You are currently browsing the category archive for the 'new haven' category.
i’m grateful for today, so far. (i desperately need to remind myself…)
- six and a half hours of unbroken sleep.
- fresh cherries and pineapple slices in the refrigerator for breakfast.
- an hour of calm reading time with coffee before work.
- Lauren’s voice didn’t sound like a grating box of Lucky Brands, and she was glowing from her seven and a half hours of unbroken, albeit CR, sleep.
- the resuscitation of a long forgotten mix on the way to work, with songs from a nostalgic, bygone era.
- traffic at the I-95 merge kept me held up for awhile, giving me even more time to enjoy that mix.
- morning Zen chat with Wendy.
- Chik-Patty Sandwich from Edge of the Hood on a full hour lunchbreak.
(bonus: free sample of Reed’s Ginger Beer) - the amazing opportunities for patience and compassion presented by a last-minute phone call from my boss, the sudden loss of much-needed fonts, and the five-minute lag-time between the moment i press “print” and when the document actually prints.
- dark chocolate-covered almonds.
and it’s only 3:14 in the afternoon.
it happens sometimes when i’m not paying attention. memories creep in from distant places. the smell of Chapel Street early this morning; steady rain on the windows after the sun goes down; Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea from the ipod on shuffle; tu me manques on the tv. bystander details from an innocent June day saturating all the photos i didn’t save or never took.
in my head i found you there and
running around and following me
it may not be much of an image, sometimes not even a face. sometimes it’s just a presence filling the space like in a dream where a stranger is pictured but you recognize them as someone you know in real life. sometimes it’s just a name written in someone’s particular script in the air in front of me.
but they’re there, and they don’t notice me. and of course that’s all i want. i want them to look up from their faraway lives and say hi.
that’s why i’m writing, of course.
i want them to remember me like i sometimes remember them. that ride home from the Valley, that photo taken on the Turnpike, that storm over Seaside Park.
but i suppose the best i can do is wave to them from here, whether anyone is looking or not.
i haven’t forgotten you, and i don’t think i ever will.
baker baker baking a cake
make me a day
make me whole again
and i wonder if he’s ok
if you see him say hi
This is my reply to the following comment posted in an article in the New Haven Independent about federal stimulus money going to help the homeless in New Haven.
Posted by: lance | April 30, 2009 4:27 PM
most people that are homeless brought it upon themselves, I wouldn’t give ‘em anything, let alone 1.5 million dollrs worth of food. And how much of the 1.5 is going to be embezzled in one way or another?
Lance, how do you know that most homeless people brought it upon themselves? Have you been out there on the streets and asked them how they ended up there?
Or did you just see someone in the street, someone probably stuck in one of the worst periods in their life, and write them off as irresponsible and unfit for your compassion, let alone your tax dollars.
I wonder who showed you compassion in your lowest moment and what would have happened if they hadn’t.
And from a purely practical point of view: you and your tax dollars are going to deal with the homeless in one way or another, whether through paying police to handle their petty crimes in your neighborhood, through reimbursing hospitals for their unnecessary stays in the emergency room, or through paying for their jail time.
$13,500 = The average annual cost to provide shelter, meals, and case management for one person in New Haven (per Columbus House in New Haven).
$44,000 = The average annual cost to incarcerate one inmate in Connecticut. (http://www.cga.ct.gov/2008/rpt/2008-R-0099.htm).
Why not provide the resources to get the homeless stable, housed and independent when it’s so much more cost effective (not to mention compassionate) than the alternatives?
(The Independent’s site would not, for technical reasons, let me post my reply there.)
it’s a strange thing to run without music when i’ve run plugged into my ipod for so long. the opposite of music is not silence, it’s breath–mine and a neighborhood’s. the sound of moppy heads grinding the sidewalk with skateboards. of dogs behind fences barking at dogs on leashes. of the soft soles of a faster runner coming up behind me.
it’s been a long time since i’ve ran through East Rock (the section of town). Carrie-Lynn and i used to jog to the edge of East Rock (the rock) and then wind through the sort of suburban streets of the rare New Haven neighborhood that has somehow managed to not become too gentrified or too dangerous. we’d end at her place on Foster, and she’d invite me up for lemonade and conversation on her third floor balcony.
the houses lining Livingston all look like they’ve been alive a long time, like great-grandpas with bushy eyebrows or ancient aunts whose knee-high pantyhose are always falling down–the ones the kids love best.
