New York: a memoir


1.       The Amtrak station in Rochester contains a few dozen
      travellers.

      a.  A mound of gravel lifts tracks over snowed-in land. 
Above, passengers sway en route to restrooms.  At some points in
the miles, ice blocks break to reveal water, a gape, like an
unremitting wound.  Hair-thin, bare trees cover the scalp of the
countryside.

      b.  Through a dark underground, from high-up broken windows,
occasional flashes of light illuminate graffiti on damp stone
walls.

      c.  Departing Penn station, people race by as rapidly as
trains they emerged from.


2.       The cab driver accelerates to threaten pedestrians and
      changes lanes three times to gain ahead one car.  His name is
      Ariel, from a certification displayed, he who is airborn(e).


3.       Dirty snow, two or three feet tall, lies piled up between
      the street and the sidewalk.


4.       The marble lobby is elegant, but small, extended by a wall
      mirror.  The hallways are narrow with chocolate doors like my
      old Stanford dorm, early 1900's; some rooms even share an
      external shower room.  We have our own, but the bathroom light
      comes on and off, self-willed.

      a.  The rooftop looks out to a rainforest of skyscrapers in
various heights and shapes.  The primitive roar of car horns --
long, short, intermittent --  and police/emergency sirens rise like
a symphony of crickets, carefully orchestrated to the plane that
soars past the buildings as if a parrot.


5.        The Korean-owned snack stores with fresh vegetables are
      as plentiful as ripe blackberries on a bush.


6.        An arch of statued stone leads into a vault of
      meticulously-made stained glass; pews and an altar.  Madonnas
      in replicate.  Behind each pew, a red cushioned bar, which
      people kneel on, cross themselves, and pray.


7.        Yellow carts on the sidewalk offer pastries & coffee, or
      roasted nuts.


8.       The Museum of Modern Art is four blocks away, very white.
      This rotation has much of Klee, Picasso, and Matisse.  (We
      skip two floors of the Frank Lloyd Wright exhibition.)  A
      Starry Night is smaller than I had imagined.

      a.  A painting by Umberto Boccioni is displayed prominently
on an outer wall, outside the galleries.  At first, it is a mirage
of colors, chaotic strokes, yellow, orange, light green and blue,
pink.  Then the brushes coalesce into a large horse, rearing, and
one, two, then three and four figures emerge to hold it down. 
Other horses begin bucking, and craning one's head to the right,
in the distance, there is yet calm in the outer streets.


9.       Though old, the mosaics on the walls that name each subway
      station are well-crafted, and artful.

      a.  The degenerate PA system announces something few can
understand.  The train stops.  We wait, gathered in silence, but
nothing happens; outside the doors is darkness.  We move forward,
and realize that only the first few cars open at the end of this
line.  An unreal countdown begins ... 10 .. 9 .. 8 ...  With the
aid of some warning, the foreigners in the middle escape just in
time, the doors closing.


10.       Snow deep in Battery Park, two young men entertain the
      line waiting for the ferry with their verve, in speech and
      their physical stunts, including backflips, two-man lifts,
      vertical pushups, and pitches for peace and money.

      a.  At four o'clock, the sign & rope go up: no access to the
Lady Liberty's crown.  Instead, visitors can climb stairs to her
pedestal, the line long.  It takes much longer than the 3 minutes
that athletes take during the annual race.


11.       Times Square at night is like television.  Commercials
      play on the moving-light boards; walking down the street
      changes the channel, from a religious hellfire program to a
      good jazz musician.


10.       Our next-to-last token brings us near the Empire State
      Building, lighted red, white, and blue like one of those long
      popsicles we could get in elementary school, as Friday snacks.


11.       Outside the hotel window, the cars' headlights reflected
      in an office building form an impression of a river, moving,
      sparkling.


12.       The bell boy refers us to a "car service", a plush
      Oldsmobile driven by a middle aged man with dark features and
      an accent.

      a.  On the way to La Guardia airport, I see a White Castle in
Queens.


13.       At forty thousand feet, the cloud cover looks like solid
      land, stretching to every horizon.  Perhaps cloud spirits
      consider this their earth, and outer space, their sky.


14.       At O'Hare (to transfer), our early plane rolls across a
      bridge and into an auxiliary parking area.  The other planes
      swirl like swans, ten or more, circling to gain flight
      simultaneously, yet with order.


15.       We arrive in San Francisco four hours later, with flat,
      aching derrieres.



     --jennifer crystal chien