A Walk: 17 Aug 2017: Sunnyside to Greenpoint and Back

Yesterday I walked a big loop through space, on cement. Queens. Brooklyn. Queens.  Pondering the city, watching, and ingesting what is around me, as well as the 300 pages of journal articles I read yesterday.I left home to walk across Queens, past the Calvary Cemetery. The cemetery between NY, NJ, and PA is still on my mind from my rambles there two weeks ago.  I think about climbing over the fence to go in, see how it is different.  But I also think I am going to walk to Greenpoint and peer in on the PEN event about women translators/women in translation. A ruse, though.  I secretly want to see if they have on their shelves any of the Notting Hill Editions I don’t have. The design and colors of their covers are delicious and I covet more so I can arrange and rearrange them in visual structures that suit my day.  And I am in need of a walk. Too busy closing up life here, I no longer manage eight to ten miles a day. Four is about the max, and that is commuting, not rambling.

It is a fine walk down Greenpoint Ave, the sky is getting dark. In my mind I am also calculating the path home, given the blackness will set in soon.  I am walking streets I’ve never walked before so there is a wee security concern, but only very small. But for some places I want to walk by, better to route that way while there is still some light in the sky.

I make it to Franklin St, amazed how, even in the few months since I’d walked those streets in Greenpoint, the gentrification has traveled north, the shops look expensive, as do the restaurants. The shift from Queens to Brooklyn is the difference between someone on the stoop with a beer to restaurants with outdoor seating and fancy cocktails.  In the streets of Queens, heads nod as I pass by, maybe a comment or two, one offer for a drink on the stoop, and yet once I reach into Brooklyn everyone looks away. Those in motion look at their phones, those still, as well. No one looks up and around. Those who are drink together are eyeing the person across the table from them. It looks like an ocean of second and third dates and the calculations of how the night will end swirl around me. The further I get into Brooklyn the more I can feel anxiety creeping abut me, the more windows of goods I see, the more things scream “buy me!” and “drink me!” and the more I want to turn back, into Queens.

I walk into the book shop, and peer at the essays section. A quick glance tells me no NEHs. The man by the door is calling out like a hawker — for women’s literature in translation. He calls out that the event will be downstairs. I peer down, but the room is set up in a way that one would not politely be able to leave until it was over, and I know I don’t want to sit for much more than a moment, so I back up the stairs quietly and return to the essay section.

I pick up a book and put it back. I pick up the book to it’s right, it has the word topography in the title, how can I not? The first line says: “Language and landscape are my inspirations.”  I pay the man, put it in my bag, next to the book I have with me, a NEH, of course  (the more I read the more my favorite bit of the book is the hot pink cloth cover), and put my feet back on the ground and head north.

I am only a block before Newtown Creek when the gentrification stops, when the people sitting on the sidewalks in rickety old chairs are sitting together, no phones, chatting some, mostly waiting for the heat to abate, and the day to end, and the next day to end as well, I think. Two months ago this was six blocks south.

Turning to the east there is the stretch that runs me to the Pulaski. It’s not yet fully dark but its getting dusty and I am a bit more alert. Even though my earbuds are in my ears, the music is no longer on. I pass by trash blown up on the edges of building, spatters of graffiti, a pair of abandoned pants, the flies swarming around them making it clear why they were abandoned in just such a heap. The cars are still burnt out and the streets still look never cleaned and are coated in the slimey summer that NYC builds up, layer upon layer. A group of multicolore teens pass by on their bicyles, speaking a mixture of languages and I don’t really listen anyway. I just note them as they come behind me, and then on they go, slowing only for a moment. I unsling my backpack and pull my house keys out to clip them to my pocket. One of the very few concessions I make to walking alone in places of solitude under the darkness of city overpasses, in the spaces on the edge, as night falls.

An angular junky stumbles past, gives me a long look, but keeps going. I turn to watch the back of him, I stop entirely, he goes on a bit, then pauses a moment, looks over his shoulder, nods at me, and keeps going. I turn and head up the stairs onto the bridge, over the Pulaski and back into Queens. A man in a DOT truck is parked at the base of the stairs, staring into his phone, the glow from the truck, unaware of anything but the device in his hand. I walk up Vernon, through LIC, more attentive to how far the gentrification has made it over here, how much, too, this place has changed, even in the past two months. Who the people are, what they are doing. I loop back down to Jackson Ave, thinking I will head that way a bit, then cross over to Skillman at 33rd and walk those blocks which I have not yet walked.

