mama's got balls

a Sunday afternoon project.
inspiration courtesy of  Tiniest Kitchen,
the adorable new food blog of a friend.

missing miss america

My beloved maternal grandmother would have been 84 today.  She's been gone for three and a half years, and I still miss her like crazy.  She lived well, loved hard, and didn't mince words.

Her nickname for me was "Miss America"--I'm not sure why.  It was one of the many ways she always made me feel special.

scenes from life with boys

"Plan A"
the boys Friday morning scheme to capture the cat

scenes from life with boys

Rainy Wednesday night after soccer practice. 
L train platform at Bedford Avenue.

september 12

Beverly Mitchell via here is new york

For the weeks leading up to yesterday, I didn't want to remember. I acknowledge the losses, grieve for the families of the dead, recognize the sacrifices of the rescue and relief workers, and hope for the continued safety of my city. Two thousand and one is a lifetime ago. For most of us, life looks completely different than it did then, and I felt the need to stay firmly rooted in the present.

Despite all of this, late yesterday morning, I felt compelled to dig up an email I had written to friends and loved ones on September 17, 2001. I spent 20 minutes trying to remember the password on a long abandoned Hotmail account. As I reread the email, it all come flooding back, and I regretted that I had opened it. But, as I thought about it, I realized that that didn't make it unimportant. It serves as a time capsule for me and though it may, now, not be one I need to revisit, it is part of my narrative and the events that followed it have surely shaped my world in the last ten years. Some of my thoughts at that time are now riddled with irony. And, ten years later (and wiser?), with two children, I can't imagine I would venture that close to Ground Zero six days later.

I had forgotten many of the sights and smells described. I had forgotten the disdain I had been feeling for New York that previous summer. I had forgotten the deep commitment I felt to my NYU students that week and in the weeks after. Many of those "kids" now have spouses and families, remarkable careers and lives.

So, here it is. A window into my 26-year-old self and the only personal encounter with terrorism I hope to ever have. If that young woman could see what life would look like ten years later, she would be baffled. Just as I am baffled at her resilience and hope during a period of time I would now rather forget.

**************

When I woke this morning, I knew I had to get out of the house, of the neighborhood, out of the "skin" I've lived in for the last 5 days. Leighton and I talked about walking uptown to the Armory where people are reporting missing loved ones. Then, maybe up to Times Square where I've heard the display of flags is impressive.

Leighton and I like to walk, and we love to walk in New York City. Leighton has explored most every nook and cranny of this city on foot and on bike and he has taught me so much about my adopted hometown over the last (nearly) two years. This summer, as we prepared for a lot of schlepping through England, we walked several miles, several times a week, down the west side of the island along a beautiful greenway the city has created along the Hudson. This walk would take us down past a large boathouse and into a park and marina near and below the World Financial Center, on into Battery Park City. Battery Park is my favorite area of the city. It has the serenity of Central Park, but the added bonus of being located on the water with a wonderful view of the Statue of Liberty and sporadic, whimsical sculpture gardens.

This morning, I pulled out some photos of my dad's trip to New York in May of 1999. There are many of the Financial District and the lower Manhattan skyline from Ellis Island and the Staten Island Ferry. I have a couple looking up the WTC towers and the entrance to #5 WTC. There's a picture of the sweeping lobby near the TKTS booth that was located in the towers. We visited the observatory, and I have photos of all the views from that place.

As we prepared to leave today, one of our tenants (who is also a student) returned from a journey downtown. He has successfully negotiated his way below Canal Street and had seen areas of the destruction. Knowing it was possible to get into the vicinity, I felt I had to go. To see what I could see. To try to wrap my head around the reality of this thing that had happened so close to my home. I loaded my camera with film, and we left.

Today was a beautiful Saturday. Fall is in the air and the sun was shining brightly. Leighton and I would have been walking today no matter what the state of the world. There are flags everywhere. The further south we moved the more you could sense the police presence. It was easy to get below Canal Street as we wove our way through Chinatown where the markets were in full swing. We walked down several more blocks. We saw people of all shapes, sizes, ages and colors wearing their 4th of July best. More flags, ribbons, banners, posters. Some celebrating our country's unity, some mourning those that have fallen, some encouraging our firemen and other rescue heroes, some defiantly cursing those that brought this nightmare upon us.

It was difficult to see much "destruction". We could smell it though. It's electrical. Like burning rubber, wires, and metal. It smells toxic and alive. It comes in wafts in other areas of the city. It permeates the air down there.

We came into a neighborhood that seemed more ashen than others. We encountered police barricades and were clearly on the "perimeter". National guardsmen are everywhere. So are their trucks and their hummers. I took a picture of a uniformed guardsman, particle mask hanging around his neck, leaning against a sign that said "New York Stock Exchange" with an arrow pointing up the block into the part of the neighborhood beneath the smoke plume.

We rounded another corner and saw awnings, windows, ledges, and streets covered in a thin layer of dust. How far did it reach? We wandered all over lower Manhattan tracing the perimeter. It was like looking into a movie set. I had to keep reminding myself that I had spent time in these neighborhoods, done business in these neighborhoods, been a tourist in these neighborhoods, been a citizen here. We heard the sewers surging below the sidewalks. This made Leighton nervous. At one point, we were herded off the street we were standing on. Shortly after, the smoke seemed to darken and increase. We don't know what caused this. No additional collapses have been reported on the news.

We saw vehicles that were evidently dragged out of Ground Zero and left on the streets of TriBeCa. A Cadillac, a taxi, a Con Ed truck, police and fire vehicles. All were crushed and covered in ash and dust. Crushed. I can't explain it. I have photos.

