Alwyn Court, W58th & 7th, New York, New York.

Above image apropos of nothing much in particular, except that I walked by this confectionary extravaganza yesterday on a stroll after work with a colleague and friend (known on the internet as Mr. Lady: that we’re now working together is indeed fitting, since her “handle” is such a nifty complement to Lesbian Dad).

And yep, I’m not a’tall shy about stopping and craning my neck and photographing gothic outbursts like this (got its own NYT article plus a Wikipedia entry). Just one of the manifold benefits of being so far into one’s forties that one is lapping up at the edge of fifty (yep: this is what almost-fifty looks like).  As a younger pup in this photogenic town, I kept the camera lens trained in front of me, oftentimes from the midst of a big-ass crowd, at a sea of queer folk marching in the street with or without permit (as yet still consigned to slides, else they’d make regular appearances here).  Now I point my lens 360 degrees, tourist-style, and I just don’t even care who takes notice.

~~~

A day late, in honor of Dr. King, some past posts here in recognition:

• Weekend bonus shot, 01.17.10
• A King among men
• It is the law of love that rules mankind

I watch him go through these doors to his apartment in the retirement community so long and hard now. Used to be he’d turn and wave and shamble off, only looking back once to wave me away (‘gwan now, doll; go home).

Now, stooped by his ninety-one years (this Wednesday), he turns and looks over and over again.  And so do I.

Looking Eastward down E.41st St. from the NYPL, New York, NY.

Guy and buildings, 5th and 41st, New York, NY.

Took this one for me boy, who loves him a nice bow tie.

Twilight trampoline jumpers, Berkeley, CA.

It was a crepuscular time of day, this particular one an extremely beautiful version of it.  Filled with the bittersweet of the ending of one thing and the possibilities in the beginning of the next.  All in a twilit season: summer’s ending–you can feel it–and winter’s sending its feelers out.  This evening was unseasonably warm, though, and so the children had to be out in it.

After dinner, the they carefully ushered unicorns from the back of their cousins’ house to the courtyard between the houses. I was told their names were Sarah, Rosie, and Twilight. I was also warned that they’re spooked by: “odd bodkins,” “creaking, crackling noises,” and “flash photography.”

Before long, the siren song of the trampoline beckoned the kids.

To take any of these pictures and not frighten the unicorns, I couldn’t use a flash.  Which of course renders a much truer image.  Moving objects move.  Static ones (a house; a tree) abide.

You can barely see the children.  Some essence remains visible, but the rest is a blur.

Window watcher, Berkeley, CA.

The window he’s looking out is the back door, not the front.  We live in Berkeley, CA (better known, perhaps, as “Berzerkeley” or “The People’s Republic of Berkeley”) and we’ve seen stilt walkers, solitary harmonica players, muttering grocery cart pushers, cell phone-clutching subway-bound commuters, skateboard riders, and a three-legged neighbor dog stroll, roll, hustle, and lope east and west in front of our house.  Still, all the real action takes place out the back window.

Out back is where the shared yard is, through which his cousins daily pass en route to their home at the north of the lot; out back is where his kind, endlessly fascinating neighbor friend (my own friend, of over 20 years) lives in the building to the east; out back is where most of his and his sister’s adventures unfold: on the grass, under the bushes, on the trampoline (and under it), in the hammock, around the veggie bed, and on the chalk drawing-bedecked concrete between two of the houses.

His and his sisters’ ages only just last week began to add up to more than ten years. A big milestone, that. The hub of their adventures is sure to shift away from the homestead, and sooner than we’ll be ready. Meanwhile, this is where it’s at, and it’s quite an at.

This shared yard he’s lookin’ at didn’t come without effort.  In timing that was both the worst and best it could have been, we began work on it immediately following the devastating terminal illness of a child in the middle of my family.  No matter how challenging it was or would become to figure out our housing, my beloved and I knew all of it was small potatoes: we were going to be essentially all right regardless of how it turned out;  we knew “it could be worse,” since it very recently had been as bad or worse than we had previously been capable of imagining.

