A Swan Song for Brooklyn?

It's not as cold as I expected as I step out the door of the Sheepshead Bay Comfort Inn. I'm at the southernmost end of Brooklyn, an area exposed to outer New York Bay and the ocean beyond. In the summer this can result in a nice cooling breeze. In the winter, it can mean a biting wind. I indeed feel the wind as I step out from the shelter of the hotel and begin my run up Emmons Avenue. It's blowing hard enough that I squint my eyes a little in response. I'm dressed right, though, and so it doesn't bother me.

I make my way up Emmons Ave, past the abandoned Dunkin' Donuts and the half completed condos. The bay opens up to my left as I pass the fishing boat docks. A few people mill about. The morning fishing boats have already left and the stores aren't open yet so there's not much reason for people to be out and about, however being New York there's always someone around. My run takes me down through Sheepshead Bay, over the footbridge that crosses the bay, then down through the relatively ritzy neighborhood of Manhattan Beach, and ultimately to the campus of Kingsborough Community College, known locally as "K on the Bay".

On the way back I notice the ducks in the water have been joined by a number of mute swans. I don't come to Brooklyn expecting to see wildlife so it's a pleasant surprise to see these beautiful creatures adding a touch of grace to the otherwise gray and murky scene.

Friday night I had dinner with a bunch of old high school friends, none of whom live in Brooklyn any more. Few of them ever make it back here. I have been coming back here to visit family all these years but may soon be in the same boat. Now that my mom is gone I don't whether my dad will continue to live here. My connections to the old place are fading. One of these trips could be my own Brooklyn swan song.

[Photo from http://www.planetware.com/]

On the Boardwalk for My Mother

I spent part of this past week up in New York for the sad event of my mother's funeral. She passed away Monday after a long period of illness. The funeral was held Tuesday, which therefore started the official mourning period. The rituals and restrictions associated with mourning in Judaism are many, particularly during the first week, or shivah period. If you follow all of the rules you're pretty well forced to spend the week focused on the grieving process, since you basically are discouraged from doing much else. You're prohibited by tradition from leaving the house, bathing, shaving, engaging in any form of entertainment, wearing leather shoes (I have no idea why), and more. However, Reform Jews do some picking and choosing from among these rules. I refrained from wearing leather shoes for the first three days (said to be the most intense part of shivah), won't shave for the week, and am avoiding TV and radio, but I have left the house. In fact, I drove home from New York on day three - with the radio/iPod off, of course. My brother and I joked that it would be hard for him to adhere to the restriction on attending entertainment (which some people continue for up to a year) as he is by a Broadway musician by trade.

What does this have to do with an outdoors blog? Well, the morning after the funeral I found myself in my hotel room in Sheepshead Bay wondering if going running was acceptable within my personal set of shivah rules. Drawing upon the concept that applies throughout Jewish law that health takes precedence over all required observances, I decided it was. I further decided that I'd go running on the boardwalk at Brighton Beach as a tribute to my mother, as she loved the boardwalk - so much so that she and my father retired to Brighton in order to be able to stroll the boardwalk and enjoy the ocean. It had been years since she'd been able to make it the 3 blocks from her house to the beach, so I was making this visit for her.

Coming from the sleepy and straight-laced Northern Virginia suburbs, I'm always struck by the variety and quantity of life in Brooklyn. I hit the boardwalk about 7 AM by which point it was pretty crowded with people. Russian senior citizens strolling and young hispanic teens hanging out. I passed a couple of people doing strange calisthenics - things they must have learned in Soviet schools, or in mental institutions, or perhaps Soviet mental institutions. There was the guy standing in one spot wiggling his whole body like JelloTM. There was the fellow high stepping down the boardwalk like a storm trooper on ecstasy. A young Orthodox Jewish woman jogging, decked out in properly modest Orthodox attire. An older man in white support hose and bright green shorts: equal parts Gorbachev and leprechaun.

I ran from Brighton to Coney Island and back, about 30 minutes total. At the end of my run I took my shoes off and walked down the beach to the ocean. As I did some cooldown stretches by the water's edge, I noticed that there were some swimmers in the water on this cool, grey September morning. The beach maintenance guys were still out with their heavy equipment finishing their daily sifting of the sand. For some reason there were paramedics about.

My mother always reveled in the eccentricities of Brooklyn. I don't think she would have minded my morning run at all - in fact I like to think she was along with me that morning.

Can Brooklyn count as The Outdoors?

I always find the drive from DC to NY tiring. I95 is always crowded enough that you can't just relax back into your thoughts, and today bad weather exacerbated the stress of the drive. Combined with some sensory overload from a brief stop at a kayak show, I was pretty dazed by the time I hit Staten Island. Is it any wonder that at first glance I misread the "Staten Island Botanical Garden" road sign as "Satanical Garden"?

Brooklyn always brings out mixed emotions for me. It's home. It's my roots. Truth be told, though, it's a pretty gray and grubby place. But dammit, the food is good. As usual, my first goal upon entering the borough is to get a slice of pizza. I squeeze the car into an impossibly small parking space in Bay Ridge and set out in search of a pizza place. The first place I come across, a block and a half up, is closed for renovation. I have to walk all the way to 79th St. to find a pizza place - that's five blocks! Having to walk five blocks to find pizza in Brooklyn is simply unfathomable. Pizza is ubiquitous in Brooklyn, and I am pretty frustrated by the time I finally belly up to the counter and order.

I can't help myself, I somehow pick up a Brooklyn dialect when I visit. Not just the accent, but quirks like calling people "buddy" and using expressions like "fuhgedaboutit". The funny thing is I didn't speak like this when I lived here. I think I overcompensate for my insecurity over being merely an ex-Brooklynite by adopting a comically exagerated Brooklyn persona. So, "yeah, gimme two slices an' a smawwl Diet Coke" is what I sez to the guy behind the counter at the pizza place.

Accent notwithstanding, I soon sit down with my two slices. There's a commercial for Domino's on TV. Domino's?? Who in their right mind would order Domino's in Brooklyn? I take a bite of my slice. It's about average for Brooklyn, which means it's AMAZING. The crust is a little on the crisp side, but the flavor is just right. It just explodes through my mouth. Before I know it I have inhaled the whole slice. I force myself to take a break and then eat the second more slowly. Heaven.

Oh, and I later figure out that had I walked in the other direction I would have gotten to a pizza place in only two blocks. That's more like it.