As volunteer rescue workers staggered up Broadway, after presumably working a long shift, they were cheered. We continued west to Church Street. The perimeter line was at Reade Street. We were standing on the corner yards from the theatre where I worked during the summer of 1999. My mother, grandmother, and aunt stayed in a hotel a few blocks down from here. MaryAnn's on that corner makes a great post-show margarita. From this vantage point, we saw the small remaining skeleton of one of the Towers. You've seen this on the news.

Heading west to Greenwich Street, we were a short distance from the West Side Highway, which is being used as a primary access for rescue vehicles. There was a significant increase in the presence of rescue and utility workers. We stood on Greenwich Street and watched the smoke, the media, and the National Guardsmen using a bullhorn to keep New Yorkers on the sidewalks. We watched a petite woman in a Statue of Liberty costume, watched a young man carrying a flag like a Revolutionary War soldier, clapped for the firemen, and became weary. We decided to head uptown, and as we did we crossed the street and got a completely different view down Greenwich Street than we had had from our previous perch. What we think was World Trade #7 lay crumpled at the end of the avenue. It was incredible. The building was broken like a fallen soldier. Perhaps pictures can't tell the story of this disaster.

We continued uptown and recrossed Canal Street. Security on the west side was much tighter than where we had entered lower Manhattan on the east side. People had to show ID proving residence to get below this point. What about those people? We saw people pulling luggage north all day long. Where are they going? When will they return? What do you choose to take with you when you don't know how long you'll be gone? How many cats have owners that haven't returned since Tuesday morning?

As we came up into the West Village we saw, on the sidewalk, a pile of coats, helmets and shoes belonging to, probably, a dozen firemen. They all must have stripped down before entering a restaurant to eat and relax. We went and bought more film.

As you get out of the Financial District, there are flyers with pictures of missing people on them everywhere. Phone booths, windows, doors, light posts, trees. Everywhere. We encountered these throughout the evening and I can only believe that as we lose hope for these people's lives, the city itself will become a shrine to the dead. We will be surrounded by images of those who are gone. A woman in a wedding veil. Men with their children. Old ladies with their dogs. Beautiful people, young people, old people, black people, gay people, Asians, Arabs, Americans, New Yorkers.

We went and had some Chinese food. It was a quiet neighborhood and we were quiet while we ate.

I was feeling better when we left the restaurant. As we crossed through the Village, a police car escorted a large truck uptown. As it got closer I saw the truck had a lot of graffiti on its sides and on the panel over the cab it read "Bellevue Morgue". As the truck passed, I saw that the rear door was open and the truck was empty.

From downtown, the glow of the work lights is very eerie. The city grinds on while the tip of the island glows and smolders.

Everywhere we walked today, people spoke of only one thing. At one point we were walking near a woman speaking on a cell phone. Her young teenage daughter was with her. She was speaking to someone about her husband who must be part of the civilian rescue effort downtown. She was listing the things he needed...cash, his glasses, a
razor, socks, and a medium man's T-shirt. She also indicated that she knew people who were missing and that her daughter had friends whom were never picked up from school on Tuesday.

I thank God that I am not aware of anyone I know being missing. I have students and colleagues who saw the whole thing. 1,800 NYU students live below Canal Street. Some saw people leap to their deaths. Leighton saw the first tower come down. We had a clear shot of the towers from behind our work building. Friends in Brooklyn had pristine WTC stationary land on their roofs and streets. A student of mine has an uncle that works in Tower 1. He and his wife were in the Catskills on vacation. No one from his office has been located. There's the story of the CEO that took his son to school on Tuesday and was later than usual to work. No one from his company, including his brother, has been located. My stepfather owns a business. I cannot imagine the crushing blow of losing your entire team.

On a brighter note, there have been vigils, candles, singing, hugs, first conversations with neighbors, benefits, and first laughs. We will survive.

In recent months I have been a bit anti-New York: ready to think about being out of the race, the pollution, the mania. At this moment, there is nowhere in the world I would rather live. I do feel safe here, and I feel more connected to a community than I have ever felt. I struggle to justify my return to work and theatre making, but am finding solace in whatever routine and purpose we have been able to reconstruct over the past couple days.

You are all in my thoughts and I so appreciate that we have been in yours. Please take care of yourselves. Be with the ones you love, and tell them often that you love them.

Yours,
Bev

hiatus

Dear Reader:
For reasons related to needing to finish out my education with gusto and other various personal goings-on, I'll be taking a break from EVM for an unknown period of time.  Rest assured, I'll still be writing, and I will be back.  I hope you'll check in from time-to-time to see if we've resumed broadcast, and if you put your email address in the subscription thingy down there on the right, you'll receive notification of the next post.

As always, you can reach me via eastvillagemama(at)gmail(dot)com.

Bev

back to the books

I've been off the radar.  Spring Break arrived here in NYU-land last week, and though I had great intentions of writing prolifically (and going to the gym and sleeping 9 - 10 hours/night), life got full and frenzied.  The boys spent the week in Florida with their dad so I was footloose and fancy-free and, as with most vacations, now feel I need another just to recover.  Or I need to get back to class so I can rest.

My week was packed to the gills with friends and adventures: some expected, some less so.  As it is a rare gift that I should have the house to myself for five straight days, it was also a time of much-needed thinking and head-clearing.  I'm not certain how much I accomplished, and the stress of the remaining five weeks of the semester feels as if it may have already overtaken any zen I might have danced around in those five quiet days.  However, there were moments last week when I willed myself to remember that I was feeling peace and calm and centered.  And some of those moments even came before happy hour!

In between those moments, I was subsisting on texted photos of these guys: 

and trying to figure out how to miss them less while also rejoicing in the fact that I didn't trip on a single toy train, make a grilled cheese sandwich, or say "where does the poo poo go?" once all week.