Occasional Gravitas

Into the void

I had a pretty sweet moment in Manhattan yesterday. I was sitting at a sidewalk cafe in the West Village with my daughter, catching up over lunch as she was briefly visiting the city from L.A. We’d been waiting on our order for a while but it was a beautiful autumn afternoon and neither of us had anywhere else we needed to be. She excused herself to go to the ladies room, a sure fire way to summon the food from the kitchen, and the server placed our plates down with a flourish. I thought I’d better get started on my shakshuka eggs, not wanting them to get cold but…they were already lukewarm. Without hesitation, I picked up the plate and asked the server nicely but emphatically to “run this under the broiler or something, because it’s not hot. Thanks.”

Now I have rarely if ever sent food back, but I suddenly turned into a grande dame. Here I am reliving it and I don’t even feel ashamed. No I feel proud of a key day in my life: for the first time ever, I enjoyed New York City as a full-fledged adult.

I hadn’t been to the city since my father died in July. And along with any sadness and regret at the passing of the most towering figure I’ll ever know, I’ve noticed an incredible lightness— call it confidence even —at this new state of being. Yes there is nothing between me and the void ie I am the elder now. But there’s a freedom I didn’t expect. I can’t pretend to myself or anyone else that I’m young anymore, because I’m no living person’s kid. Along with that arrives a sense of relief that I am the authority now. I never wanted to be that—too much responsibility! Let someone else hold the key. You’d think I would have figured out years ago that the ones in charge don’t know shit, are mostly just winging it like everybody else. I think I’ve spent years in a sort of limbo, no ingenue but unable to own my knowledge and years of experience but if not now, when?

I’d started off the trip dropping Eric at Newark Airport. He’d spent the last month mixing my album—we actually finished!— and was flying over to England to be the rock star he is, if rock stars drive their own vehicle, book the gigs, design the poster and repair, string and tune their own guitars. It was an easy trip into Manhattan on the Sunday before a Monday holiday (now Indigenous Peoples’ Day). I love coming in through the Holland Tunnel, driving across Canal and up through Soho or Chinatown and around to Houston Street when it’s all fairly free of traffic. There was the first fall chill, I could see it in the way people were dressed, wool beanie caps making an appearance. I went to my brother Michael’s apartment in the East Village where he’s lived since 1980. His apartment stays the same with cool vintage decor from thrift stores and eBay but around him the building has gotten fancier, with a high tech intercom system and grey walls in the lobby aiming to be a chic backdrop for all the young tenants’ Amazon packages.

Michael made dinner and we ate and drank wine and talked for hours, then ended the night watching the CBGB movie from ten years ago, which I know everyone hated but I love just to watch Alan Rickman as Hilly Kristal endlessly walking his dog, it’s like they both get to live forever that way. I slept on Michael’s couch as I have regularly since I moved away from NYC almost twenty five years ago, got up early to move my car even though it was a holiday. Of course I got a ticket anyhow.

It’s a minefield…I still got a ticket

Legit and fly by night weed stores have sprung up all over. There was a funny cafe around the corner from Michael’s, where everyone had a dog and there were water bowls and free dog treats and Pet Portrait nights advertised and I wondered if it was okay for me a human to order a coffee, but the young woman working there was really sweet and training a new co-worker and I got that city contact high, imagining how it must be to start a new job on Avenue A in the year 2023 and try your best to get it down at least this week or month, maybe they’d move on pretty soon but I felt honored to drink the first flat white they made. Isn’t that New York — passing through thousands of people’s lives just for a few seconds, all day long. I don’t want or need that anymore but it sure is bracing once in a while.

Morning on Avenue A

I decided to take the bus across 14th Street to go to the Whitney. I bought a Metrocard down in the subway and then realized you could just pay with your phone on board—the city is always changing! But nobody paid. Nobody. So maybe the 14th Street bus is free now? It’s really just a place to sit down for a while, because you can for sure always walk faster than the bus will get you there.

The Whitney was pretty empty and I went to the Ruth Asawa show I’d been wanting to see. So inspiring, so moving. I left determined to learn more about this incredibly resilient, imaginative artist who did her work while raising six children. There were other things I wanted to see at the museum (Harry Smith’s art, Henry Taylor) but wanted to hold onto Asawa as long as I could.

I met up with my adult, elegant daughter and maybe that’s when I truly transformed into the matron in town for a day. I think I even had a silk scarf around my neck. It felt like a privilege to be there, just doing what I wanted after the last two years when city visits were mostly confined to seeing my Dad in Queens, or a gig. I asked Hazel if she wanted to head back over to the East Village with me and I almost said or maybe did say “we could take the bus” back across 14th Street but I saw my daughter look at me like “what are you, crazy? That’ll take all day” and I quickly corrected myself—no, no of course we’ll walk! I may be mature at last, have occasional gravitas even, but for God’s sake I’m not that old.