A Walker in the Suburbs

There were frost warnings, so I brought the two ferns in last night.

I was thinking when I did it about the living they’ve seen, not only this summer — the wedding, the weeding, the frantic painting of the deck furniture — but summers past, too. The smaller plant, in fact, has been around since Suzanne was a baby.

There’s no secret involved, no green thumb. The fern is a survivor; that’s all. And it looks like one, too: leggy and potbound.

After a while a plant becomes part of the family: the rumpled uncle, the delicate aunt, the crazy grandpa. Imperfect and lovable, one of our own.

Yesterday we celebrated Suzanne’s birthday at the newlywed’s house. I’ve only spent two of my oldest daughter’s last five birthdays with her — given the long sojourn in Africa — so this October 23 was cause for special celebration.

It felt like a passing of the torch. We came to her rather than the other way around. She showed us new paths for walking, the way the sun slants in her back windows, some wedding gifts they just received. There was a giant cookie rather than a cake.

But when we finally all gathered (arriving in three separate cars and one bike), there was lots of laughing and talking — while consuming great quantities nan, rice, lamb vindaloo and chicken tikka.

It’s a marvelous ride, parenthood. Not always smooth, of course, but unstinting in the possibilities it provides for  surprise and gratitude and joy.

Sometimes when I can’t sleep I wander into Suzanne’s old room, where there’s a four-poster rope bed that I made up using Mom’s quilt and pillow shams after my last trip to Kentucky. It’s the same room where I’ve stored a lot of her jewelry, papers and photographs. I’ve whiled away many wee hours in there lately, reading and thinking, remembering her last days and hours.

Today marks a year. While it’s been a full one in most senses of that word — personally, socially, politically — it seems little more than an instant since she died. Like the flipping of a switch or the turning of a dial, it’s another world I live in now.

It’s difficult to understand this new world in a few weeks or even in 52. The strangeness of it constantly surprises me. But there is one surety: I know she’s at peace now, and that brings some comfort.

As for the long nights, when I get drowsy again I turn off the light and snuggle into the covers, her covers.  I feel her presence there in the dark, and finally, finally, I can sleep.

Twelve years ago I went to work in an office. I’m still not sure exactly why. I was busy as a freelance writer and had started teaching, too. But the magazine business was changing, and I felt isolated and creatively stuck. So I opted for camaraderie and a steady paycheck.

The work I have now challenges my mind, fills my days and even sends me out into the world every few months. I’m grateful for it. But that doesn’t means the years aren’t passing — and that time, the only currency we have, is dwindling more quickly than I’d like.

I’m resisting the temptation to add “A Slave” to this post title. That would be a cheap shot. But there are times (many times) when I miss the freelance freedom I used to have. And there are days (many days) when the words I write here are the lifeline, what gets me through.

Today’s post is dedicated to the memory of my dear friend Kathy Minton, who passed away on September 21. Kathy was a fellow walker and reader, a lover of books and of life who was taken from us far, far too soon.

We became friends as young editors, she at Working Mother, me at McCall’s. We quickly realized we had a lot in common and lived only a few blocks apart, so we’d stroll home together through Central Park, talking all the way.

Kathy was hands down the fastest walker I’ve ever known. A native New Yorker, she could navigate her way through Fifth Avenue crowds at rush hour, sidestepping the slow pokes and adjusting her stride to catch every green light.

A few years after I left New York, Kathy was offered the perfect job — director of literary programs at Symphony Space. She stayed there for the next 25 years, producing the Selected Shorts program and many other literary endeavors, making her living from books and ideas.

But she always made time for walking, so whenever I’d go to New York I’d get in touch with Kathy and it would be just like the old days: a fast walk, a good talk.

I’m a believer, so I’m trying to imagine Kathy in a more perfect place. But it’s hard to do. It’s hard to imagine her anywhere else but New York.  So what I wish for her instead is a perfect New York walk. A crisp fall day, an open stretch of sidewalk, and plenty of friends to share the trail.

It’s a big day for the blog — its two thousandth post! And it passes this milestone in the Big Apple, the perfect setting for a celebration.

It’s fitting — because this is where I lived when I started making my living from writing. It wasn’t much of a living in those days. McCall’s Magazine barely paid its young editors enough to live on. I had a second job as a live-in “mother’s helper” for a crazy and lovable family on the Upper West Side to make ends meet.

But I was living the dream: writing, editing, soaking up the sights and sounds of the city and walking everywhere.

I still write and edit every day, but the setting has changed. As much as I love New York City, I doubt I could ever live here again.

It’s part of me now, though, just as these two thousand blog posts are.

The transformation is almost complete. Yesterday, four men spent five hours putting up this tent, hammering down the wooden floor, stringing the lights, installing the fans, carting tables, tablecloths, plates, cutlery and more to the backyard or the garage.

Yesterday we planted mums, bought food, made favor bags for the guests. Today we’ll prepare for tonight’s dinner, pick up the beer kegs, move furniture, decorate.

Guests are arriving, family is congregating. Now comes what should be the easiest part but is often the most difficult: enjoying it all.

The tent is helping. Part fairy tale castle and part big-top wonder, it takes us out of the everyday, reminds us of another world — one of ease and jollity and joy.

I’m a tea drinker, but yesterday was all about coffee — and the debut of Burmese specialty coffee on the world stage. I was too busy to sip the stuff, but I sampled some the day before. It’s “complex,” as they say. A more savvy taster described it this way: hints of chocolate, cranberry and nutmeg.

It was a work function filled with government officials, a former ambassador, and coffee growers from Myanmar.  An odd mix, to be sure, but one that worked. At its root, a simple principle: to connect poor farmers with the flush and fully caffeinated, a feel-good way to spread some wealth.

And it worked. I bought a bag of expensive beans, and so did many others. The coffee sold out.  And the farmers who grew, dried and processed the beans will have more food on the table, more money for their children’s school and more to invest in next year’s crop. So a lot of buzz, but good buzz.

(*For “Seinfeld” fans: “They call it Myanmar, but it will always be Burma to me.”)

Looked up from the page I was working on Friday to see these clouds. They looked vaguely Sistine-Chapel-like, with the wispy upper-right-corner one the pointing finger of God and the fluffy white left corner one Adam reclining in his new human splendor.

An exaggeration, of course, and hard to reclaim that Friday feeling on this Monday morning.

But if nothing else it’s a reminder of the summer sky, its blue-beyond-blueness, its white clouds shining.

I started running when I lived in Chicago, but I started walking when I lived in New York.

I had walked before, obviously, but not “seriously.” In New York, everyone walks. Not for a stroll after dinner and not for their health.

Walking in New York is the purposeful stride from Point A to Point B. It’s hoofing it because the Uber or cab won’t come. This is Walking 101.

Of the 20 hours I was in New York over the weekend, I spent eight sleeping, five birthday-party-ing and four — four precious, wonderful hours — walking.

I hiked from 37th and Eighth Avenue to 115th and Broadway — and was making my way back downtown when I met Ellen and Phillip in the 80s on Broadway, then Eric on a cross street with the car.

It was the shortest trip I’ve ever made to the Big Apple. I wouldn’t want to take a shorter one.

But it was, I”m happy to say, long enough for a long walk.