, we thought the same thoughts

of the soul, bleak and blue and sad-eyed,

surrounded by the gnarled steel roots of trees of

machinery.

The oily water on the river mirrored the red sky, sun

sank on top of final Frisco peaks, no fish in that

stream, no hermit in those mounts, just ourselves

rheumy-eyed and hungover like old bums

on the riverbank, tired and wily.

Look at the Sunflower, he said, there was a dead gray

shadow against the sky, big as a man, sitting

dry on top of a pile of ancient sawdust--

--I rushed up enchanted--it was my first sunflower,

memories of Blake--my visions--Harlem

and Hells of the Eastern rivers, bridges clanking Joes

Greasy Sandwiches, dead baby carriages, black

treadless tires forgotten and unretreaded, the

poem of the riverbank, condoms & pots, steel

knives, nothing stainless, only the dank muck

and the razor-sharp artifacts passing into the

past--

and the gray Sunflower poised against the sunset,

crackly bleak and dusty with the smut and smog

and smoke of olden locomotives in its eye--

corolla of bleary spikes pushed down and broken like

a battered crown, seeds fallen out of its face,

soon-to-be-toothless mouth of sunny air, sunrays

obliterated on its hairy head like a dried

wire spiderweb,

leaves stuck out like arms out of the stem, gestures

from the sawdust root, broke pieces of plaster

fallen out of the black twigs, a dead fly in its ear,

Unholy battered old thing you were, my sunflower O

my soul, I loved you then!

The grime was no man's grime but death and human

locomotives,

all that dress of dust, that veil of darkened railroad

skin, that smog of cheek, that eyelid of black

mis'ry, that sooty hand or phallus or protuberance

of artificial worse-than-dirt--industrial--

modern--all that civilization spotting your

crazy golden crown--

and those blear thoughts of death and dusty loveless

eyes and ends and withered roots below, in the

home-pile of sand and sawdust, rubber dollar

bills, skin of machinery, the guts and innards

of the weeping coughing car, the empty lonely

tincans with their rusty tongues alack, what

more could I name, the smoked ashes of some

cock cigar, the cunts of wheelbarrows and the

milky breasts of cars, wornout asses out of chairs

& sphincters of dynamos--all these

entangled in your mummied roots--and you there

standing before me in the sunset, all your glory

in your form!

A perfect beauty of a sunflower! a perfect excellent

lovely sunflower existence! a sweet natural eye

to the new hip moon, woke up alive and excited

grasping in the sunset shadow sunrise golden

monthly breeze!

How many flies buzzed round you innocent of your

grime, while you cursed the heavens of the

railroad and your flower soul?

Poor dead flower? when did you forget you were a

flower? when did you look at your skin and

decide you were an impotent dirty old locomotive?

the ghost of a locomotive? the specter and

shade of a once powerful mad American locomotive?

You were never no locomotive, Sunflower, you were a

sunflower!

And you Locomotive, you are a locomotive, forget me

not!

So I grabbed up the skeleton thick sunflower and stuck

it at my side like a scepter,

and deliver my sermon to my soul, and Jack's soul

too, and anyone who'll listen,

--We're not our skin of grime, we're not our dread

bleak dusty imageless locomotive, we're all

beautiful golden sunflowers inside, we're blessed

by our own seed & golden hairy naked

accomplishment-bodies growing into mad black

formal sunflowers in the sunset, spied on by our

eyes under the shadow of the mad locomotive

riverbank sunset Frisco hilly tincan evening

sitdown vision.

- Allen Ginsberg, Berkeley, 1955

monday monday

i was up early with morgana and chanda as they both have dance intensives beginning this morning. chanda is studying ballet at the gelsey kirkland academy of classical ballet, and morgana is studying movement, voice and drama with jim may from the anna sokolow theatre dance ensemble at peridance. after morgana's class, she spent some time with her friend at the cupcake cafe and books of wonder on 18th street. i met her there and we went to soho to pick up chanda. we're all rather weary, and m and c are sleeping already. i need to also. good night gracie.

sunday excursion, dinner, and gay pride parade day

we came home from montauk yesterday. korrina went upstate to visit friends, and m and c both have (different) dance intensives starting tomorrow. we cleaned up the mess the cats always leave us when we're away, and took it easy today.

we visited chelsea market for lunch . .

we stopped at amy's and had foccacia . .

well, they had foccacia . . i had a double espresso . .

we also invited our friend clyde for dinner. clyde comes in from california every summer, and today he brought helene to visit. we made vietnamese lettuce rolls from the around the world cookbook, and had ciao bella sorbet for dessert. we had a lovely time . . though clyde and helene didn't have it very easy to get here. they came in a taxi (helene had blisters on her feet from some new shoes), which is not easy on a day like today when most of the streets are blocked off due to the gay pride parade. and the crowd is especially large and happy today! it's been a long time coming . . .

waiting for dessert

what was dessert? john's ice cream: chocolate raspberry truffle and coffee. (what's john's? just a little dive of a place on the montauk highway with good food and good homemade ice cream).

steamers

nonno bought and prepared delicious steamers as appetizer for our dinner this evening. it's been awhile since we've had them; chanda wasn't sure how to eat them! hmmm . . that's almost an embarrassment in my family (for me . . that i've raised such a naive child . . thankfully, it's been remedied).

friday town trip

we drove into east hampton today, and visited the ladies village improvement society. the ladies always have wonderful old books to buy! today they did not disappoint and we came away with too many books . . which i am putting away for christmas (christmas is always an excuse . . ). after book hunting, korrina went to see x-men with jason and uncle warren, nana and aunt kathy went to see the new woody allen movie, and morgana, chanda and i went home to nana's. well, we tried to get home to nana's, but we ran into a major traffic jam (a dumpster had fallen off a truck). it was so bad that i turned around and drove back into amagansett to wile away the minutes in the village square with a coffee, a cider and a ronnybrook chocolate milk (and admired the roses growing along the fence which reminded me of my aunt's garden in california many years ago).

we finally got back on the road an hour later and, thankfully, it was a smooth trip out to montauk.

nighttime card game

after dinner we played a few rounds of may i . .

bike ride . . after the rainstorm

we need to get some bells and whistles for OUR bikes!

summer rainstorm

it was good we went to the beach in the morning, because it poured in the afternoon (a not unusual montauk occurrence). here morgana finished a letter before the downpour began . .

jamming through the storm . .

comparing music selections . .

composing fills . .

making her way through the redwall series (following in korrina's footsteps) . .

happy to have everyone home, but not happy that he can't snuggle on the couch . .

mowing . . before the rainstorm

my dad has a new toy these days. he's been wanting one of these for a long time.

thursday morning at ditch

wednesday afternoon korrina, morgana, chanda and i loaded the car with our bags and jack, and drove out to montauk to see my sister and her family and my mom and dad. thursday morning found us at ditch, even though it was misty and wet and cool.

my nephews like to surf and boogie board. i actually didn't get a photo of them in the water, but here is a pic of a group of surfers looking remarkably seal-like waiting for a ride.

hanging out at ditch . .

morgana went in for a swim. no one else was swimming at the time and the surfers were taking up the swim territory . . they had to be chased away by the lifeguards . .

walking west . .

past the hoodoos . . (a rock formation caused by a diffential resistance to erosion)

and the big rock . .

i'm back in the city now, sitting at my desk . . and wishing i was back on the beach with my knitting, a sandwich, my tea and a good book . .