Rain Sets Records and Stops Traffic

Taken from the March 30, 2010 issue of The New York Times.




Rain sets records and stops traffic as I wait on the Belt Parkway to pick up my mother, who I haven't seen since my sister's college graduation seven years ago, the year I chopped my long red hair into a pixie cut, rented a U-Haul van and moved to New York City. I whisper the words slowly, “Seven years,” tailing off at the end in disbelief and embarrassment. The words make my mouth taste sour. In front of me, taillights pulse on and off, drivers impatient in the standstill traffic, pavement slick and shiny as though it’s been raining baby oil. I’m probably the only one here hoping we don’t move.

I try to imagine my mother sitting next to me in the passenger seat, as she will in the next hour. All I can produce is a mottled collage of flesh tones under thick square glasses, glasses she had when I was a toddler in the 80s, glasses that have stuck with me for 25 years, but not my mother. It was a phenomenon that began to frighten me a few years ago—the inability to imagine the woman who birthed and raised me. To fight it I’ve kept the same family picture up through all of my moves from Manhattan to Brooklyn, Brooklyn to Queens and back to Brooklyn again. It’s a photo from a family trip to Niagara Falls when I was sixteen, when my 13-year-old sister was all legs, my brother had buckteeth and my mom and dad were together. After a while, I realized it wasn’t that I couldn’t remember what she looked like, I just couldn’t imagine her here. With me. Anywhere else was no problem, down to the detail. Even now, I can picture her waiting at the terminal with floral, garage-sale luggage at her feet, alone, craning her neck to see my car pull up, crimson lipstick bleeding slightly into the lines around her pursed mouth. She’s watching everyone else get picked up in shiny cars, imagining them rolling in sudden sunshine down the highway, giggling with loved ones, the passage of time between visits a circumstance and not a statement. She’s thinking, “What will we talk about?” and “How do we mend?” and “Why can’t we be like that?”, just like me. “Just like me,” I say out loud.

Without warning, I feel my heart soften—just enough—and for the first time in years, I don’t resist it. I look into the rear view mirror and clip the hair out of my eyes with a bobby pin. I turn on the radio to Tom Petty singing about two old gunslingers, and I laugh.

I see the airport exit ahead as traffic begins to move. Raindrops slide down my windshield, glowing red and orange with the taillights ahead, and the click of my blinker matches the beat of my heart.

the article.
[headline has changed from its original]

Boy

This story was inspired by a friend, who gave me the first sentence and told me to run with it.

Dad was gone before I was able to ask him to stay. He told me he'd take me to school that morning, but I woke up in the middle of the night to a weight---like a finger pressed to my heart---and I knew his truck was already miles away from me and mom, straining and stretching the thread that bound our small family until it snapped, thin and shredded. I stared at the clock above the kitchen table---an old cuckoo clock that stopped cuckooing long before I was born. 4:27 in the morning. I imagined my dad's headlights bouncing through the dark, leading him to a place far away, a place that I would never know. I watched the hands on the clock move until the windows slowly lit with the canary glow of morning through limp white curtains. And though I stood in the house of my childhood---with its peeling floral wall paper and worn green carpets--- nothing was familiar, and nothing was the same. His departure was that one moment in life where everything you've known becomes a residue that never washes out, only serving as a reminder of what was, and what could have been. It's the moment when familiar paths shift, become dark and take you miles from where you thought you were going. I knew that everything would change, and that nobody was prepared. It was the summer of 1980, and I was seven.

sometimes i think this city is beating me.

image by miru kim.

Tent Cities Arise and Spread in Recession's Grip

Taken from the March 25, 2009 issue of The New York Times.










Tent cities arise and spread in recession's grip. Colorful mounds and pyramids of vinyl pock the green banks of the Mississippi river in rural Tennessee, where more than 100 squat on state-owned ground. Police patrol the area, maintaining safety as best they can, but according to the state, the Depression-era shantytowns do not exist. But the proof is in the countryside, by the rivers' edge, littered with bottles of dollar-store shampoo, faded laundry drying in the sun, chicken bones and banana peels. The proof is under bridges, miles way, in Tennessee and across the nation where thousands have lost their jobs, their homes, their pride. The scenes are modern-day throw-backs to an era 80 years past, a frightening reminder that the American dream is not a bobbing apple, buoyant in a bucket of corporate greed and dishonesty and borrowing what you can never pay back.

the article.

Taken from the March 14, 2009 online edition of The New York Times.

