Cold hands, warm heart.

On my way to an appointment on the Upper East Side yesterday afternoon a woman and her little blond French Bulldog walked towards me. From half a block away the dog looked exactly like a Lego storm trooper which, as they passed me, I realized was down to the rather smart gray puffer coat he was wearing. On my way home an attractive man of about sixty strolled arm in arm with a gentleman I took to be his much younger Latin lover, the pair of them bundled up against the bitter cold looking like a catalog photo and in no hurry whatsoever as they made their way to wherever they were going.

I'm not sure which tableau cheers me more, but both seem suitably festive and worth noting.

It's beginning to sound a lot like Christmas..

Cadman Park was virtually deserted last night, as Lola and I ambled about, sticking close to home the way we frequently do these days now that it's dark and cold and there's plenty of good television on. It's a comfortable pastime, dog and I, with the gentle rhythm of stop/go (me) and sniff/pee (her) carrying us around the neighbourhood each day in uninterrupted and contented silence. Sometimes we take longer than good manners deem appropriate when strolling by the un-shuttered windows of the old brownstones in Brooklyn Heights and drinking in the lifestyle to which we have yet to become accustomed in those vast tiled kitchens and sumptuous living rooms. Sometimes we wander carelessly along the Promenade, remembering just how much more magnificent Manhattan is when viewed from the outside. I love those walks because they remind me of the journey I'm on, what it took for me to get here, and where I'm going. But lately it's been Lola's choice and we've been spending a lot of time digging in the dirt and rolling in the leaves in the park.

Someone has planted little American Flags on the fence posts around the circular shrubbery arrangement in the middle of the park, and this irks me. I am, for some reason, irritated by such a blatant and unnecessary display of patriotism in my little corner of Brooklyn, though of course had these been tiny little Union Jacks I would have concocted an entire back story for their sudden and mysterious appearance and no doubt considered it a message from the universe at large, one of the side effects of my walks with Lola being the tendency of the mind to wander freely and run movies in my head.

Lola and I once wandered into the park early on a Sunday morning to find an elaborate breakfast for two, complete with table linens and china plates, champagne, flowers and a violinist, waiting patiently beneath the trees for it's party to arrive. I smiled about that all day. On another random rainy day I took this picture, which I'm quite fond of. A dad and a little girl of about 3 years old were running in circles in the rain just out of shot, but it was the umbrellas that pulled my focus. I think I like the idea of imagining who they belong to rather than telling the whole story.

For the past couple of weeks, aside from the ubiquitous helicopter that has been circling over the Brooklyn Bridge like a buzzard and which Lola has been keeping a close eye on lest it steal her soul, there has been one other constant in Cadman Park that I have come to look forward to encountering each day: the sound of a lone trumpeter patiently and carefully working on the opening refrain from Joy To The World, safely out of the way of dog walkers and runners looping around the edge of the park, bothering no-one and being left to his own devices in the shadow of the War Memorial. I have no idea what this guy is practicing for, but he is without doubt the most earnest and diligent musician I have ever encountered. He's out there every evening, rain or shine, bundled up and trying to make the notes work through gloved fingers, he isn't asking for an audience, he isn't asking for money. He's just trying to get this right, to play this piece of music as perfectly as he possibly can. And although I've never spoken to him -  I've never really even seen his face - I look for him each night as Lola and I stop/go, and sniff/pee, and snuffle past the tiny area of the park he has claimed as his own for these few moments. And thanks to this unassuming gentleman of indiscriminate age striving to be the best he can at this one festive task, thanks to the trimming of my tree and the gathering of friends around the piano in an impromptu raising of hearts and voices one Saturday evening in December, as I make my way through my first winter in Brooklyn, it's beginning to sound a lot like Christmas...

Lazy Blogging

When I began this blog just a few months ago I really did intend to update it regularly. I love to write. I want to be better at it and in order to be better at it I need to indulge in it more often. But, as has been the theme of this year, life seems to get in the way of all of those well-intentioned projects that live in my head surrounded by daisies and ponies and that seem like such a marvelous use of my time. Perhaps 2010 will bring with it the inspiration to bypass my Sagittarian tendencies and actually blog/decorate/read/scrapbook (delete as appropriate), which is what I really want to do with the time I have to myself.

I'm thinking about this because I just read my wonderful friend Paula's most recent blog, at Confessions of a Slightly Neurotic New Mother. She is cramming every spare minute outside of work and wifery into being with her beautiful baby girl, and still finds time to write heartfelt, inspiring blogs about the challenges that go along with her new role as Super Mum! All I have to deal with is the occasional run around the apartment with a Swiffer and remembering to feed animals twice a day - I should be able to blog more consistently.

Anyway, Paula is not only my inspiration for motherhood, but also my inspiration to write something - anything - today!

So, in keeping with the theme of poetry that started this blog off all those months ago, along with the desire to obliterate my MySpace page (where my original blog lives from many years ago) and the fact that today tastes like winter for the first time this season, here's a poem I wrote while deep in the throes of my first NYC winter in 2007. And now, as I look out of my office window on a wall of grey, the building next door blocking out any real notion of what the weather might be doing, I imagine it is dusk in this city I love, and starting to snow, and somewhere in the HBO version of my life the camera is panning up and away over Manhattan to the sounds of Baby It's Cold Outside (the Tom Jones and Cerys Matthews version, obviously), gearing up for Christmas. And I find myself wondering what will be waiting for me when this winter passes, as they inevitably do, and I come face to face with another spring...

The First Kiss

You creep up on the city.

Silent,

Breathless.

With an icy whisper

You catch me,

Almost home,

And make me listen for you.

You caress my face

Dancing on my cheek,

My tongue,

The inevitable eyelash.

I linger.

The air is crisp like sheet glass,

The streets blurring in your presence.

And a man in a long coat says,

"How perfect."

And holds the mittened hand of his

Wife of twenty years

And smiles.

The first kiss of winter.

The promise of long nights

And warm fires

And good wine,

Playful and inviting,

Fluttering in my path.

The first dusting of days to come

Gently teasing the romance out of

Another January.

But you don't stay long.

This is just a sigh for you.

You sway,

You fade,

You slip away.

And in the time it takes to notice you were here

I am left wanting, wondering,

And waiting for spring.