sooze in the city — or old hat, new hat, pretty little blue hat
just as my plane circled manhattan island, i thought of the first time i'd seen it, not quite this view, but far enough away to see the beauty in all that concrete and steel scraping at the clouds. back then, as a child, i wanted SO MUCH to get a closer view. to walk through the manufactured canyons, looking up and around. my thoughts on saturday of this week weren't so different, because this time i knew there was a piece of me already down there, just west of the edge of central park. my own blood and bone shaping the jawline of a beautiful girl who herself might just be watching the skies at that moment, waiting for me.
it feels a little old hat by now, these occasional trips into 'the city' to see my child. each year in the past six i have made the trip alone, with friends and family, wandering those canyons with her, seeing the city through her eyes. though we made a few mother/daughter trips together years ago, now — as she predicted what feels like so many years ago — this place to her is home.
she's lived in more than a few places in her years of working in nyc. last fall my Pea and her Prince, moved into the 10th floor of a pre-war brownstone on a busy thoroughfare on the upper west side. after a half-dozen visits to this side of town, i've grown familiar with the neighborhood, the weekend market by the Museum of Natural History, with Harry's Shoes, and what on every corner seems to sit a storied Italian eatery. (on this visit, we ate at two), but it was my first trip to this apartment. i'd seen pictures, so i knew that after almost three years of marriage, my favorite couple was finally beginning to make a home.
you remember that, right? how without even realizing it, you found yourself replacing the tiny, temporary breakfast table with a good wood one? how you hung curtains in the windows — mine where hand-me-down from my aunt, though the Pea's are new. how you arranged your books in a creative tower on the floor just like in the magazines you now browse (well, the 2012 version is Pinterest) and made neat stacks of your wedding gift dishes in cabinets lined with shelf paper, and hung monogrammed towels in the bathroom because your mother was coming to visit and you know how much she loves pretty, clean towels. and how you brought in fresh flowers for the mantel — green and blue hyacinths, which were your wedding flowers — because she loves those, too. and how you carried around fabric swatches in your purse because you never knew when you might run across a chair or a rug or a print for the wall that just might work with that window treatment. how you and your husband wandered through flea markets on weekends and found just the thing to hold all your good dishes in the back of a barn where nobody else had cared to look. that kind of thing.
she is doing all that. has started to make her home, finally, in this sweet space where in the night, as she nods off to sleep she imagines who might have inhabited these rooms before her, in the 100 years since this brownstone was built.
that is a gift of New York. that you live in three small rooms once occupied by those you can only imagine: the painter, the priest. the actress, the writer. the working mother at the end of her rope. the grandmother, the accountant. who knows what hats hung once in the little hallway where now maps of the places they love grace the walls? did someone like Peggy of Mad Men once live here, hopeful of what was to become?
but for now, the young woman who works in pr and the love of her life, who makes her laugh and loves her brother like his own... and the elegant Miss Bailey dog who sidles up to her grandsooze (who loves this, so very much) add their own history to this place.
when last i left her, my Princess Pea hadn't started all this, the collecting of the things that will one day find their way into other houses in her life with her Prince. their lives seemed temporary, disposable, like they were just biding time until the right thing came along. (the love seat i bought new for her first apartment found its way, somehow, into the place across the hall when they moved from there. a wicker chair that once sat in my sunroom for some reason met the curb, though she has kept the little desk that once belonged to my aunt, and another Santa brought her when she was 10.)
the right thing, for now, seems to be present in this house. and though it is just really three rooms, it is their house.
her father and i started our married life in two rooms. beautiful rooms, with hardwood floors and two fireplaces, a brand new kitchen and windows taller than i am. three weeks later we left them for other rooms, then our first house, houses where we began to do what my Pea is doing.
surely you remember that.
while i was in the city, the Prince stretched out on his new leather throne and in between ACC tournament games read highlights of the history of the neighborhood. later as we walked to dinner (at the first Italian place on the corner), he pointed out the gargoyle guarding their building just outside their living room window and the brownstones across the street that were the first ones to be built.
