Cherry Blossoms

I thought Brooklyn was an island. I’m sure that it’s an island of sorts, but I didn’t realize that it was just south of Queens until I looked at a subway map to figure out how to get there. I went with my friend Emily a few weeks ago to visit the Cherry Blossom festival at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Entering the park, which was only $5, was like visiting a new planet, full of peonies, jasmine, wisteria and, of course, cherry blossoms. I could easily have moved there. I’d set up my little cottage right next to the rose garden and I’d sit at my writing desk all day getting inspiration from my flowery friends. Let me introduce them to you;

The Blossoms

Miss Peony

Ms Jasmine

Pansie and Her Friends

The Tulip Sisters

Wissy & Pinky

Mrs Wisteria

This is my shy friend who didn't want to say her name, but I know it's Penelope

Reading Lolita in Tehran

I just finished this book. It is mind and soul-altering. It is a work of art – a tapestry created before your eyes. It is fine and detailed, created with love and thoughtfulness about a time and place that was so brutal, one needed to try to block it out of ones’ soul. Outside reality was as harsh as a small cement cell with only a small hole up high to let in light, the hole being too high to look out of. The story is the wild rose bush growing up and over the outside of the cell. It is the bird singing on its roof, the rainbow’s light piercing the small hole. These two layers; the harsh brutality on the bottom and the roses, birds and rainbows on top, are woven together into this beautiful story of survival, passion, resilient spirit, and hope. It is a book about books – many that I shamefully have not read, but will now spend the rest of my life catching up on, so that I can know this inner literary world that Azar Nafasi, the author, opens up to us. It is the story of a teacher and a small group of her students who get together informally, in her apartment, where they can take off their veils and discuss fiction, freely.

Here are some of my favorite quotes, although the book is full of beautiful and provoking thoughts and prose.

“It had become a habit with us, a permanent aspect of our relationship, to exchange stories. I told them that listening to their stories, and through living some of my own, I had a feeling that we were living a series of fairy tales in which all the good fairies had gone on strike, leaving us stranded in the middle of a forest not far from the wicked witch’s candy house.”

“Life had acquired the texture of fiction written by a bad writer who cannot impose order and logic on his characters as they run amok.”

“Remember all that talk of yours about how the first lesson in fighting tyranny is to do your own thing and satisfy your own conscience?”

This is just the first half of the story, however. The other half involves reading this book as a layer over our own bizarre fairy tale reality and our need to create The Enemy.

I highly recommend this book.

From My Bedroom Window

This is the view from my bedroom window. The tree in my front yard bloomed overnight. I love this view. Even in the middle of winter it is wonderful. The Victorian houses across the street are always happy. The bushes provide shelter to a hundred of birds with a hundred songs. I'm trying to learn them so that I can recognize which bird goes with which song, but then the Mockingbirds throw me for a loop because they know a hundred songs, too. They are song stealers and their imitations are in ways better than the originals because they project their thievery loudly and clearly.

For now, the dead of night is dead quiet. Not a peep, nor engine, nor distant drone, nor car alarm. Dead, still, quiet except for the occasional cat scream. It will only stay like this for a short while though, because once summer arrives the night will be full of the loudest crickets and frogs. I can barely hear myself dream.

Easter

Mr. Bunny

I took my friend Deborah to Auntie Mia's house for Easter, on the eastern end of Long Island (north fork). It's always quiet, still, and peaceful there. We were all women except for Cade (Debbie, Deborah, Mia, Mia's mom, Christina, Rose, and Ellen). Only Ellen, the one true visitor for the day, wore make-up. We had roast lamb, asparagus & scallions, and salad. We ate and drank until we could no longer move or hold intelligent conversation. The only remnant left of the holiday is the crumpled gold foil on my bedside table where a chocolate bunny once stood.

View of Goose Creek from the Porch

Asparagus & Scallions

Cade, The Only Man at the Party

Eggs in Baskets & Birds Nests

Spring Has Sprung

This post is for those who have never been to New York and think that it must be a dirty, ugly city. I have news for you. It’s not. New York is beautiful in all its seasons, and Spring is exceptional.



This is a wonderful time in the city because the weather is perfect, perhaps in the way that only a Pisces could appreciate it because it’s the season of our birth– wind, rain, sun, clouds, warmth (snow, even). To me, it is much like a Monet painting - extremely colorful, but nothing exacting. The flowers and trees are at their prime, looking very sexy to the birds and the bees, no doubt. I’ve spent the last few days photographing it just so I can prove you wrong – and this is only what I’ve managed to capture in my small world; walking to work, music lessons, and a rainy day in Central Park on my day off. You should know that I ruined a perfectly good pair of white pants to get these photos for you.



These pots of color are in front of the building where I work on Third Avenue. Such pots exist everywhere in the city. Amid noise and people they stick up like flags saying, Don’t Forget To Keep It All In Perspective!!!

Meridian of Park Avenue

West Nineteenth Street

Central Park South

Central Park has a magic all its own. It’s so large that you can get lost in your thoughts, forget where you are, lose track of time. The sounds of traffic disappear. This time of year, blossoms fall like snowflakes and it makes me mad that that I’m not able to capture them with my camera. Maybe falling blossoms is one of those magic things that are so sacred, they defy capture of any kind.

A Blossom Mess

The park is full of fairies that come out to play when no one is looking. This time of year they are sleeping in the folds of tulips, playing hide-and-seek in daffodils, learning new songs from the small birds. I did see one floating on a pink pedal but didn’t want to disturb.












Spring
Again, the violet bows to the lily.
Again, the rose is tearing off her gown!

The green ones have come from the other world,
tipsy like the breeze up to some new foolishness.

Again, near the top of the mountain
the anemone’s sweet features appear.

The hyacinth speaks formally to the jasmine,
“Peace be with you.” “And peace to you, lad!
Come walk with me in this meadow.”

Again, there are Sufis everywhere!

The bud is shy, but the wind removes
her veil suddenly, “My friend!”

The Friend is here like water in the stream,
like a lotus on the water.

The narcissus winks at the wisteria,
“Whenever you say.”

And the clove to the willow, “You are the one
I hope for.” The willow replies, “Consider
these chambers of mine yours. Welcome!”

The apple, “Orange, why the frown?”
“So that those who mean harm
will not see my beauty.”

The ringdove comes asking “Where,
where is the Friend?”

With one note the nightingale
indicates the rose.

Again, the season of Spring has come
and a spring-source rises under everything,
a moon sliding from the shadows.

Many things must be left unsaid, because it’s late,
but whatever conversation we haven’t had
tonight, we’ll have tomorrow.

- Rumi