Without a pastor of his own, Obama turns to five major world religions for spiritual inspiration. His heart and mind open to the teachings of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism: religions that have clashed and celebrated, warred and made peace. They are religions that often look at the other as the wrong way, with the misled leader, the faulty followers, the spurious scriptures. But Obama works within himself to break the human inclination to compartmentalize, to blindly shun what he does not know, to judge and reject, and he takes the valuable teachings of each religion and applies them to his life, to his presidency. And with eyes, ears and heart open to the world, he begins to lead a powerful country with the peaceful teachings of new friends—the world’s oldest and greatest leaders, long passed.

Wouldn't that be ideal?

The article.

Taken from the March 10, 2009 online edition of The New York Times.

“Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam!”

Luc Montague’s early morning dreams quickly deflated to the squeaky punctures of his children’s chanting. Matthew—age four—pounded his small fists on the bed, just shy of his father’s face.

“Spam! Spam! Daddy! Daddy! SPAM!”

“And eggs too for meeee!” Two-year-old Carolynne shrieked in excitement, springing from her little feet to climb into bed, but she was too small.

Luc’s groggy eyes smiled.

“Get up here, little bug,” he said, and he pulled Carolynne from her under arms. Matthew was already jumping on the mattress and belly-flopping onto a pile of blankets near the bed’s edge.

Carolynne nuzzled into her dad's neck, where it was warm. “Spam please daddy,” she said sweetly, blonde curls escaping from two little pigtails on the side of her head.

Luc laughed. He was the executive chef at Le Petit Rubis, the premier French restaurant in Portland, Oregon that still garnered rave reviews, even ten years after its opening. His creative cooking methods and creations were featured in food magazines across the country, and he’d recently opened a bakery around the corner from their apartment, which his wife operated with great success. Luc, Carlynne and Matthew could stumble out to daylight in pajamas, walk half a block and pick up fresh croissants, eggs benedict and French toast. But no. His little bugs—the flesh of his flesh, blood of his blood and heirs to his culinary throne—demanded meat from a can. Matthew saw it at the grocery store one day and asked Luc to buy it. He did because he thought it would make his children appreciate the freshness of his food. He was mistaken.

“You bugs are kooky,” he said, and swung his feet to the floor. He grabbed Carolynne and Matthew, one under each arm, Superman-style.

He looked at one, then the other with eyes wide. "Ready?" he asked, and took a deep breath. The kids smiled. "Ready!"

“Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam!” they chanted in unison, and to the kitchen they went.

The article.

For Young President, Flecks of Gray

Taken from the March 5, 2009 online edition of The New York Times.

For Young President, flecks of gray dancing atop the warm, dry Nebraskan air signaled that a distant bonfire blazed, fueled by mounds of dried summer wheat and the blithe energy of mobilized youth. His shoulders dropped, and Young picked up a rock from the dusty ground, tumbling it around in his hand. A summer celebration glowed in the distance without him, where the older high school kids gathered to drink warm beer and talk to pretty girls in flimsy sundresses. He sat on the second step of his back porch, feet on the ground, elbows resting on scabbed knobby knees. He wanted to go. But he was grounded for sneaking out of the house three weeks ago to the day, called by the floating ash to join the bonfire when he was supposed to be watching his little sister. At 4 am, alerted by an unfortunate creak in the stairwell, Young's father caught him returning home, tipsy and covered in ash. His excuse was that Maddie was asleep, and the house was locked, and she's old enough to be alone--she's six! He'd never been to a bonfire before! But his argument fell on deaf ears.

It was his favorite summer night so far, that night three weeks ago. He remembered how overwhelmed he felt as he approached the fire. No one noticed him until he stood hands in pockets next to Mara Stelford, a pretty redhead with freckles who was popular in school for her singing voice. "Young! Young's here! Get him a beer!" she said, and hugged his neck. She smelled sweet like yeast and grain and summer fruit. Mara let go and danced away to a friend near the fire lighting a cigarette. A junior named Dan Yansen handed him a warm can of brew. It was Young's first ever, but he popped the top like a Coke and took a long swig to validate his presence. Dan nodded and turned to a tall brunette standing behind him. For the remainder of the night, Young didn't speak except to ask for another beer, but he enjoyed it all the same. He sat on an empty cooler in front of the fire, watching his new friends flirt and laugh and drink and sing. 

Young squeezed the rock in his hand before lobbing it long. Tonight, his parents were home, so Maddie had company. He couldn't stay in tonight, as he had for the past three weeks. School started on Monday, and he knew it would be the last bonfire of summer. Looking back at the house, he saw it was quiet and dark. He stood up, resolute, and began to move against the ash.

The article. 

from The New York Times