Matt Damon lives on their street somewhere, as does Robert Duvall. (way down toward the Hudson). Mary Tyler Moore used to. And so did Sara Jessica Parker (who shared an apartment with Robert Downey Jr.) Might it have been this one?
on Sunday, we walked just up the block toward Central Park to a little gallery to see a collection of hats on loan from the Victoria and Albert Museum. the Bard Graduate Center for the past couple of months has been home to Hats: An Anthology by Stephen Jones. (through April 15)
i've never been much of a hat wearer, but i love the idea. my mother wore them every Sunday when i was a child, and i often wished i would grow up to be as elegant as she was in her hats.
we were alone in the gallery, which itself sits in a refashioned brownstone, so we wandered through the collection, wondering what kind of heads had once worn such beautiful toppers. the Queen mother. FDR. Babe Ruth. Mick Jagger. and dozens of nameless heads as ordinary as a schoolgirl in a straw bonnet and as jocular as a jester, perhaps in King Henry's court. a bowler woven from the NYTimes. a cloche worn by Gypsy Rose Lee. but my favorite was a small brimmed hat made entirely of feathers, which reminded me of one my mother used to wear, arranged to resemble a painter's palette.
later, as we wandered the flea market in search of rugs and kitchen table chairs, we tried on netted fascinators just for fun.
early monday, as my Pea stood on the corner trying to flag a cab for me before the sun was quite up, i wondered if we'd leave each other this time just as we had so many others — in tears. the cab pulled up, and she opened the door, then hugged me tight, but when i looked into those giant brown eyes, they only glistened with happy.
and as i rode away from her, for the first time in a long, long time, it felt good to be wearing this particular new hat.
writemuch.blogspot is the original work of author susan byrum rountree. all written work and photography is copyright protected and can only be used with written permission of the author.
she's lived in more than a few places in her years of working in nyc. last fall my Pea and her Prince, moved into the 10th floor of a pre-war brownstone on a busy thoroughfare on the upper west side. after a half-dozen visits to this side of town, i've grown familiar with the neighborhood, the weekend market by the Museum of Natural History, with Harry's Shoes, and what on every corner seems to sit a storied Italian eatery. (on this visit, we ate at two), but it was my first trip to this apartment. i'd seen pictures, so i knew that after almost three years of marriage, my favorite couple was finally beginning to make a home.
you remember that, right? how without even realizing it, you found yourself replacing the tiny, temporary breakfast table with a good wood one? how you hung curtains in the windows — mine where hand-me-down from my aunt, though the Pea's are new. how you arranged your books in a creative tower on the floor just like in the magazines you now browse (well, the 2012 version is Pinterest) and made neat stacks of your wedding gift dishes in cabinets lined with shelf paper, and hung monogrammed towels in the bathroom because your mother was coming to visit and you know how much she loves pretty, clean towels. and how you brought in fresh flowers for the mantel — green and blue hyacinths, which were your wedding flowers — because she loves those, too. and how you carried around fabric swatches in your purse because you never knew when you might run across a chair or a rug or a print for the wall that just might work with that window treatment. how you and your husband wandered through flea markets on weekends and found just the thing to hold all your good dishes in the back of a barn where nobody else had cared to look. that kind of thing.
she is doing all that. has started to make her home, finally, in this sweet space where in the night, as she nods off to sleep she imagines who might have inhabited these rooms before her, in the 100 years since this brownstone was built.
that is a gift of New York. that you live in three small rooms once occupied by those you can only imagine: the painter, the priest. the actress, the writer. the working mother at the end of her rope. the grandmother, the accountant. who knows what hats hung once in the little hallway where now maps of the places they love grace the walls? did someone like Peggy of Mad Men once live here, hopeful of what was to become?
