Ghosts
“The travesty of time is that we have moments and then they are gone forever”
We live among ghosts.
That is my belief.
How can generation upon generation walk these same city streets and leave NOTHING behind?
Ever since I was 16 I’ve been slightly obsessed with the movie “Peggy Sue Got Married”. Kathleen Turner goes to her 25th high school graduation, faints, and wakes up 25 years before when she’s a senior in high school.
I loved the movie, and it made me start thinking about Time.
What does our time here on Earth mean? What stamps, effects or impressions do we leave on this place we call Home?
This picture of the Kosciuszko pool in 1961 Bed Stuy, Brooklyn is only 57 years old. It’s a picture of a bunch of kids at the local pool, but that moment they all shared is gone, never to be captured again.
I wonder how many are still alive. I know it’s grim but you do lose people along the way.
Last Sunday, Father’s day, we all hung out in my brother’s backyard with my dad. I asked him to tell the story of the Italian gang chasing him and his friends from the subway platform at Smith and 9th street. I pass by there every day.
The story was pretty funny in a trifling sort of way because my dad was telling a tale of getting chased for blocks and then fighting 5 guys when it was just him and a friend.
It was a scary story. But he was smiling the whole time.
I think it’s because he was transported back to a time and place. A little movie in his heart that was REAL. Real as the cup sitting in front of him.
He named off his running buddies and every other guy had died. My dad is 74. ….he’s seen a lot of people come and go.
If I could see my dad at 17, running through Sunset Park more than 50 years ago, it would fill my whole heart, because then I could have that part of him too.
The travesty of time is that we have moments and then they are gone forever. They disappear like farts in the wind. But if there’s a photo?…well a photo is the next best thing.
Now…..I was a teenager in the 80’s.
It really happened, LOL.
Sometimes I catch a pic of myself and can’t believe I was ever that skinny or that young or just THAT ANYTHING.
I see myself and instantly know what I was listening to, who I had a crush on, and what I was going through.
In the tenth grade I went to George school, a Quaker boarding school right outside Philadelphia. And every May we had Alumni Day.
I was about to leave for breakfast when I heard a knock at the door.
Two little old ladies smiled at me as I opened it. They said they lived in my room…in 1923.
I believed it, but I couldn’t believe it. In my silly youth I never imagined ANYONE living in my room before I got there. Typical self-centered teenager.
They asked if they could come in….um YEAH…how could I deny them?
I can’t remember their names so I’ll call them Sadie and Ethel. Ethel went straight to the window and let out a huge laugh.
Ethel — Sadie look!
Sadie moved her little old legs to the window that faced the grounds and everlasting woods.
Sadie stared ahead and smiled.
Sadie — (to me) We used to sit by the window and watch the thunderstorms
Here I was, thinking only Kelly (my roommate) and I did that.
Me — We still do that ma’am
Ethel — Really?
Me — Oh yes!
They showed me how they kept their room and as they we leaving, Ethel stopped cold in her tracks.
She reached out her hand and touched the door.
Very faded and slight were their names, carved out “Sadie and Ethel, class of 26'”
Sadie — (to me) See?…there’s us, right there
I was astounded. I had never seen it before and I felt I was looking at something sacred.
We all stood in silence. They took turns touching it, holding memories.
Sadie’s eyes were watered up. Ethel was quiet.
Sadie — It really was the best time. I hope you enjoy yourself here
It was at that moment I realized I was moving out of that room in two weeks, and my heart pulled on the sadness that was now invading my chest.
And then they were gone.
I’m pretty sure Ethel and Sadies have passed on by now but they were here.
And they lived in my room.
They breathed air in the same four walls and evidently opened the same door a million times like I did.
I think about them often. Sometimes I wonder what life was like in 1923.
Did they have Snow Raids like we did?
Did they watch their parents drive away on Move In day and realize “Holy God, I’m 16 and know NO ONE”?
Did they sit on the steps of Main and watch the sunset disappear behind the trees and see that boy…that BOY…. in the glow of Magic Hour and wonder “Does he even SEE me?”.
What do spaces hold other than the brick, wood, dirt and stone around them?
Do spaces and places hold energy?
To the left is a picture of two kids walking into Fort Greene Park in 1881. 137 years ago.
I’m about to have my son’s 6 birthday party there this weekend.
But the minute I saw this pic during a late night Google rabbit hole, I instantly sat up because that house in the background is still there. And everything you see is still the same… except of course, we don’t do horse and buggies anymore.
I spoke with a friend about this picture and brought up the fact I remember the park before the little playground was there.
She didn’t know what I was talking about.
Me — It just used to be all grass
Friend — (skeptical) When was THAT?
Me — The 90's
Friends — Oh I wasn’t here then
Hmmmm
I’d thought of myself as a NYC Newbie for so long it took another person’s ignorance to realize I’ve been here 24 years. Some people have lived and died in Brooklyn in less time.
This is my home. I’ve lived here in New York longer than anywhere else. It is the one place I have a true connection to.
I was raised in Philadelphia and South Jersey. When I found out through my mother’s investigating that I had a uncle that lived 3 blocks from where I have been these last ten years (I’ve moved around) a part of my soul was not surprised.
One of our own had come home.
That One is me.
And every month I search Google for photos of my neighborhood from long ago. I need to see that street with my favorite burritos from another perspective. A perspective that was real. And the people there and their ideas shaped that time and space.
When my daughter was 5 I showed her a picture of her a 1920’s parade near our favorite toy store. She stared at it intently.
Luna — Where are all these people now?
Me — They’re dead
Yes I’m blunt.
Me — Well…maybe the baby and the smallest kids are still alive but that man on the elephant and the lady eating ice cream next to him and all those people are dead
Luna — OK
She stared at the picture again.
Luna — But the street is still here
Me — Yes it is. It ties us all together. All the people that were once here and us.
She smiled.
Luna — I guess it does
Sometimes I imagine what heaven will be like.
I don’t imagine pillowy clouds or some other nonsense but it’s the people that keep my heart invested.
I want to see my grandmother.
I want to see my brother.
I want to see my recently deceased friend I am mourning right now.
But I also want to see all the people that lived on my street, my neighborhood, and went to my boarding school.
I want to ask them what their favorite places were.
Where did they stand to watch the sunset?
Where did they have their babies?
There will be many more people in the afterlife than there will ever be Here.
Here is just the beautiful waiting room between those not born yet and souls that have passed on.
We are in the Here.
The now
And the most beautiful souls…..the spirits, the names, the Ghosts walk among us with every handprint in the concrete and every carving of their name in the door.
“I Was Here” it might say.
Yes you were.
And you still are.
#TheStraightTruth
#YesIAMThatMom
