Blogging | Excursions

“I look out the window and I see the lights and the skyline and the people on the streets rushing around looking for action, love, and the world’s greatest chocolate chip cookie, and my heart does a little dance.” Nora Ephron, Heartburn.

This blog post is dedicated to my neighbor down the street, Lisa, who, like me, has lost a child to Brooklyn. She wanted some ideas for things to do in Brooklyn. First of all, anyone who has lost a child to Brooklyn should buy this book: City Secrets New York City, Robert Kahn, editor. I’ve had the book for a long time, but ever since my son added his heartbeat (four years ago) to all the others keeping the Center of the Universe alive and vibrant, I’ve started to make my way through all the dog-eared pages of the book. It’s been a lot of fun.

Wintertime in the northeast can be cold and snowy. If you’re looking for some heat, there’s good news: This weekend’s forecast for New York City is promising BALMY temps. So put on your stylish boots, sassy scarves, and go.

We usually base ourselves in Brooklyn because, like everyone else, we love Brooklyn. Here are some of the things we might do on a warm winter’s weekend in Brooklyn:

Stroll the neighborhoods of Brooklyn to enjoy adorable dogs, graffiti decorated buildings and warehouses, charming ethnic enclaves of cultural foods and languages, parks, colorful human beings, neat architecture, cool cemeteries—it’s everywhere in all parts of Brooklyn.

If we are feeling brain dead, we might choose to go to a museum. The Brooklyn Museum of Art is filled with surprises. Try going without researching what is there. One of the treasures I came upon the first time I went to the Brooklyn Museum of Art was their fabulous Art Nouveau Butterfly Gate by Emile Robert. Can wrought iron be sensuous? It sure can!

In Long Island City (not far from the borders of Greenpoint/Williamsburg) there’s the Isamu Noguchi Museum. Perhaps a bit too esoteric for some, but maybe not. Restful, civilized. Tres serene.

We have a process for visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan which is to slowly see the permanent exhibits by choosing one or two exhibits, instead of trying to walk through the entire museum. That way, we don’t have to spend an entire day in the museum or subject our brains to a meltdown. The Met has a suggested admission price—you can decide for yourself how much you want to pay or you can choose not to pay at all if you can’t afford to pay. If you are only heading in to see one thing and planning to stay for under two hours, (probably not possible, but maybe), you could pay less for your admission. That’s what we do. Since it’s going to be a balmy weekend, a walk through Central Park to the Met (or from nearby subway stops) would be very nice. Here are a couple of cools things to choose to see at the Met. (Don’t be surprised to find yourself falling down rabbit holes as you try to see just one thing):

The Gubbio Studiolo featuring mesmerizing intarsia—an elaborate form of wood inlay marquetry created in 15th century Italy. Bazillions of pieces of walnut, beech, rosewood, oak, and fruitwoods have been used to create a stunning interior. This Italian studio from the Ducal Palace is a masterpiece of human obsession and a surprisingly charming place to find oneself in NYC. You will feel such delight if you go. It’s the most fascinating treasure hunt to find objects in this artwork. Hopefully you’ll have the studio all to yourself.
The 6th century BC Etruscan chariot. Craftsmanship? Without climate-changing industrial manufacturing plants? Whoa.
Not far from the chariot display there are Roman rooms with lovely frescoes, including one from Boscoreale, a village north of Pompeii, which was buried in the infamous eruption of AD79.
The Damascus Room. Here you will find, of all things to find on a winter’s weekend in NYC, the residential winter reception chamber from a wealthy Syrian 18th century residence. Poetry is inscribed on its walls—forty stanzas—inspired most likely by the 13th century poet, the eminent Sufi, Imam al-Busiri of Egypt. He wrote what many believe to be the most recited religious poem in human history, the Qasidah al-Burdah, also called The Poem of the Mantle and The Celestial Lights in Praise of the Best of Creation; written as an ode praising the Islamic prophet Mohammad at a time when the poet had suffered paralysis from a stroke and was healed in a dream.

You can find translations for the poetry in the Damascus Room on the Met’s website and read it while you are riding the subway. (You do ride the subway, right?)

Back in Brooklyn:

If it’s balmy, walk over the Brooklyn Bridge. Read Walt Whitman’s Crossing Brooklyn Ferry and an old blog post of mine Doing Lines in Brooklyn. 😀

https://theresajohnsonbertz.wordpress.com/2015/11/05/doing-lines-in-nyc/

It’s fun to walk to Manhattan at sunset, watching the sun fade away. Then walk back in the dark with all the city lights. Remember to spot the Statue of Liberty on the horizon!

Saturday morning: Grand Army Plaza Green Market—a farmer’s market I’ve never been to during wintertime, but I would check it out on a warm winter’s day.

FOOD! Here are some fun food stops in Brooklyn:

Radegast Hall and Biergarten. Afternoon happy hour with lively bands. My husband and I were the oldest partiers there during one afternoon in October. Our kids didn’t mind.

We all like to draw in my son’s journal when we are observing, and participating in, beer hall behavior.

PEACHES HOT HOUSE. Bedford-Stuyvesant. Southern comfort food. You will want to be comforted by everything on the menu. Nashville-style HOT chicken. Not a fancy place. GOOD food.

FETTE SAU. (Williamsburg I think.) It means “fat pig” and it’s a barbecue place in a converted garage (so, you know, HIP) where the chaos of craft beer, beef, and American whiskey will make you feel like a jolly fat pig. We stood in a line that snaked outside and we ended up eating outside. Maybe it will be warm enough to eat outside during the upcoming balmy weekend.