Still, after that outsize caveat, the work to secure this window view has turned out to have been exceeded only by the amount my beloved and I put into having our kids (no mean feat for our kind; for us, a seven-year journey), and into our significant other relationship (seventeen years and several therapists’ worth). We didn’t expect it to be so challenging, but we did dream it would be so rewarding.

For five years we stressed buckets, we wedged our growing family into an attic apartment (accessed by two flights of outdoor stairs which we climbed and descended through five rainy seasons, most of which with an aging dog, a toddler and/or a newborn).  We ran emotional and financial mazes (and steeplechases, and scenarios) over and over again and, over time, confirmed that in spite of our differences and all this effort, our shared dream of shared housing was worth the effort.  Three generations ultimately made it all happen: one grandparent invested and another gave in advance so that it could come to pass and their grandkids could flourish.  Five hard-working adults, four hard-playing children, two cats, countless neighboring songbirds, and a guinea pig now call this place home.

A year ago this month our own house, the last of the three to do so, assumed its final shape: the attic that was once our whole home is now home to our bedrooms, my workspace, and a dreamy, dreamy kids’ play area. Brother-in-law, spouse, and two kids live in a house they built at the north end of the lot; my old friend of twenty-plus years lives in the duplex at the east. We four, in our 97 year-old house, anchor the southwest corner of “the village.”  Weekend mornings we share baked goods among us (this past Sunday: popovers from the cousins’ house, waffles from ours).  Sunday nights this time of year, when it’s pleasant and warm, we grill our supper and gather around a long picnic table beneath the pepper and willow trees, to revel in the harvest.

Night reader, Berkeley, CA.

Sunday morning, Berkeley, CA.

Ever since I began to read about digital sabbaths (and later, thanks to Gwen Bell, sabbaticals), I was convinced that observing one regularly would be critical to my mental health. Both the beloved and I work at home a great deal, using the internet and communicating via email incessantly.  Our big win, up until recently, had been to not answer the phone (or the smartphone-delivered email, or text message) during dinner. A lilliputian accomplishment.  

After years of stealing time to write or work while acting as caregiver to the kids, I had become uncomfortably familiar with the feeling of their being a pestering distraction from what I wanted or felt I needed to do on the computer.  Since I began my job six months ago, they’re now cared for by others during all my work-from-home hours.  Still, during this first half-year on the job, I’ve often continued to work up to, through, and after dinner.  I never really left it on the weekends.  Even when I wasn’t at my desk, my mind was.

I recently took a week’s vacation from work in early August–my first, since starting.  I’d cleared the third and largest of a series of work hurdles, and could finally take a rest. Freshly reflecting on Gwen Bell’s teachings around mindful internet use, I persuaded the beloved to observe a weekly, day-long break from all glowing screens and the ingress they provide to our busy-busy-busyness. Our kids complained only once, when they wanted to play a game on the computer.  But then they saw that both of us were completely, unequivocally available to them from sunup to sundown (we chose Sunday). We all had one another’s company and attention, to bathe in and draw sustenance from. The kids quietly, obviously, began to thrive.  And so have we.

We just observed our third digital sabbath, and I am a rabid convert.

Just another email from work (not mine!), Berkeley, CA.

The beloved opened a show with her youth music theater company this weekend: Jesus Christ Superstar. An intense, dark story, really, even when you know how it’s going to come out in the end. Still: a perfect vehicle for young performers. Love, authoritarian oppression, hero worship, betrayal, the capriciousness of the fans: rock ‘n roll drama.

Those who love the album are loving this show (sold out houses, standing-Os!), and if you do (love the album, and live in the Bay Area), you ought to consider going to see it. (In Berkeley at the Ashby Stage, through July 30.)

Boathouse piano player, Inverness, CA.

Goddess bless America and happy birthday to all.