when last i left her, my Princess Pea hadn't started all this, the collecting of the things that will one day find their way into other houses in her life with her Prince. their lives seemed temporary, disposable, like they were just biding time until the right thing came along. (the love seat i bought new for her first apartment found its way, somehow, into the place across the hall when they moved from there. a wicker chair that once sat in my sunroom for some reason met the curb, though she has kept the little desk that once belonged to my aunt, and another Santa brought her when she was 10.)
the right thing, for now, seems to be present in this house. and though it is just really three rooms, it is their house.
her father and i started our married life in two rooms. beautiful rooms, with hardwood floors and two fireplaces, a brand new kitchen and windows taller than i am. three weeks later we left them for other rooms, then our first house, houses where we began to do what my Pea is doing.
surely you remember that.
while i was in the city, the Prince stretched out on his new leather throne and in between ACC tournament games read highlights of the history of the neighborhood. later as we walked to dinner (at the first Italian place on the corner), he pointed out the gargoyle guarding their building just outside their living room window and the brownstones across the street that were the first ones to be built.
Matt Damon lives on their street somewhere, as does Robert Duvall. (way down toward the Hudson). Mary Tyler Moore used to. And so did Sara Jessica Parker (who shared an apartment with Robert Downey Jr.) Might it have been this one?
on Sunday, we walked just up the block toward Central Park to a little gallery to see a collection of hats on loan from the Victoria and Albert Museum. the Bard Graduate Center for the past couple of months has been home to Hats: An Anthology by Stephen Jones. (through April 15)
 | ||
| image from the Bard Graduate Center, West 86th Street, NYC |
we were alone in the gallery, which itself sits in a refashioned brownstone, so we wandered through the collection, wondering what kind of heads had once worn such beautiful toppers. the Queen mother. FDR. Babe Ruth. Mick Jagger. and dozens of nameless heads as ordinary as a schoolgirl in a straw bonnet and as jocular as a jester, perhaps in King Henry's court. a bowler woven from the NYTimes. a cloche worn by Gypsy Rose Lee. but my favorite was a small brimmed hat made entirely of feathers, which reminded me of one my mother used to wear, arranged to resemble a painter's palette.
later, as we wandered the flea market in search of rugs and kitchen table chairs, we tried on netted fascinators just for fun.
and as i rode away from her, for the first time in a long, long time, it felt good to be wearing this particular new hat.
writemuch.blogspot is the original work of author susan byrum rountree. all written work and photography is copyright protected and can only be used with written permission of the author.
Bright Lights, Big City
When the Princess was 13, her Fairy Godmother and I took our daughters to New York City for the first time. I had never been myself, though I had seen it from the Interstate when I was teenager. As we walked together bundled against the December wind, my child who has loved being the opposite of me for as long as I can remember said: I can see myself living here. A lark! A daydream. Doesn't everybody see themselves living in Manhattan when they are 13?
Turns out, I should have listened.
February 2, I think it was, 2007. While the Princess was at work, that same Fairy Godmother and I settled her into her first apartment on the Upper East Side. The P couldn't be there because she as toiling away, trying to scrape enough money together to pay for half the rent.
The night before, she and her boyfriend took us to see her new place after our FG had treated us all to a wonderful Italian dinner. Bundled yet again against the cold, we ventured into the three-story walkup, the lobby — if you can call it that — splattered with so many fingerprints it looked as if it had been dusted for a crime scene. Each narrow stair dipped in the center, its edges worn to the nub.
Inside the apartment, which had about a dozen (well, maybe half that) door locks on the front door — the hardwood floors gleemed, though the side windows looked straight out into a brick wall. Arched doorways led the way into what was such a Carrie Bradshaw closet space I knew I had no argument.
She had found it herself, a fact in and of itself I could not imagine. Had found a roommate on Craig's List, had negotiated the contract, and though she had to use a lot of her Dad's money to secure it, had been handed the key. Just herself, by herself. At 23. Wow.
When we got back to the hotel, Fairy Godmother and I held hands and vowed not to tell Papa Bear or Uncle Fairy Godfather just how dim the den had looked. I cried myself to sleep, and not because my father, on our drive down I-95, had not let me come into the city at 16.