and there are kids everywhere. one who keeps throwing a flat rock at the sidewalk to see how many pieces she can break it into. teenagers in Uggs outside of Hall-Benedict Drug. i smile but they don’t smile back because teenagers never smile back. white kids shooting hoops at East Rock Park; black kids shooting hoops a little further down English St. across from Rice Field.
i go a little further down English and realize that I-91 and a hidden field of cat tails keeps me from looping back over the river to my car. so i turn around.
i take the trail that girls aren’t supposed to take by themselves. i take it because it’s quiet, lined with giant, quiet trees and a quiet river. nothing has blossomed yet, but it seems to me like the brown of winter has turned gold. the jogging comes easier with gold than with brown.
and then i’m suddenly back with the oversized houses stuffed three floors high with Yale grad students and starter families. everyone smiles back when i jog past, even the dogs. everyone except the teenagers, of course.
i think i’d like a floor and a starter family.
i’m about to turn back onto Edwards where my car is parked when i notice that under the mail box on the corner there’s a pair of old ladies shoes, black flats like a librarian would wear. they just sit there, as though an old lady were standing in them.
i’m not sure i would have noticed them if i were plugged into my ipod.
when something like this happens, you think about all the calls you didn’t make, all the times you put her off because 35 minutes seemed like too long a drive or you weren’t sure you’d fit in or you didn’t want to drink or it seemed more like a business event.
no time for catching up now. maybe not for awhile.
–
when we first really talk, we are looking out over Seaside Park and Long Island Sound from the third (fourth?) story window at Seeley Hall. we are talking about books and poetry and writing, Kundera and Szymborska. it’s a long discussion, and i sort of feel like she’s testing me, pushing to see if i’ll push back. but she smiles in between questions.
“what was your favorite part in Immortality?” she asks.
i tell her that i loved the conversations between Goethe and Hemmingway.
she nods her head slowly. i watch a ferry crawl through the summer waves.
we don’t say anything for awhile. we just watch through squinted eyes the joggers go around the Seaside amphitheater. it’s August and sticky and bright.
finally, she turns her head to look at me and tilts it slightly to let me know that she’s really thought about what she’s going to say.
and then she says, “i like you.”
–
we are in Levoca, Slovakia when she first tells me that she doesn’t think she’ll live to see 29. she isn’t scared or apprehensive or in a hurry. she’s just letting me know. i smile a tiny, slow smile and shrug because she is always saying things like that.
she turns 29 on March 4.
–
she and i are in new haven. we had been wandering around, looking for photographs and clues to our future like tealeaves on the sidewalks. we stop at starbucks. she orders a strong coffee. i order a hot chocolate, exclaming, “this is the best hot chocolate.” we sip and step out onto the salt-covered streets.
we pass willoughby’s and i feel bad for having a starbucks cup. we pass claire’s and the gap. the air is hanging like very thin ice. our breath sticks to it. we wander onto the green which is covered in a thin layer of newer snow–not powder but not yet ice. they had just set up the christmas tree. about twenty feet tall and dotted with lights.
i say, “this hot chocolate is so good.”
she says, “shut up about the fucking hot chocolate.” she looks right at me and smiles.
then she says, “let’s play a game. i’m going to walk and you have to match each of my footsteps in the snow. right on right. left on left.” i chase her all over the green. sometimes she takes giant leaps that i can’t match, sometimes she takes baby steps that are annoying. sometimes i can’t find the next step.
i stop following her when we get to the tree. i tilt my head back and look at the top of the tree against town hall’s facade. the bells start ringing. 9 p.m. in the middle of those bells come the bells from the three churches along temple street. they’re all playing a different hymn, all in a different rhythm. i close my eyes and breathe in the cold air.
diana looks back and sees me on pause. she pulls out her camera and the shutter snaps.
i don’t know where you are now. maybe you’re in an office with a window down on the Gold Coast. maybe you’re shooting black and whites in the Balkans. maybe you’re driving up Whalley Ave.
but for now and maybe forever you’re frozen in tears on that awful futon on Chapel Street. i’m holding on tight, knowing that when i let go you’re gone. then you’re gone, but you don’t leave, not right away. i’m back on the futon in the soaked August heat, and i hear you primping behind the closed bathroom door for a good long while, so i know your upcoming night is about more than hanging out. i want to put my hand through the window, but i can’t because we live on the first floor so the glass is barred and because i voluntarily gave up my rights to your whereabouts. when you come out of the bathroom, your eyes are narrow with defiance and red.
