Brooklyn Again

There were glimmers from my childhood days as we walked the New York streets, but I often felt like a visitor from another dimension. We were staying in an apartment at the edge of the neighborhood in Brooklyn where I grew up, and I retraced the once-familiar routes in search of landmarks and memories. The stores on Flatbush Avenue had long ago transmuted into different kinds of businesses. Where was the old Woolworth’s with the photo booth and lunch counter and aisles of worldly goods? Where were the sidewalks inexplicably flecked with sparkles, and Garfield’s Cafeteria, and the little grocery shop with sawdust on the floor? Where was the drug store with its show globe glass apothecary jars in the window, filled with colored liquids, and the squares of blue mirrors by the door?

“I want to find the blue mirrors,” I told Monte, who looked at me bewildered. Children notice and remember so many odd details. The old Dutch Reformed church, built in the 1700s, was a reassuring presence, its graveyard a silent island of history in stark contrast to the bustle of the street.New immigrant groups have long ago displaced the ones I knew, and the area is known for its cultural diversity, with Caribbean, Pakistani, Indian, Bangladeshi, Central American, West Indian, Jewish, and Asian residents, among others. There were Muslim women wearing head scarves, Orthodox Jews with black hats, beards, and buttoned white shirts, and young people in urban street wear. Everyone coexisted. Music emanated from doorways and passing cars: rhythm and blues, rap, a snippet of song sounding vaguely West African. It was quite a contrast to my usual soundtrack of cows and coyotes.

I have truly become a country girl, and while navigating the streets and riding the subways, I often felt daunted by the sheer numbers of people, the messy abundance of things and trash, the overwhelming needs and complexities of the world. At other times, I mostly felt inspired and humbled by the way people cope in their daily lives, tolerating one another in such close proximity. Therein, perhaps, lies hope

.At times my wanderings were bittersweet, in particular evoking memories of my dear departed siblings, Eddie and Marlene. Prospect Park was our backyard, the Brooklyn Museum a fascinating oasis of wonders to explore, Coney Island Avenue a setting for games and pretending until at dusk mothers shouted their children’s names from windows. The Victorian houses on the tree-lined side streets of Flatbush, now called Ditmas Park, were as lovely as I remembered them in the days when my mother would wistfully point out the ones that she might choose if ever given the chance to move to someplace nicer. Eventually my family moved from the city to Long Island for a more modest version of that same basic dream: a private house, a backyard. For my mother, a city person who never drove in her life, it was an isolating and disappointing move, and it took her a long time to adjust.

But I was barely twelve. I wonder why I remember so many details about Brooklyn with such poignant specificity. I guess it has to do with where one's earliest years were spent. My daughter has a theory that it's like dog years...each of the first ten years of our lives carries the emotional weight of seven. I think there's some truth to it.

We stopped at my old address and there was Scottie, a constant in a place that's always changing. Now 85 years old, he has owned and lived in the building for about forty years. I've met him several times before, and he always remembers me, and we stand and talk in front of his shop about things we remember and changes he's seen. Maybe some people would find it far-fetched, but I think Scottie understands the link we share by virtue of having lived at the same address, though decades apart. He knows that we are both part of the story of this neighborhood, which is a story of this city, and of this nation. This particular conversation was unusually honest and troubling, about his experiences as a black man in this country, the loss he perceives of community and caring about each other and understanding history...and the disaster that is Donald Trump.

Ah yes, this election is in the air, and I can't entirely remove this journey from the context of that. Scottie and I seemed to have similar feelings of revulsion and dismay about the Trump candidacy. "How can people not see this for what it is?" he asked. “If he's elected, it's all over."

(Let's pray that day never comes...and while we're on the subject, this commentary in The Atlantic is a must-read.)

Anyway, we chatted some more as traffic passed along the wide street and an occasional pedestrian walked by on the sidewalk that had long ago been my home stretch.  At one point, he got a little emotional. "I'm sorry," he said. "It's more than just anger. It hurts."

I told him how much I respected him. And may the best in us prevail.

The lovely Methodist church was locked and in disrepair...broken window, chipped paint, even the steeple looked rusted. (I've written previously about my friend Carol, with whom I used to go to this church, and I'll tell you later about what it was like to see her again after 50 years, as I did on this visit!)

But a few blocks further was Holy Innocents, the Catholic church where a couple of my siblings and I were belatedly baptized, and where a nun once stopped me at the door as I tried to escape mass early with Eddie, handed me a strand of rosary beads, and sent me back inside. (I still have those rosary beads.) Some kind of event was wrapping up, and people were dressed up in old-fashioned Sunday clothes: suits and dresses, and even hats. One lovely lady with a Caribbean accent noticed us peeking in, ushered us around the back, and urged us to take a seat in the  sanctuary, telling us to pray, take our time...and "May God bless you."  

We could hear an unseen choir rehearsing a hymn in another part of the church, and it was very haunting and beautiful. It wasn't a hymn I recognized, but some of the lyrics seemed directed at me: "What are you looking for?" and "Open your heart and you will see"....

I sat there for a long time.