A New York Memory

A New York Memory

She had been born in the City
lived most of her long and privileged life there,
told fascinating and wonderful stories about it all
and opened wide her arms and her great heart, inviting us to share it with her
so we flew across the country from suburbia to visit.

I remember
Henry, the friendly doorman in the lobby of the huge old stone apartment building –
an ancient, creaking elevator that carried us to the spacious ninth-floor apartment –
sitting at a little table by the dining room window in the early morning
with strong hot coffee that burned the tongue, and a fragrant hot bran muffin,
looking down at the bustling street far below
where colorful flocks of school children flew to the corner to climb on big yellow buses
and grown-up people came out of buildings across the street,
carrying briefcases, wearing suits and ties and Nikes, getting into taxis, or walking dogs –
hurrying, hurrying – everyone hurrying
(except for the lady who sat in the window every morning
on the seventh floor of the building across the way, slowly brushing her long dark hair).
And I remember
talking for hours around the big dining table – meeting family and other friends –
the view from her bedroom window across the Hudson River to the New Jersey skyline -
walking the busy sidewalks in her neighborhood –
choruses of honking horns from bevies of bright yellow taxis –
the gigantic forest of majestic buildings,
some reaching so high into the sky that we couldn’t see the top –
the heavy, pungent smell of vast concrete tunnels below the street
where crowded subway trains whooshed and rumbled along the gleaming steel tracks –
little shops along the street filled with fresh produce and buckets full of fragrant flowers -
and every now and then, unexpectedly,
a small, inviting park with trees and ferns and a bench or two.

She took us to the magnificent cathedral that was like a home to her
and where her long-loved husband is buried –
and to elegant restaurants, sharing delicious meals
and when she was too tired to go with us, she sent us on our own
to Central Park, to Rockefeller Center, to museums, to the ballet.
It was her City. How she loved it all.

Today I wonder – in her quiet bed in the nursing home, sated with pills,
how much of it can she remember?