then my shutter snaps and you leave. and even now, you’re still all sad and red to me.
then i’m dropping you off at JFK. i can’t even remember the music (probably not a mix you made me) or the weather (probably hanging onto warm in that early fall on the East Coast kind of way). just the weight of unbalanced expectations, of lines not meeting on the page, of words that were dropped casually but are now stuck to the floor like gum that lost its flavor. then there’s the hug made out of limp arms and out-turned faces. i have no apology to give, really, and you don’t want one anyway.
i watch your pumas amble away in a blur and get the feeling there’s a question hanging between us that will never be answered.
then you’re smoking a cigarette while we sit with our feet in the gutter. i might be drinking a beer. you might be, too. i hear Death Cab floating down to us through our open windows a story up. post bloody knuckles and a broken mirror. pre studio on Howe. we’re both apologizing over and over in a thousand different words. we keep gently grabbing the blame back from each other, like it’s a slightly expensive restaurant check. we talk in Elliott Smith lyrics, the language of constant good-bye.
drink up with me now and forget all about the pressure of days
do what i say and i’ll make you okay and drive them away
the images stuck in your head
i know this calm won’t last, that we’re just in the eye of storm. you’ll eventually ask for more than i’ll want to give, and we’ll eventually decide that there isn’t really a compromise. but i keep you on pause that May night on Lyon Street, your voice quiet and thoughtful, your concern sincere and your sadness endless.
–
i know you’ve moved as far from there as i have, that you smile and watch tv and drink coffee, but i can’t see you anywhere else. i don’t know if i ever will.
Lots of pics on Lauren’s blog (Part 1 and Part 2) or on Facebook (gotta login), and lots of information and photos from protests around the nation at Join the Impact.
Local coverage at the New Haven Independent (along with some stirring commentary), the Yale Daily News, the New Haven Register (with even more, uh, interesting commentary), more awesome comments at WTNH, and video coverage at WFSB.
We have a lot of work to do.
This is the first day of my life
I swear I was born right in the doorway
I went out in the rain suddenly everything changed
They’re spreading blankets on the beach
i think we started writing our vows at Lucy that night. yes, i was pretty alcohol hazy, but a certain kind of light cuts through any fog. driving home from the club that night, i told Marla, “it’s weird–i think i really like her.” and then i took another gulp from the water jug i had planted in the back seat–to get a jumpstart on the hangover fight.
Yours is the first face that I saw
I think I was blind before I met you
Now I don’t know where I am
I don’t know where I’ve been
But I know where I want to go
i first told you i loved you on an October morning. you were on your sickbed and it had been raining for a week straight. you looked only a little surprised. we both suspected the love thing a long time ago. before holding hands through Wooster Square. even before the shy shoulder touches at the movies. the words just formalized the feeling.
in the beginning, you’d come over to my house late on summer weeknights and we’d cuddle on the porch couch, looking at the stars over the New Haven skyline, long past our bedtimes. i started bringing a change of clothes to your house. good-byes were impossible.
we drove our friends crazy. we’d go to the clubs and cuddle in the corner all night as the lights flashed and the music drowned everything else out. we’d go to cook-outs and share a hamburger, a soda, a piece of cake. we called it “the bubble,” and we lived there for a long time.
And so I thought I’d let you know
That these things take forever
I especially am slow
But I realize that I need you
And I wondered if I could come home
we don’t live in the bubble anymore (we wouldn’t have any friends left if we did). we traded it in for a spacious apartment, laundry on Sundays and grocery shopping. we try to cook meals, with mixed results, and we joined a bowling league, also with mixed results. we halve the bills and share a savings account.
you leave me to my meditation and i leave you to your spinning. you let me watch baseball at night, and i let you watch the news in the morning. when we disagree, we say it out loud. and on the rare occasion that we hurt each other, we both end up crying in each others’ arms.
we live our life. together.
