I'm watching "Magic & Bird: A Courtship of Rivals"... So unbelievably .... enjoyable. There's probably something wrong with me.

I'm up late, and so happy that I'm not working next week. My son, who is all of 19 months, has spring break. Yes - it's been a tough semester, singing "Puff the Magic Dragon" with Mr. Adam, learning about the letter "G", playing with Oona, Maya, Freida, Zora and Anna. (Girls' names this year are all about ending in "a." Reminds me of grade school when all the girls names ended in "y". Trends are strange.) Phineas and his little friend Nicholas are the only boys in their toddler daycare. I really don't know what effect that has on the kids - where there's 8 girls and 2 boys. One day I picked him up and one of the teachers told me that he had bit one of the little girls that day - out of frustration. When I told Anthony, I had to laugh at his matter of fact reply - "won't be the last time..."

Anyway. Ahhhh - a whole week! a week to go to the tot lot, run (on my own), slide on slides (with Phineas), count airplanes and 'copters, make friends at "toddler tumble time"... or take it easy at home, with the little guy watching yo gabba gabba, his head against my arm. One of the best feelings there is.

The Celtics & the Lakers... that series has worn a well-trodden neural pathway in my brain. Part of my youth is involved in that rivalry. Part of what I think and know about sports heroes & competition is involved in that rivalry. I remember once walking through Beacon Hill with my college boyfriend. He had a Lakers ball cap on. Before we walked out, I remember saying - "uh...are you going to wear that hat?" He thought I objected to him wearing the ballcap itself. But no. I objected to walking through a Boston neighborhood with someone who had a Lakers ballcap on. That's just not smart...

And then, before you knew it - the Magic/Bird era was over. The Chicago Bulls and Jordon ruled... And then, that - of course - became something else too.

Sort of like how winter is now spring.



Prospect Park burst into colors during sunset just a few days ago. I see these trees every day and note their changes - day by day/season by season. And ... a few days ago ... I looked up around 6pm and the colors were blindingly beautiful. My iPhone camera does a nice job, but can't really compare to the actual loveliness. The shadow line - between sun and shade on the trees - is the building line in front of the park. I love that contrast.

Place Matters

A few days ago I checked out this photostream of photos of New York in the 1930's - 1940's. And they're amazing. As I went through one after the other I realized that I knew this city, and that those pictures - even though they're 60 or 70 years old - show a way of life that is at once familiar and comforting. And it's not because they're ... grainy black & white photos of New York depicting a ubiquitous "New York" that lives in this country's collective imagination through films and stories. It's because I know that building, and this street view - I know what it feels like to laze on a stoop with friends, I see little kids silhouetted against a grand skyline all the time... this view is right outside my office window today. I've hung out in a park, at night on a date, trying to create a fireside intimacy in the most public of places. And Times Square in the rain - even though you're drenched, far from where you want to be and cursing everything in sight - is romantic. (Even lovelier in a massive snow storm... I can still remember a sudden whiteout snowstorm about a decade ago, walking through a near deserted Times Square, its neon colors muted by a few inches of white overlay, wanting only to share that wondrous and lovely experience with someone who was at once so far away and so completely inside my every thought. A beautiful and melancholy Times Square is the perfect backdrop for unrequited love.)

What looking through these photos did for me, was to connect my life, in its everyday mundaneness to a history of shared experiences. I think only older cities can do that for us - show us where our patch fits in the overall quilt. Many places in this country are still forming - what they are today is nothing like what they were 60-70 years ago. I was surprisingly, unexpectedly happy to see the dominant threads of my life evident in the New York of more than a half century ago. All of a sudden, just by living my life, I was carrying on a time-honored tradition.