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“There is a rose in Spanish Harlem.” Correction: There was a rose….
By
Published: Sep 10, 2023
Category:
Beyond Classification
Walking the track in East Harlem the other day, I spotted this flower. I thought, “There is a rose in Spanish Harlem,” so I snapped a photo and sent it off, with that caption, to a few friends. This morning, when I walked, the rose was gone. And I thought, “Thanks for the reminder.”
I saw that theme often in recent days. On WFUV, a DJ told a story about the Beatles. George Harrison wrote a song for Ringo, who didn’t think the lyrics were right for him. Harrison recorded it. Lennon was killed. Suddenly the lyrics seemed very wise. That made me think of “When I’m 64,” a song that seemed light years in the future when the Beatles recorded it and seems nostalgic to this senior gent now. A title flashed for me: “When We’re 85.” And I wrote the first stanza, just like that.
Last night I watched the tennis and had dinner with a friend. I showed the title of my song/poem/whatever to my friend, and, as I often do, went over the top imagining our lives years and years from now.
I was promptly rebuked. In the kindest way, but the fantasy was definitely dismissed. My friend didn’t say that blue-skying was a poor use of my time, that the future never turns out the way we think it will, that all my Buddhist reading might have taught me that this moment is all we have. So true — I’m especially fond of Thich Nhat Hanh’s Present Moment, Wonderful Moment. As he writes:
Breathing in, I calm my body.
Breathing out, I smile.
Dwelling in the present moment,
I know this is a wonderful moment.
Thich Nhat Hahn wrote many books, but that’s all he really has to say: We choose how we feel about this moment. That was the lesson Coco Gauff hammered home last night. Anna Sabalenka was defeated as much by her emotions as by her unforced errors. Gauff’s consciousness was 100% about tennis until she won, and then she let her emotions out.
Flash cut to this morning. As I walked the track, my thoughts drifted to 9/11. I was at AOL then, the day was intense, and my team produced an instant book of memories our members had shared on the message boards. Later, much later, I reviewed Joel Meyerowitz’s extraordinary book of photographs of the aftermath. If you can stand to read about it and look at it, here’s the link.
Relive 9/11 in print here? That strikes me as the same exercise as dreaming about the future I envision when my friend and I are 85. Worse, really, because it retails private experience in a way that, whatever else it says, shouts “Look at me!”
Much better, I think, to send you this virtual rose, and to hope your day — and the anniversary of 9/11 — is an opportunity for affirmation, even joy.
