Walking around New York City last week with my sister and niece forced me to pause and look up at buildings I have come to recognize only from eye level.
It was the refreshingly bright gold of the cupola against the grey sky that caught my attention and caused me to look up.
Met Life Tower
Then I took in the rest of the building and wondered why I hadn’t noticed it before.
At 700 feet high, the Met Life Tower was, according to Wikipedia, the tallest building in the world from 1909, when it was built, until the Woolworth Building surpassed it in 1913. There are 50 floors.
Clock faces on each side of the tower measure 4 feet tall and 26.5 feet in diameter.
The gilded cupola provides constant illumination.
Next time you’re in the vicinity of 1 Madison Avenue in the Flatiron District, take a look up. I’m sure you’ll be pleased by what you see.
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At some point yesterday (Saturday), I noticed that my subscriptions that had been posted on Saturday had been changed to Friday.
I didn’t think much of it until my Soulful Sundays post ended up date stamped March 19th instead of 20th. And I know I posted well past midnight.
I checked my time settings and realized that WP didn’t automatically update after the time change last week. I’m not sure why I didn’t notice this before.
So as not to break my perfect postaday2011 record, I’m posting a bonus Soulful Sundays pick.
I’ve been listening to the Buena Vista Social Club since yesterday and though I’m not playing now, I woke up humming a few songs. (I always wake up with music in my head.)
Since Buena Vista is in my head, I wanted to find something similarly atmospheric. I thought of Milton Nascimento. I haven’t listened to him in a while.
Whenever I hear Nascimento, I feel the need to learn Portuguese just so I can understand his message (Spanish only helps with a few words). Ditto Gilberto Gil. Here’s one of my favorite Nascimento CDs, Encontros e Despedidas. Again, I love every song on this CD so it was difficult to pick one. But here is Lagrimas do Sul.
In the summer of 1999 or 2000, my friend, Cathi, invited me to see a documentary film she said she knew I’d love. I had never heard about the Buena Vista Social Club before we got to the theater but I wasn’t disappointed.
From the opening scenes, I was transported to Havana. And the music struck a chord in my soul. I was so moved, I watched the documentary with tears close to the surface. On my way home, I bought a copy of the CD and for many months after, it was the only music I listened to. Each time, I created stories in my head based on the feelings the music evoked.
So, for today’s Soulful Sunday, my pick is the Buena Vista Social Club. Each track is a winner so it was hard to select just one. But take a listen to the opening track, 01 Chan Chan.
As a bonus, below is a video of the late Ibrahim Ferrer singing the heart stirring, Dos Gardenias Para Ti. Check it out.
I love amaryllis and bought several bulbs two Christmases ago. After they bloomed, I left them on the window sill, watering them occasionally.
Several days ago, I noticed something reddish-brown against the blinds. I was shocked to see that a bud was beginning to peek through. The plant hadn’t bloomed in more than a year.
Excitedly, I grabbed my camera and began documenting each day’s progress. Here’s day #4
Amaryllis
As far as I know, amaryllis shouldn’t be blooming now, so I decided to check. According to Wikipedia, this is probably not an amaryllis at all but rather a hippeastrum, a flowering bulb that is able to bloom indoors.
But since it is blooming now, I taking it as a sure sign of Spring.
I have been unable to look at the images that have been coming out of Japan since the magnitude 8.9 earthquake and 23-foot tsunami devastated the north eastern portion of that country. They’re too surreal.
That the people I know, former co-workers, who have returned to work at headquarters in Tokyo and their loved ones are okay, have brought little consolation. I can’t even begin to imagine what it must be like being in Japan at the moment or being a Japanese outside of Japan. My friend, Maiko, misses her family and wishes she could go home. My co-workers are torn.
It’ll be several years before things will be “normal” again. The emotional impact will take even longer to heal.
But I know Japan will recover and rebuild – just like she did after Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Instead of looking at the images of destruction, I find myself being drawn instead to photos of the cherry blossoms my cousin took last year when we met in Washington, D.C. Cherry Blossoms were given to D.C. in 1921 by the then mayor of Tokyo. Every year, they turn the area around the Tidal Basin pink, perfume the air with a sweet, clean scent and invite thousands of visitors to stroll, stop and smell the beautiful flowers. It is a sure indicator of spring’s impending arrival.
This year, the festival will be held from March 26th – April 10th. If you’ve never seen it, you owe it to yourself to do so. In an interesting twist, the National Park Service announced a few weeks ago that it would be sending cuttings from the original cherry trees back to Tokyo for propagation.
In the aftermath of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear threat, this is a wonderful regifting.
You can do your part to help Japan by sending a donation to the Red Cross, the Japan Society or other relief agencies that are assisting the Japanese people in their time of need.
Why do we need all those lights, my 12 year old niece asked as we walked towards Times Square. Frankly, I didn’t have a ready answer.
Like most people who live in New York City and have family and friends everywhere, I’ve come to accept that from time to time, someone will be asking to use my fouton.
This past weekend, it was my sister. Her 12 year old, Justin Bieber-crazed only child told her that she wanted to spend part of her spring break in the city. Most of her friends had gone away for spring break as well.