Remember the time you drove all night
Just to meet me in the morning
And I thought it was strange you said everything changed
You felt as if you’d just woke up
And you said “this is the first day of my life
I’m glad I didn’t die before I met you
But now I don’t care I could go anywhere with you
And I’d probably be happy”
so getting married isn’t monumental. it’s where we go next. it’s just saying it out loud to the rest of the world.
which is scary. when i told my grandpa, he said “whatever” and handed the phone to my grandma. and many people asked, “what does that mean, exactly?” or “who’s going to be the man?”
but my sister squealed then almost cried then asked, “do i get to be the best man?” your mom said, “we could have it in our yard!” and Wendy offered to cater the engagement party.
but regardless of what date we set or what ring we choose, it will just be a continuation of what has already been so good for so long.
–
when i told my grandma, i said that it just felt right from the beginning. and she said, “yes, we all saw it, too.”
i love you, fiancee pants.
[First Day Of My Life - Bright Eyes]
it’s been a few days since i’ve been able to string together more than a few minutes in front of a computer (a blessing, really), but now i find myself alone in my spacious apartment (also a blessing) with little else to do than take my vitamins and listen to music.
i’ve yet to do the first, but Radiohead is filling the latter requirement. NPR posted their full live show from the Santa Barbara Bowl and it really is perfect Sunday morning music. do yourself a favor: click here and check it out. now.
so i mean for this to be a catch-up post. sans the political. i’ll resume my issues assignment on a weekday.
(we are accidents waiting to happen)
have i mentioned that i love New Haven? i think i have… i was nominated graciously by my boss to attend a leadership program for the city. i was cynical at first–team-building with a bunch of corporate and non-profit overachievers looking to network, network, network didn’t sound like a whole lot of fun. but after spending two loaded days with the group–yes, team-building but also together sharing an adoration for a city with a lot of secret corners–i found that hokey trust exercises requiring blindfolds and post-activity therapy sessions can be such an eye-opening study into how people respond to problems so vastly differently than i do; and more importantly, that sometimes their responses made so much more sense. and even more importantly, that i found myself willing to listen and bend.
that’s not what makes a good leader, it’s what makes a decent human being. in fact, if i’ve learned nothing else from this two-day hyper-study into decision making, it’s that a truly decent human being usually makes for the best kind of leader. be decent and fair and willing to listen, and people will trust you. when people trust you, they’ll follow you.
i’m not saying people who lead by fear (Hitler, Robert Mugabe, the awful people i worked for at my last job) don’t get big things done. i’m just saying that they usually go down in a giant ball of fire. or suicide.
(i want to be someone else so i’ll explode)
seriously, if you’re not already listening to the Radiohead show, go get it now.
i drove to Worcester, Mass yesterday. that’s pronounced Wooster for you non-East Coasters out there. the leaves are already turning up there. my Swedish friend and i watched at least a dozen grown men pilot remote-controlled sail boats around little orange buoys on Lake Quinsigamond for a couple hours. i hadn’t seen my Swedish friend in nearly nine years. we talked mostly about Coors Light and soccer as a Life Flight helicopter came and went from the nearby UMass medical center. it was perfect.
(it’s on again off again on again)
it’s the year of old friends. thanks, facebook.
(this place is on a mission)
and now, another packed sunday. the last day of summer. grocery shopping. a mandatory meeting and a potluck. no tv news. nothing about lower Manhattan falling into a financial black hole. no attack ads. just the rest of this Radiohead show and the bright sunshine making up for the cool air.
hope your day is as good as mine.
(for a minute there, i lost myself)
J.B. is a tall, lanky African-American man who suffered a traumatic brain injury at a very young age and isn’t able to work or live independently. He lives in long-term transitional housing here at the shelter, so I see him most days. His speech is stilted, he walks like one of his knees doesn’t bend and he makes people laugh like it’s his job.
(walking into the shelter most mornings.)
J.B.: You lookin’ beautiful today!
Me: Thank you!
J.B.: Don’t thank me, thank your mama.
(after having the above conversation at least a dozen times over the last few months.)
Me: I don’t think I know your name.
J.B.: My name’s J.B.
Me: Nice to meet you J.B. My name is Sara.
J.B.: Does that mean I can’t call you beautiful anymore?
Me: You can call me Sara.
J.B.: I don’t remember names real good.
Me: If you forget, you can always ask.
(today at lunch.)
Kitchen Guy: What’s your name?
Me: I’m Sara.
Kitchen Guy: Like Sarah in the Bible. Abraham’s wife.
Me: Yup.
J.B.: Sara Brown. Sounds good…
Kitchen Guy (looking puzzled): Is that your last name?
Me: Nope. It’s Warfield.
J.B.: All you gotta say is, “I do.”
