5th Date

I travel to New York City to attend IAM's Encounter conference.



Where should I stay?

Any other time, I might choose a rectangular room, indoor-outdoor carpeted grey, with faux flowers on the desk (these rooms always have a desk, ask you to work while you are away).



But I decide that maybe I can find an Artist's Date in where I stay.

So instead of a hotel, I choose The Inn at 56 Irving Place.

When I walk in after dark and am greeted by a friendly host named Scott, when I smell the fresh flowers and see white orchids cascading in a peaceful bouquet, when I see the dark wood and high ceilings and antique furniture I know this was the right choice.



It is a place I can read poetry (and I do). It is a place where I can sleep deeper than I have in a while (and I do). It is a place that revives me. Leads me to write poetry...


56 Irving Place, Gramercy Park

for Sarah Haliwell and Neruda

I love your poems. I held them in a dark room, gardenia scented,
lit only by a candle bulb peering over an aged bed. The headboard
and the footboard were dark too, and carved. Sheets white and soft.
There were sirens outside, muted by plaster, old oak, a mirrored
wardrobe in the corner, tall and gently imposing. I took a picture
of me in slate blue nightwear that looked almost Japanese, loose
as the garb that strong men wear for taekwondo, but shirred like
a lily at the short sleeves. Before I took your words to bed,
before I dreamed.



In the morning I sit by myself in the breakfast room. Vivaldi's Spring, or something like that, plays while I eat whole-wheat artisan bread, cheese, raspberries, blackberries. I use a whole pat of butter on my toast. Jasmine green tea warms my mouth, opens me with sweet fragrance.



And I feel oddly alone and whole at the same time. The way Sarah's poetry simultaneously retreats and surges...

how I long for a heartland
root-bound and simple
tideless
surefooted
but then again oh

I do so love the deep


Inn at 56 Irving Place photos by L.L. Barkat. Excerpt from Sarah Haliwell's poem "watermark", used with permission.

2nd Date

I am almost sure this doesn't count as a date. Cameron said nothing about going in, just about going out— to shops, parks, museums, roads not taken.

But I called it a date. Maybe I was just trying to cheer myself for a chore. But maybe not. Can we go in for an Artist's date?

I went into my dark wooden dresser, into my closet. I tossed a light green shirt that was stained and worn, but before I tossed it, I used it to dust the edge of the drawer. I tossed a scrap of packaging (what was it doing in there?) and a black racer t-shirt that had a lot (a lot!) of holes in it. I threw away an old coral-colored sleeveless mock turtleneck. I liked the tone of that shirt, but it wasn't so great on me; why did I wear it just because someone gave it to me as her hand-me-down?

The closet was equally full of questions. Why did I wear the red wool blazer cut too full, pink embroidered "nice-girl" sweater and the white embroidered one that, frankly, always seemed to have two flowers like bulls-eyes in exactly the wrong place? What of the pastel yellow suit and the taupe one? Bad colors both, at least for me. And designs that either overpowered or muted.

I threw away everything I'd never liked, everything too stained, everything I was pretending about. I saved some white t-shirts, because sometimes my girls ask for an old one to make over.

I didn't have to walk very far to go on this date. It was warm inside, while the snow was falling outside (is still). Can I tell you one of my favorite parts of the date?

...pulling the little chain that shuts off the "candle" light in my closet, and closing the door.

First Date

I am supposed to take my Artist Child on dates. I can't remember. Are they supposed to be 2 hours in length? Mine was 34 minutes. A walk down the hill, to the 5-and-dime store to buy a notebook for my "morning pages" (that's something else I'm supposed to do, every morning... three pages of long-hand writing... what an indulgence!).

I bought three notebooks, red, and I'm looking for the perfect pen. I noted that when I signed the credit card slip, I liked that pen, but I'd already bought a different kind. I wrote the signing-pen model down in my red notebook, on the way out of the store. My hands were shaking, like it was the most important thing in the world, to write this down. Maybe I will come back next week, in search of fluidity and the just-right feel between my fingers.

Was my date a success or a failure, or something in between? Why do I feel the need to judge it.

Here is what I noticed along the way. Plastic sprinkle cover, blue ribbon strangling the end of a popped balloon (no, I am making that up... I think the balloon was gone... I think I make things up like this... why do I make things up), a $50 lottery ticket...tattered (I assume not a winner), leaves on a bush... looking coppery and flat like pennies crushed in those machines you can pay money to crush pennies in, a white plastic spoon (I cannot just walk... I force myself to remember... why must I always make myself work even when I'm supposedly at play?)

The sidewalks are broken, snow gone ('til tomorrow... I hear a woman on a cell phone "biggest Nor-easter, supposed to start tonight and last through tomorrow")... snow will come and bury the sprinkle cover, the flat penny leaves, the $50 lottery ticket and its losses, the white spoon, a lone tissue and a ragged styrofoam cup ripped in half.

What makes an Artist Date a success? Does it matter? I went, didn't I. Wasn't that the hardest part. Even if I did buy chocolates and stickers for the girls (goodness, it's almost Valentine's Day). Is it okay to do things for other people when I'm out on a date with me?