Earth Day & Arbor Day

I realized Tuesday while reading some other blogs that I totally blew off Earth Day. I also blew off Arbor Day on Friday. I guess I’m not watching the calendar closely enough!

Then again, shouldn’t every day be both Earth Day and Arbor Day? When should we not be thinking about trees, about the health of the planet?

Fortunately, city life lends itself to environmentally-friendly lifestyles. We’re all crammed into tiny apartments (well, except for the hedge fund managers among us), and we walk everywhere. Many of us don’t own cars. We can’t consume much stuff, because we don’t have the space for it.

I took an online test one time, and my carbon footprint is pretty darn tiny. My weak spot is probably traveling, consuming my share of jet fuel. And restaurants, I suppose -- importing God-knows-what from the ends of the Earth.

While I can’t exactly go out and plant a tree, I can at least take care of the ones we’ve got. The back yard of my building has a small maple coming up, right in the middle of the yard -- it promises to be a nice tree in future years, with plenty of room to grow. We also have several roses-of-sharon, smaller trees that have nice flowers in summer. I hereby pledge to defend them against any and all hostile forces!

(Photo: Benches near government buildings in lower Manhattan, March 2008)

Lettuce & Betty

Yesterday I had a welcome respite from the weekday grind. I left work early to zip home and meet with Lettuce, who’s visiting New York and staying in a hotel about a block from my apartment. She and her friend Betty stopped by and met my cat, who was unappreciative, as usual. Then we set out for a good diner lunch and stroll down to the East Village to find some street art.

It was an amazing day, warm and blue and sunny (the latter much to Betty’s fair-skinned chagrin). We explored for a couple of hours and found some pretty good stuff around Tompkins Square Park and down to Houston on Avenue B. It was an added bonus that Betty and Lettuce had seen “Rent” on Broadway, so I got to explain that it was all set in the exact neighborhood where we were walking.

The only downer came when we visited one of my favorite street art walls in the East Village, on Second Street, and found it utterly obliterated -- totally painted over and blank. A guy working at a nearby gas station told us quite spontaneously that it was buffed about two weeks ago. (I think he’d seen us looking at it longingly.)

Later we met up with Bob, who joined us at the pub One and One, at the corner of First Street and First Avenue. We had a pint (or was it two?) and set off into SoHo, where although the light was fading we found more great street art, like the little fellow above.

It was terrific to get away from work and, of course, Lettuce and Betty are charming. What better way to spend an afternoon than in cross-cultural exchange? Makes for a better world all around.

(Photo: Houston Street, April 2008)

Dreaming

Did yesterday’s haiku seem like it didn’t match the photo? I thought they both touched on transience really well -- the impermanent spring mist, the shifting spring light on the wall. That was the common link in my mind. (Just FYI!)

This has been a really busy week! But I’ve been enjoying the urgency, the need to tick off items on my figurative to-do list. I once joked to my mom that my life was nothing more than moving objects from one place to another -- mailing back the Netflix movie, taking out the trash, picking up the laundry -- and she laughed and said, “Well, that’s what life is!” Kind of boils it down to its practical core, eh?

I’ve been having dreams lately, too, which is interesting because I almost never dream. Or at least I don’t remember them. But for the last few nights, they’ve been hovering around my head as I wake up, so I’m at least aware of their presence even though I can’t capture their substance.

When I was in college, I went to a therapist for a while who had me write down my dreams. I’d then read them to her and we’d analyze them together. (She was an ancient Jungian, who always wore purple and chain-smoked as we talked.) Dreams can hold some underlying meanings, but these days I tend to think they’re mostly just misfiring neurons -- I suspect we impose much of the meaning on them after the fact. They can tell you in general ways about the issues percolating in your mind, but I’m skeptical of a lot of the deep metaphorical analysis.

So now, I don’t even try to hold on to them. I just let them vanish, like steam. Poof!

(Photo: Upper East Side, March 2008)

Marvel

Spring morning marvel...
Lovely nameless little hill
On a sea of mist

-- Basho

(Photo: Lower East Side, March 2008)

Weekend

Well, I had a great weekend! Fun and busy and exhausting.

I got together with Bob Friday and Saturday nights. On Saturday we went to one of my favorite swanky bars, atop the Beekman Tower hotel, which has a great view of the East River and the area just north of the United Nations. I even had a martini, which is rare for me, and which just about knocked me out!

During the day on Saturday I went to the gym and cleaned the house, and then walked over in Chelsea. I wanted to see whether any of the street art I put up a few weeks ago was still there -- and it wasn't. Transience indeed.

Yesterday I was at the Zendo in the morning and then went walking in Tribeca, where I haven't been for about eight months. I was sorry to see that several popular locations for street art had been completely cleaned. I guess the denizens of all those ritzy lofts and shiny new condos wanted a tidier streetscape. But it's their loss.

Last night I transcribed a Dharma talk -- which is something like a sermon, or a teaching -- by a senior student at the Zendo, so we can publish it in our newsletter. It was an extra little Dharma lesson for the day, since I'd already heard a talk that morning. (But you can never have too much teaching, right?)

(Photo: Door in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, March 2008)

Instructions

Tulips

Spring seems to be accelerating, with the sudden bloom of all the tulips in the flower beds in front of our building. This is the first year we've had tulips, and no one was sure what color they would be. I'm happy to see they're a beautiful shade of salmon pink.


I also thought you'd like another view of the backyard. As you can see, things are happening quickly there, too -- compare the view below to this photo, taken just a week ago. The blooms are almost all gone from the magnolia, and the horse chestnut is putting out little green umbrellas of leaves.


Pretty soon, I won't be able to see that building across the courtyard, and my neighbors and I will all lead substantially more private lives.