The next day, when FG and I met the movers on the street, things seemed a little brighter.
The week before, I had packed the 12 boxes that contained the Life of My Princess to ship to NYC, and Dear Herbert, the Mover, had picked them up. A day and 10 minutes later, he and his team deposited almost all she owned inside this tiny cubicle, the front windows of which looked out over piles of trash and concrete where dogs routinely left their day's work, right on the sidewalk.
But FG and I were too busy to pay attention. Inside, we turned on the radiated heat, locked the 12 (ok 6) locks on the door and set to work. While I wiped the inside of the two shelves in the kitchen, FG painstakingly cut shelf liner to fit perfectly. We unpacked my castoff honeymoon dishes, washed them, put them away in neat stacks. Made up the bed. Hung the towels in the bathroom. (Scrubbed the shower first.) Then because the PP needed something to hide her altogether from the street front, we took a cab in the late afternoon to Bed Bath and Beyond.
Which in Manhattan, is three floors tall. With escalators! For the carts!
At first I was reticent, wanting to buy only enough to fill a bag or two. How would we get anything more back in a cab? But then FG, ever the eagle-eye shopper, saw a clerk on the floor taking notes. Need something delivered? BB&B delivers anything in the city for $15. Make a note of that. Why not fill up two carts?
Later, after we had said our goodbyes to the FG, I gave up my hotel room to spend the night in the new digs. I pulled out my famous spaghetti sauce — brought all the way from home — from the small freezer in this tiny kitchen, as my daughter and her boyfriend headed down the street for salad stuff and wine for supper.
Alone, I took a moment to pretend that I was the brave one, living in the middle of the biggest place I'd ever visited, and somewhere in the caverns of boxes was the typewriter I had yet to unpack.
The dream lasted just long enough for the real occupant to return. As I cooked, I saw more than once that she moved the things I had so carefully placed on chest, table and window sill, to suit her tastes. (She was always moving the Christmas Santas like that at home.)
That night, though I tried to sleep beside my very metropolitan daughter, sirens taunted, car horns blared, reminding me that I need silence more than energy from a strange city, to write. Knowing that if my mother had moved me to this town when I was 23, I would have called her immediately to send me a ticket home.
By Sunday, I was hauling my suitcase to the curb at 1st Ave., the PP flagging a cab, and suddenly, I was watching my firstborn in the rear view, making her way in a place where I knew no one who could rescue her should she have a fever in the middle of the night. She walked up the street to her steps without me, and my heart hung somewhere near the back of my eyes.
But she survived. Learned the subway. Got a better job. Married that boyfriend, in green shoes no less. Moved two more times. Has lived there four years. I think she has had a fever once or twice, and has managed fine without me.
The Husband's (so she calls him on her blog) mom sent me a Christmas present a few weeks ago. A book called Mockingbird, an unauthorized biography of Nelle Harper Lee. Imagine my surprise to learn in the first few pages of the book, that my favorite novel was written largely not in Monroeville, Ala., but on York Ave., on the Upper East Side, near the corner of 81st and 82nd, not two blocks from where we had placed my own first dishes in that small row of cabinets for my child to use.
I like to imagine that the muse I felt for just a wisp of a moment that frigid night in the first days of February in 2007, might have drifted toward me from my favorite author in the neighborhood, with the smattering of snowflakes swirling outside.
But that is the romantic in me. And this story is about another girl who answered her muse, however different it might have been from mine.
What I know for sure, as Oprah says, is that the child I raised up to be who she imagined, did just that. She now navigates the subways, chastises the cab drivers for taking the long route, works for a really cool company, walks her dog in the mornings, lately through more than a foot of snow.
And I can't wait to see what her next lark will be.
sbr
Turns out, I should have listened.
February 2, I think it was, 2007. While the Princess was at work, that same Fairy Godmother and I settled her into her first apartment on the Upper East Side. The P couldn't be there because she as toiling away, trying to scrape enough money together to pay for half the rent.
 |
| It didn't look as bad in the daylight |
Inside the apartment, which had about a dozen (well, maybe half that) door locks on the front door — the hardwood floors gleemed, though the side windows looked straight out into a brick wall. Arched doorways led the way into what was such a Carrie Bradshaw closet space I knew I had no argument.
