Thank you, Everyone <3
A Poem about snow, a garden update, and a word of Thanks for your support and patience
Good morning to you. I hope you had a restorative weekend. It was a busy and bustling few days here in NYC as we start to feel the first hints of autumnal weather. We went to a wedding of very dear friends on Saturday and was so nice to see familiar faces, gathering together to celebrate love.
Today is September 10, a date that has been looming in the back of our minds for months now. It’s the date that in June was marked for the eviction of our beloved Elizabeth Street Garden. An update in case you are following the story:
We’re so grateful to all who have donated & written the Mayor so far.
Our attorneys advise that the law requires the City to provide us 14 days notice before they can perform an eviction.
We have not received any such notice. So for now, the Garden is safe from being shuttered. We will inform everyone if we receive the 14 days’ notice in the future.
We’re continuing to pursue legal and non legal options to save the garden. Please stay tuned in.
This is all we can share for now, though we remain hopeful for miracles and are continuing our mission/battle with tireless daily action. We are not giving up and we are leaving no stone unturned.
I wanted to thank you all for your support - in writing supportive comments on my posts, penning letters to our Mayor, donating to the Garden, purchasing our People Have the Power shirts, writing your own posts, talking with others, and checking in.
I also wanted to thank you for your unbelievable kindness and patience as this issue has consumed my efforts and mind, and where all of my energy has been directed these days. I know there are things which have been put on hold/postponed and I do think about everything so much and look forward to when we can resume these things again. Among them is needing to send your *THANK YOU* gifts, and I have some wonderful new plans for things to share with you all. I know it is taking a long time, but it will be worth it, I think. I hope! :)
I’ve said it many times, but just wanted to reiterate how thankful I am for this community. Reading your comments on my posts and on the Chat threads bring me such a bounty of inspiration and comfort. I keep thinking of when I first launched my Substack back in December, and how nice it will be soon to have this platform and community in the fall and winter once again. Something about Substack seems tailor made for the colder months, when we can get cozy with a cup of tea or coffee, and take real time to be with each other's words.
I wanted to share a poem with you. I found this one I wrote about a dream I had in 2021. I don’t remember what month it was, or too many details of the dream, but I so clearly remember the light, the feeling, the colors. It was this very simple and magical dream of a pink and gold snowy landscape on the sidewalk of Houston Street in NYC. I wish I could paint it for you or show you in a film. I can conjure the dream so clearly in my mind right now. This feeling of magic, purity, stillness. That feeling when it first snows and everything is perfect - when it’s cold and warm at once - the best kind of each. Picture that feeling and add in this heavenly light of warm pink and soft gold. I remember I woke up that morning and wrote this poem to try and contain the feeling and image so I could revisit it whenever I wanted to.
It isn’t really apropos of anything, I just wanted to share it because reading it made me feel a sense of wonder today, and I thought maybe you could share in that, too. The poem was originally twice as long, and in an effort/exercise did some heavy editing for this Substack post. Is an experiment, and for my next experiment I want to try and re-edit the whole thing again as a prose poem, or perhaps it was meant to be two separate poems. It takes some focused work and experimentation, so here is a new iteration, from 2021 to 2024.
Please in the comments share any thoughts, anything the poem reminded you of, a poem you wrote, or a dream you had in waking life or sleeping. <3
Sky Blue Pink
Walking aloof in Slumberland
I swung my belongings round my head
and launched them into the sky
Free as the birds collecting formation
Breezing as ether returning as air
The land was glowing pink and gold
The city was arctic landscape
A vast and round expanse
A telephone booth for Uncle Wiggly
And his loyal boon companions
I stood beneath
Incandescent riddles
Walking in the Air
Hoping to capture them still
I reached for my gone satchel
Searched the snowy floor
Icicle scenes by degrees
Stalactites reaching for the pavement
Stalagmites reaching for the paintbrush
I heard a shimmery hum
the Music of the Drift
And gazing in awe at the firmament
Awaiting a sky of midnight stars
I saw the lyrics of all the world
And wondered why
dreams are not like memories
we bury in our own resting place
The foundation collapsed
the bottom fell out
Cylinders flying like fire
The first melting ice caps
Childhood poetry
The swinging circles
The pigeons in the air
pink glowing orbs of light under snow
And I wanted to capture it all
To befriend and disarm the snake charmer
To delay the arrival of the bad news bearer
To swing my belongings over my shoulder
The culprit of my waking hour
Dear Jesse, the day before yesterday the doorbell rang and it was a courier employee who delivered a package to me: it was the People have the Power t-shirts and sweatshirt and the American edition of your mother's beautiful book Book of Days that I ordered after reading your post of support to preserve the Elizabeth Street Garden on August 23rd. You don't know how happy it made me!
Yesterday, however, an immense sadness: our cat Pussi died because of the tumor that had grown above her nose. For more than a year I cared for her with so much love and dedication but a few days ago she began to show the first signs of suffering and difficulty breathing. With great pain I chose not to let her suffer and called the vet who came to us in the afternoon to put her to sleep and suspend her vital functions. It was so sad but now every new day would have been an ever greater suffering and probably the end much more painful. This morning my brother and I buried her in our garden, in a flowerbed near the house.
As always I greet you with great affection and with you all the friends of our beautiful community.
Luca 🌸❤️🐈🤗❤️🌸
Thank you for your poem, Jesse, and I hope that the campaign to save Elizabth Street Garden is successful. I had wanted to comment on this earlier, but as I am in a far distant place, I didn't feel that my comments would be of much help. However, I will say a little bit ...
I'm very fortunate to live where I do, not because it isn't a densely crowded and extremely urbanised part of the world, but because despite that it's never felt unbearably so. I live in a suburb of Taipei City, previously in Yonghe District and now in bordering Zhonghe. Yonghe is one of the most densely populated places in the world apparently with (as of 2019) 39,000 people per square kilometer; however, perhaps due to the numerous park spaces scattered throughout the district and the city, open spaces are always little more than a walk away. We live just around the corner from the largest park in the district, but many smaller parks exist as well as the riverside park areas that extend throughout the city. I'm very grateful to have these spaces and I take comfort in seeing how many people here make use of these spaces--watching groups of elderly doing tai-qi in the morning or singing karaoke in the afternoon (yes, there's space for that!), kids playing games with their parents or on the playgrounds, people bringing their dogs to the dog park, and so on. The sense of community is palpable and there's room for everyone. I know the good that it brings the community here; I see it every day that I walk my son to school and every time we go there ourselves.
Having just seen pictures of Elizabeth Street Garden, one immediately sees how beautiful it is and how much care has been invested in it by the community there. These spaces are essential; anyone who visits them knows this to be true. New York City, although a great city, needs more of these spaces, not fewer, and will be a better city for preserving Elizabth Street Garden.
*ahem* Ok, not so little to say, but I mean it sincerely. Parks are wonderful and I love that we have so many here, so I hope and pray (through this channel as it were) that you and your community prevail.
I came across this quote at an exihbit yesterday:
"In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out.
It is then burst into flame by an encounter
with another human being.
We should all be thankful for those people
who rekindle the inner spirit.
- Albert Schweitzer
... who also said: "There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats."
Can't argue with that. Thanks, Jesse, and to everyone.