Skillman at 33rd is the edge of the railroad tracks. I watch workers standing about, one at a time hauling dirt or doing some work, Mostly they seem to be a group of men, talking, posturing. They are all at ease, casual, unhurried, unaware that I am standing a level above them, watching, for a long time. Across the tracks I can see a train car, thick with graffiti, a eulogy for a friend, a prayer to the lost one’s family. It’s parked on the side. It is beautiful, reminds of me of the city that came before this one. I wish I had a camera, but I don’t, not on this walk. I think I should come back and take a photo, but I won’t. I know this. I never do.

I continue down Skillman and its pretty close to dark. I am wearing torn up black jeans, berry trail runners, a black and white striped tank top with a button down — unbuttoned — black shirt on top, and am carrying a black backpack. Still the headphones in, this time I am listening to French pop music and peering into all the warehouses and garages. Things are still running and whirring, work happening. Food carts, refrigerator trucks, palettes covered in plastic, motion and energy in the back of dark spaces. I peer into everything I can. Much of the work looks like it will go all night. I am the only pedestrian in most areas and definitely the only female. I ponder, as often I do, why this doesn’t bother me, and I wander on.

Looking ahead the next stretch of Skillman says, “don’t walk me” so I turn right, with the intent of taking first left on to 43rd, to continue a parallel path until it seems ok to cross back to Skillman. As I walk up the street, I see a wide open space tucked behind the buildings on my left, and odd things, undefinable things, and I peer in, slowing, trying to see. I can’t say what they are, and I catch the eye of the solo worker there, a burly black man in a deep blue coverall, I nod, he nods, I keep going.  A moment later I hear him call out, he’s walked up to the street from the depths of the warehouse. I turn around, and for the show of it, I pull out my left earbud, even though, again, there is no music playing. He rumbles out a hello, and again I nod. I am slowly walking backwards and he is slowly walking forwards. He isn’t threatening however he is rather large. There is not another human in the vicinity, I am not really worried, just cautious. I am also realistic, there is little I could do, unless I could outrun him. None of this is important, as he means me no harm, I can tell.
He says, “I like your style, can I give you my number? How about you call me and we go for a drink?” He as a thick Caribbean accent, speaks slowly, and there is nothing at all disrespectful about the way he speaks to me or what he says or even how he looks at me. I grin, say thank you, but no. He grins back at me, and asks if I am sure, gives me a moment or two to think about.Earlier in the day, cleaning through my storage locker as I prepare to leave NYC, I found my grandfather’s freemason’s ring, and had slipped it on the ring finger of my right hand. I hold that hand up to him, and waggle my fingers. Ah, he says, still smiling, when you get home, tell your man he is a fortunate fellow. Thank you, I say, partially turn away, and before I am entirely gone, around the corner to the left, I hear him wish me a beautiful evening. I smile as I walk and think about men on the street and how they call out and speak to me. I realize that almost never are they disrespectful, nor do I feel objectified but largely they are charming and human and had I felt like a chat, I’d have learned much of him and his life, and still traveled on my way.  I like the strangers I meet, here on the streets of NYC, but also in the remote areas I like to travel to.

I keep meandering the neighbourhood until I reach home, all told, about eight miles, something around three hours. Once in Queens, through the warehouses, past the parks, around the burkas and saris, the jeans, and the guayaberas, the Dutch wax and the djellebas, I realize I feel more at home than other places I have lived, and resolve, at least, to consider this before choosing a next home.  It’s sticky and dark and in the last few blocks there are darkened, abandoned bars with funny names, and a nail shop called Green Tara. There are humans engaged in being present with each other, children running the streets, and always the slow rumble and occasional screech of the elevated train.

I open my bag, pull out the book and it falls to this:

We are in some strange wind says the wind and it has always been that way in southern Utah. Downwind from nuclear testing. Downwind from the state lawmakers who want to sell public lands to the highest bidder so they can develop them. Downwind of shale oil and gas extraction that threatens to erode the very beauty that defines America’s red rock wilderness.

Downwind, I think. Downwind.

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