She had found it herself, a fact in and of itself I could not imagine. Had found a roommate on Craig's List, had negotiated the contract, and though she had to use a lot of her Dad's money to secure it, had been handed the key. Just herself, by herself. At 23. Wow.
When we got back to the hotel, Fairy Godmother and I held hands and vowed not to tell Papa Bear or Uncle Fairy Godfather just how dim the den had looked. I cried myself to sleep, and not because my father, on our drive down I-95, had not let me come into the city at 16.
The next day, when FG and I met the movers on the street, things seemed a little brighter.
The week before, I had packed the 12 boxes that contained the Life of My Princess to ship to NYC, and Dear Herbert, the Mover, had picked them up. A day and 10 minutes later, he and his team deposited almost all she owned inside this tiny cubicle, the front windows of which looked out over piles of trash and concrete where dogs routinely left their day's work, right on the sidewalk.
But FG and I were too busy to pay attention. Inside, we turned on the radiated heat, locked the 12 (ok 6) locks on the door and set to work. While I wiped the inside of the two shelves in the kitchen, FG painstakingly cut shelf liner to fit perfectly. We unpacked my castoff honeymoon dishes, washed them, put them away in neat stacks. Made up the bed. Hung the towels in the bathroom. (Scrubbed the shower first.) Then because the PP needed something to hide her altogether from the street front, we took a cab in the late afternoon to Bed Bath and Beyond.
Which in Manhattan, is three floors tall. With escalators! For the carts!
 |
| everyone needs a fairygodmother |
Later, after we had said our goodbyes to the FG, I gave up my hotel room to spend the night in the new digs. I pulled out my famous spaghetti sauce — brought all the way from home — from the small freezer in this tiny kitchen, as my daughter and her boyfriend headed down the street for salad stuff and wine for supper.
Alone, I took a moment to pretend that I was the brave one, living in the middle of the biggest place I'd ever visited, and somewhere in the caverns of boxes was the typewriter I had yet to unpack.
The dream lasted just long enough for the real occupant to return. As I cooked, I saw more than once that she moved the things I had so carefully placed on chest, table and window sill, to suit her tastes. (She was always moving the Christmas Santas like that at home.)
That night, though I tried to sleep beside my very metropolitan daughter, sirens taunted, car horns blared, reminding me that I need silence more than energy from a strange city, to write. Knowing that if my mother had moved me to this town when I was 23, I would have called her immediately to send me a ticket home.
By Sunday, I was hauling my suitcase to the curb at 1st Ave., the PP flagging a cab, and suddenly, I was watching my firstborn in the rear view, making her way in a place where I knew no one who could rescue her should she have a fever in the middle of the night. She walked up the street to her steps without me, and my heart hung somewhere near the back of my eyes.
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The Husband's (so she calls him on her blog) mom sent me a Christmas present a few weeks ago. A book called Mockingbird, an unauthorized biography of Nelle Harper Lee. Imagine my surprise to learn in the first few pages of the book, that my favorite novel was written largely not in Monroeville, Ala., but on York Ave., on the Upper East Side, near the corner of 81st and 82nd, not two blocks from where we had placed my own first dishes in that small row of cabinets for my child to use.
I like to imagine that the muse I felt for just a wisp of a moment that frigid night in the first days of February in 2007, might have drifted toward me from my favorite author in the neighborhood, with the smattering of snowflakes swirling outside.
But that is the romantic in me. And this story is about another girl who answered her muse, however different it might have been from mine.
What I know for sure, as Oprah says, is that the child I raised up to be who she imagined, did just that. She now navigates the subways, chastises the cab drivers for taking the long route, works for a really cool company, walks her dog in the mornings, lately through more than a foot of snow.
And I can't wait to see what her next lark will be.
sbr