THE BROOKLYN STAR (Williamsburg.) Great for Sunday brunch. All kinds of comfort food and drinks to soothe overstimulated, overfed, and overindulged brains before you exit The Center of the Universe at the end of your weekend. Get in line early. Family bonding over shared mac-n-cheese is a new kind of religion for Sunday mornings in Brooklyn:

As always, before traveling to Brooklyn,

REMEMBER TO READ THE FINE PRINT:

***ALSO***

***THE NEW YORK TIMES TRAVEL SECTION JUST DID A “36 HOURS IN BROOKLYN” FEATURE THIS WEEK with a lot of great ideas! You can find it on the Internet!***

We love Brooklyn. Share your ideas with us too!

Why the Gypsy Apprentice? The autodidact? The pilgrim? It’s because I believe in the quest to feel life, so I can live it better.

For me, it’s not gut feelings that influence my decisions or processes. I’m more mindful of the feel of a shine to the heart, or a surge through the head. If I’m trying to learn something or trying to improve existing skills, or if I’m trying to care for relationships, or believe in myself–I want to replace fear, vulnerability, shame, and humiliation, with something better. Something that feel good. I seek the shine and the surge of elation, but I also know that I have to journey through the fundamentals in order to arrive at the shine. So there’s a kind of faith I believe in–it’s a promise–that if you keep trying, you’re going to be jumping for joy at some point. And, it will start out to be just a point, so brief–but memorable enough to hold your attention and make shame, humiliation, and frustration more bearable, more humorous, and more useful as you get better and better at living and learning.

We are born knowing how to breathe, our hearts already work, but we have to learn how to eat. We try drawing, reading, and writing. Then someone else shows us other ways to draw, read, and write. We observe, we self study, we copy, we practice, we ask for help, we are judged good and bad, we experiment, we fail. Then we try again. Or we don’t.

Once, my mother put a small clump of flowers–sweet alyssum–into my hands and told me to plant them in the garden. I was little and I didn’t know if I could do it. As my mother kept working, I kneeled nearby, watching her. I cradled the plant like a little fledgling that had fallen from a tree, afraid I would kill it and cause my mother to stop loving me. By mid-summer, the plant was blooming in the garden, saturating the breeze with its distinctive perfume every time I visited it.

There was the time I came upon the studio of a woman in Maine whose weaving and chair-caning skills mesmerized me. I asked her, “Where did you learn your art?” She said, “I taught myself.” It’s so hopeful, whenever I hear something like that. There is desirable prestige in being able to study with great masters and being able to attend great schools. But finding your own way to skill and knowledge is another excursion all your own. I am drawn to the wabi-sabi spirit in life, the perfect imperfections, the shine of a unique heart, revealed.

In Argentina, my husband and I were copying the patterns of other tango dancers in a dark and sultry warehouse in Buenos Aires. We danced around and around in a circle with everyone else, our bodies succumbing to shame, humiliation, fear of failure. And then, a teacher danced into our embrace and said to us, “Feel the music.” She stayed with us, holding us up, showing us how to believe in the music. The tango in Argentina is improvisational, you must feel the music.

This week, my son texted me: “How’s the blog going?” I texted him back: “Fun. I like practicing my writing skills.” He replied: “Good. It’s all about the feel.” It feels fun. Good. Like. Definitive words.

Today is Friday. The end of another week writing down words I don’t know, or words I liked, that I came across in my travels: scabrously, temerity, ableist, putrid and pitiful, caper about, baseness, slatternly. The week was not a bust.

I watched snow fall.

I made a good meal.

I began reading a new book.

I wrote letters and put them in the mail.

I called my mother and father.

I text chatted with my little niece–her incoming texts are so funny, not annoying at all. They are arrivals of shine and surge.

I blogged. What an ugly word–blog. I am a blogger I said to my daughter. A blogger. The word is ugly like booger-(which should be spelled like bugar, rhymes with sugar).

And–there was a day when the house was empty and cavernous and into that vast void flew the bedeviled foul breath of remembered shame, humiliations, vulnerabilities, and failures as I tried to work. I sat down at the piano. There has been a piano in my home since the year 2000 when my husband’s parents gave us $1,000 for Christmas to celebrate the new millennium and we used the money to buy a piano for our children. My husband, my son, and my daughter are all musicians. I am not and I have never played piano in all of my life. But I sat at the piano that day. I put my right hand on a set of keys. And then, I played a note. I don’t know what the note was, but I played another note and another and it sounded enough like Kumbaya that I kept pressing down keys in all the right orders until I had played the song. Then I played it on other positions on the keyboard. I loved how long the music from one tap of a piano key would linger and rise up, sounding so sweet, coating all the remembered ickiness in my mind with the bright yellows of corniness. I don’t think anyone has ever played Kumbaya on our piano. I am sure of it. Whenever streams of children sat at our piano, they played Mary Had a LIttle Lamb, or Jingle Bells, or Chopsticks, or Smoke on the Water. I remember how my son, during the bedeviled days of his adolescence, played Clapton’s Layla on that piano. We’d all jump on board his ship when he did it, happy to escape into the passionate anthem to angst.

The whole little foray in my home, the excursion to nowhere that ended up at the piano, put a shine to my heart.

And a surge through my head. I moved on through the day, the romance of my life restored.

Excursions

The Gypsy Apprentice

Tag Archives: Blogging

Brooklyn. Over and Over Again.

Romancing the Mind.