I took the morning off yesterday to shepherd them from Grand Central to Times Square and parts in between.
It was eye opening to see how excited she got at things that I have become inured to.
Like when she screamed, Rachel Ray! I thought she had seen the television host. She hadn’t. All she had seen was the awning over the back entrance to Rachel Ray’s studios. I’d noticed people standing on line but I’d completely missed the glaring orange RR logo and had forgotten that her studio was there. Just seeing the name had made my niece so excited, she was smiling from ear to ear. Of course we had to take a picture for her.
I should have halted the tour there and head for one of the television studios. She did ask where Good Morning America was taped but we had a few more places to go and reservations to keep.
Klieg lights, dollys, booms poles and rolls of wires seemed to sprout out of the sidewalk near the intersection of Fifth Avenue and 28th Street, leaving a path just wide enough for us to pass single file. When I mentioned, casually, that they had probably just finished filming, she came alive again, There must be a celebrity around! she gushed, eyes bulging with excitement. There was, indeed, a limo, and crew near one of its doors. But with no trailers or food trucks, I wasn’t sure. Auntie, can we go see who it is, pleease?
When did my niece become so label savvy and celebrity obsessed, I wondered. But I probably should have expected it. This is the same niece who speaks with me via Skype and has had a page on Facebook since she was about 10. Well, it’s actually my sister’s page but she’s the one who updates it and most of the friends are hers. My sister monitors the page and her usage.
Was I this crazy about anyone or anything when I was 12? Music, maybe. But I had no opportunity to get up close to any of the musicians I liked, so their music and my imagination were all I had.
As the lights in Times Square came into view, I was surprised, no, shocked when instead of saying how beautiful they were, she asked, with the innocence of a 4 year old, Why do we need all those lights?
It was so totally unexpected, I began laughing, partly because I couldn’t find a plausible answer at that moment and partly out of relief. There’s hope for her, I thought. Maybe this is just a phase that she’ll grow out of. Eventually.
Mini over Times SquareSpiderman adWith Morgan Freeman at Madame Tussaud'sRipley's Believe It or Not
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Whenever I travel, I always opt for the window seat so I can enjoy the scenery. But for most of this flight over the U.S., thick clouds prevented me from seeing the terrain below.
Clouds and sun
So I decided to look at them instead of reading or snoozing.
Break in the clouds
Each time I looked, the pattern and thickness had changed.
Soft cloudsCloudy canopy
Finally, it covered the land below. And I remembered the line, I really don’t know clouds at all, from Joni Mitchell‘s song, Both Sides Now.
A few weeks ago, I was speaking with my 80 year old aunt who, except for a spell in Canada, has lived in the U.K. since 1954 – way before I was born.
Lebara SIM
I’m not sure how the conversation veered towards her trip from Kingston, Jamaica to London but for the first time I heard that she and 16 others had traveled on the Reina del Pacifico, the ocean liner aboard which a former British Prime Minister, James MacDonald, had died and King Peter of Yugoslavia had sailed.
But that’s not what caught my attention. According to Aunt Connie, her voyage had lasted three weeks. Three weeks?!
Could I survive being unplugged for that long? I doubt it seriously.
When did I get so connected? Every so often, I leave my phone at home intentionally or turn off the television.
But I’m getting ready to go on vacation and remaining connected is my biggest concern. Always has been.
Living in the U.S., I’ve become so used to being always ‘on’ that I take for granted the limitations of technology elsewhere.
On my last trip, my laptop traveled with me as it always does. However, in two and a half weeks, I got online for only a few minutes. When I did, it was like winning the lottery – miraculous and unexpected. My first few days had been tortuous. Like quitting smoking cold turkey, I felt ‘whole’ again once I got online.
So how will I be able to postaday when I’m on vacation?
My phone
I plan to have a few posts queued up and ready to go but I love to share my experiences shortly after they happen – not when I get back. So I’ve spent the last day trolling the Internet to make sure there’ll be free WiFi hotspots near my hotel (T-Mobile tells me I can turn off the data service and connect using WiFi but I’d rather have my phone off completely) that I’ll be able to find a convenient location to buy a SIM card when I arrive (I have an unlocked phone that I use whenever I travel) and that my adapters will work (They didn’t in South Africa). I’ll buy a few minutes on Skype so I can call home in case there’s an emergency or use GoogleChat.
I’m confident these steps will keep me connected so that I can keep my commitment to postaday while I’m away. I’ll know for sure once I arrive.
How do you stay connected when you’re traveling outside the US?
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Sundays, for me, are usually lazy days. I putter, lounge, read, snooze and, of course, listen to music. What I listen to depends on my mood. Sometimes, it’s soothing jazz. Other times, it’s music that gets me on my feet – I just love to dance.
For this week’s Soulful Sundays post, I want to share the work of a musician who has become one of my favorites.
I was first introduced to reggae musician, Tarrus Riley a few years ago when I heard his anthem to women, She’s Royal. Then my friend, Sandra, and I attended his performance at the Calabash Literary Festival in Treasure Beach. We enjoyed it so much, we concluded we had to see him again. We did, in New York, a few months later and we weren’t disappointed. I even went back stage to get his autograph – something I never did when I was a teenager!
