old new york, young new york

one of the things i like about my job is the variety of people i get to work with. i especially like the elderly people, because they are so comfortable with themselves. like marthann, who wears the most amazing outfits i have ever seen. like an all-denim outfit that included denim wings on her pants legs, and a necklace and earring set she had hand-made out of house keys. or joyce, who has worn heidi braids every day of her life, and probably cat's-eye liner for the last fifty years. or evelyn who gave us all copies of a cd she had made of herself singing french opera songs. she is my favorite, evelyn, in part because she always seems completely surprised that i recognize her, pleasantly surprised, and calls me things like "lovely" and "sweet". today she looked at my name plate and said "oh, lastname? is that how you say it?" i have one of those impossible-to-pronounce-unless-you've-heard-it-before surnames, and when she pronounced it perfectly, i was surprised and said that yes, that was it. then she asked if it was czech (and it is slovak), so i was even further surprised. she went on to tell me that she was israeli, and was shipped to prague when she was a young woman to work for a diplomat there. a real idiot, she said. she was pregnant and had to hide her pregnancy (or she would have lost her job), and he used to call her into his office every five minutes for various reasons. there was a safe in her office that she had to lock every time she stepped away, and every five minutes her little tiny pregnant self had to lock and unlock and open the door of this giant safe. "i had an easy delivery," she confided, "after getting up and lifting the safe so many times." she still remembers driving through czechoslovakia in the middle of a rainy night (which i told her was still more than i had seen of it.) now she lives in new york, with the daughter she put through college ("she has more education than i ever had" she told me) who chairs the german department at nyu. she almost stopped her story half way in, claiming i wouldn't want to hear her old story. i told her to remember more for the next time she came in.

tonight i met up with a good friend of mine from college, in town for a few days for an interview, at pianos on the lower east side. (it's been a real reunion week for me.) we talked the usual, discussing current relationships, jobs and living situations (that adult stuff), and he made me laugh like he always has. he is not seriously considering a move to new york, but it was good to see him and catch up, to pretend this is what it could be like if he moved here. (i think my goal is to eventually get everyone i care about to move out here so that i have my circle around me again.) i stayed out later than i usually do when i am alone (i'm a real wimp about that train ride home late), in part because i was sad to say goodbye to him. i miss people, ya know? but it is good to feel young and free in new york.