Late summer afternoon

The part of Brooklyn where I live, is a vibrant hybrid of the old and the new, like a brilliantly eccentric thrift shop connoisseur who manages to put her look together with impeccable aplomb.

There are trees here that were planted when roads were just dust and horses rested their weight against their sides. Now their massive trunks and huge gnarled arms stand like Atlas with heavy ponderous boughs of leaves. They lean over curling iron railings and towards ancient Steeples and dwarve homes built over a century ago.

The trees and weathered walls seem nourished with years of human experience. As mortals merely passing through, they leave a sense of distant history in whispers.
There is the sense of "we were here before you and we will be here when you are gone."

On the other hand, the new construction, always seems to have such abundant, glossy windows and sharp, angular edges. They rise up steep and proud of their smart trimmings.

Saplings, fresh out of the nursery, still with tags attached, are then planted in their carefully designated squares of dirt, amongst the concrete sidewalk, close to the street. An ambitious nod to a future with a bit of green in it.

A few days ago, an errant tornado wandered into Brooklyn from over the ocean. it hit us, like a toddler blundering in and wreaking havoc on his brothers' masterpiece of blocks.

We were in our apartment when the sky darkened suddenly to the churning charcoal tweed of a funeral suit.

The opaque torrents of rain poured down, as if angry washerwomen were spilling their collective dirty buckets of water into the street, with a jerk. The sky lit up so profoundly, it was as if for that second, we were completely revealed in the glare of the Gods.

Then the odd wind began and the sky became an insane, inspired artist finger painting with the rain, swirling the spray of rain and mixing in treetops and debris in his spiraling oddness.

When it was over, leaves littered the ground. Fall had arrived, like a premature fetus, torn from the womb leaving only the ashes of broken promises.
The trees, stood sentient and silent as martyrs with their their grievous injuries. Their boughs torn off like merciless amputations without anesthetic. Many had been uprooted and lay dead, their massive deep root-webs sticky with earth. Dovi called those "Tree funerals."

Even days later, as we walk to school, over the crushed pliantly green leaves, we stop often, looking at the trees, aware of heavy broken branches trapped in thick layers of leaves above our heads.

Dovi tells me he hates the D word. He means 'dying'. Ever since Ollie died he has asked me questions about death like "How come we have to pay for funerals?"
Today it was "Would ghosts be scary like in Scooby Doo?" I said, "I don't think so. If those that loved us so much, were to come back they would want to love us and protect us and definitely do no harm to us. "

He changed the subject, going over to a tree, cut into pieces and marveling at its perfect roundness, the concentric circles of it.
As we looked, the sun came out from behind a cloud and shone on the newly exposed heart of the tree, turning it the warm color of oats and rye. As the light split and spread, it seemed to daub freehand silver brushstrokes on to stone and foliage, putting comforting arms around the shoulders of buildings. It seemed to drape a shawl of light over the silver tipped vines climbing up the bruised brick, to the sky.

Its the late afternoon of summer, and even as the morning light is bright and blinding and gorgeous, it is already subtly weaker then usual, like a child coming down with a cold.

After depositing Dovi at school I walk back alone, conscious of the smell of frying onions, coming out of an open window overhead, next to a black painted fire escape.

The garbage truck is out, busily picking up recycled bottles and tins in their transparent cauls, a mantle of meal leavings and drinks drunk. The magazines and newspapers are stacked up as neatly as possible. Everybody knows once a newspaper has been opened and read it will never be the same again, but we try to refold it anyway and fit it neatly on to a pile. it is the trying that matters, you see.

I always look for books left out on the stoop on recycling day. A book is no mere recycle, it is a lovely passing of an Olympic torch...a bit of magic... an escape...

I see a massive dog pulling her Mother along. She looks at me with warm brown eyes for all of three seconds, then continues busily nosing things in the ditch. "She is beautiful". I say. "She is driving me crazy today" Her owner says, big hair quivering with dramatic outrage. "Is she taking you for a walk?"

"definitely today" she says. Stopping resignedly and waving at me, as her dog suddenly starts galloping along.

We walked past the obligatory red signs hanging off gates "Please, no fliers, ads, menus."
This is Brooklyn, and we don't like to waste paper.

We are dreamers, we are ingenious and authentic, here in our city that is also a village. It is a place where some of us have made it (whatever that means), some still need to, and some do not care either way, as long as their lives are full of meaning.

I feed the stray cat at the corner school. She waits behind the gate until I am gone, before venturing out.
Then I go home.

The way things are heard.

My cat cries at the door, wailing a meow to be let out into the hallway to go and see if the new kitten was doing something fascinating, touching his stuff, eating from his two bowls of food or drinking from his two bowls of water or worse yet playing with his kids.

Sound can be deceptive as it reverberates inside the ear and is processed by a brain chock-a block- full of memories and thoughts.
For a millisecond, the longing meow sounded to me like the atavistic cry of my grandmother, at one of her most difficult moments.
After her stroke, the visiting nurse would try and stretch out Nana's hand which had clawed inwards, tilted towards her chest in permanent foetal position. She cradled it there protectively.

Nana's eyes were so blue as she looked up at the nurse, her mouth slack at one side, words no longer obeying her mind or mouth.
She wailed that sound of pain or perhaps it was a breathless sigh of anguish, as she realized what had become of her, what had become of her right hand... That she was now expected to exist this way..from now on...
The hand that had stirred pots of food for her family, held her children as they crossed the streets in wartime London, the hand that had changed bandages and dispensed medications when she was a nurse, was no longer working right.

She had more recently used the hands I loved so well, to take me on red buses to town, where we went shopping. She hugged me and gave me little sips of coffee from her delicate china cups. She had made us butter cupcakes with icing and the best fudge I had ever tasted.
She also used those hands to play bridge with her dear 'feline obsessed' friends Molly and Teddy. they used tiny pencils and pads and looked tensely at their cards. She would tap out angry letters to errant politicians on her typwriter and tersely send them. She sewed me dresses on her little sewing machine, and read her newspapers on her bed in the morning.
Now her right hand had all but died away, this integral part of her.
she didn't try for long, the nurse and subtly shook her head. From behind her, I shook my head too.
In this space and time, the image faded as i shook my head to clear it and opened the door into the hallway. The cat looked at me with his falcon eyes and sat down in the doorway casually, then satisfied the kitten was curled up into a tiny pepper colored ball in the bathroom, walked back into the room and lay down.