the illusion of permanence

Yesterday, while making the usual doomed round of open houses, something unusual happened: We saw an apartment that was more or less in our price range that wasn't ghastly, impossibly tiny, closetless, a fifth-floor walkup, etc. It was atually sort of nice, a place one (well, three, actually: two full-size adults, plus a small dog) could imagine living. What changed? We didn't get richer; the popping of the housing bubble, long-awaited, did not occur. No, we simply looked in a different neighborhood.

I have long ago given up the dream of buying an apartment in Manhattan, if I ever had that dream. Now I am working on giving up the dream of buying an apartment in the vicinty of where I live now, Cobble Hill/Brooklyn Heights/Carroll Gardens. That's harder to give up, because it's less abstract; I live here already, and I like it. To the extent I belong anywhere, it's here. In the year and not quite a half we have been here I have grown all too attached to the streets, the view of the harbor from the Promendae, to Sahadi's, to the Yeminis and the Italians and the hipsters. The dog knows his way to the three pet-food stores in walking distance; his vet is literally around the corner. I feel a visceral attachment to the place that may seem strange. But perhaps having given up so much that was incredibly familiar in North Carolina, it is hard to think about doing so again. Even to move two miles to the southeast, to Park Slope.

Park Slope! It's a very nice place, with tree-lined streets of stately brownstones and, as the name implies, a nice park. It's two miles farther from Manhattan than where I live now, meaning more stops on the subway, a heftier taxi fare in the middle of the night. That would be OK, I guess, but it's not home. Plus something in me resists the idea of moving to Park Slope, as surely as I resist the idea of moving to Montclair, N.J. It's so much what someone in my situation would be expected to do; it is utterly unoriginal. But what can I do? I don't have the guts to move to an "emerging" neighborhood like SoBro or Gowanus: I want to live someplace already emerged, where there are bookstores, grocers and other signs of human habitation.

I like this neighborhood and have even grown fond of this eccentric apartment, in a way. But life has a transitory, makeshift quality, a sense of waiting for the other shoe to drop. That's how renting is. I think that once you have been a homeowner, going back to renting is hard. It feels lame. But how much are we prepared to sacrifice to own again? 200 square feet? 2 extra miles of commuting? Even writing these words, I sense their utter ridiculousness, how unreal New York is, that livability hinges on such things.

But part of me wants to just move somewhere and say, "That's it! We're staying!" Screwed down for life, in the immortal phrase of John Irving's "The Hotel New Hampshire." What's funny is I want this even knowing it's an illusion.

And yes, I know, some people have real problems, not the fake kind I have. Like explosives raining on their homes. Or being homeless.

Unreal City

Robin is now in North Carolina, revisiting the old homeland. She owes me a blog entry, something to put this whole moving business in perspective for once and for all, but maybe this one will spur her to take action. There is so much to say that I don't know where to begin. I want to talk about real estate, for instance, but the whole subject makes me tired and discouraged. It's unreal, for one thing. Real estate is such a common term that we seldom pause to consider its actual meaning. Real property: something tangible, that is, touchable, holdable, build-upon-able. The defining feature of real estate is that it exists in reality, as opposed to the numbers in your 401(k) account or those funny-looking pieces of engraved green paper that the A.T.M. spits out, which have value only because we agree they do. They exist, you might say, in theory. A house and land, on the other hand.... what gives it value? I guess at the end of the day, when civilization collapses, that you could survive by growing potatoes on your fenced-off quarter-acre.

If civilization collapses, among my worries will be that I have no idea how to grow potatoes. I am told it is easy, however, that the ease of potato cultivation led to overpopulation and general fecklessness in the land of my ancestors.

Another problem: no place to grow them. I live in the air, on the second floor, in a world of steel and concrete and brick. We rent, as I have mentioned: even farther removed from reality, from real property.

The common form of home ownership in New York City is the co-op apartment. I think this is because, like so many things in New York, it defies logic and common sense, is needlessly baroque and replete with contradiction.

The structure of the co-op is essentially that you do not buy real property, not the walls around you nor any part of the land they stand on. You buy shares in a corporation, the corporation that owns your building and now graciously allows you to live there. The bigger the apartment, the more shares. You are at once shareholder, landlord and tenant.

Naturally, the current shareholders don't want deadbeats buying into their corporation, so they need to know as much about potential buyers as possible, especially their financial life. The fact that one can qualify for a mortgage is merely a starting point. The corporation needs to know: How much money do have and where? How much do you earn and where do you earn it? What else do you own? Do you pay your bills on time? Are you currently party to a lawsuit? Do you owe alimony? Do you have any pets, noisy hobbies, or other bad habits?

A curious asymmetry of information situation is created, in which the people on one's co-op board know more about the buyer than his doctor, priest and accountant combined. Yet the structure of the co-op purchase means that the most vital fact to the market -- the selling price -- is hidden from view. It is not public record the way property transfers are. Imagine making the most expensive purchase of your life and not knowing what other people are paying or have recently paid for similar items. That is what buying a co-op is. Although some hints can be gleaned by watching how quickly or how slowly apartments sell, there is no easy way of learning whether they sold above (multiple bids) or below their asking price. It's crazy. But this is the world I live in now. I asked for it.

parking

11:30 on a Wednesday night, humid but not hot. We finished a late dinner and took the dog for a walk through silent Cobble Hill streets. As we were walking down Pacific and crossing Clinton we noticed a young blond woman walking across Clinton Street (like us), wearing a miniskirt, talking on a cell phone(not like us). A man standing on the stoop of a Clinton Street building walked down the stairs to intercept her. Wordless. No greeting, verbal or otherwise, was exchanged. Their hands met and they continued slowly down the sidewalk, holding hands. She still on the cell phone, he with one calf heavily tatttoed beneath his chino shorts. We were suddenly stuck just behind them, on an otherwise empty street -- they were walking just a bit too slowly and taking the whole sidewalk.

They turned the corner at Amity, which we needed to do too. We walked across Amity and turned on the southeast corner and back toward Court Street, so as to be no longer just behind them, but parallel, giggling madly.

"Did you see?"

"The ultimate hookup. No words exchanged."

Before we got to Court, the dog stopped to relieve himself, which slowed us down. When we got to the corner, Tattoo and Cell Phone Miniskirt had vanished. Where had they gone? Into the bar on the corner, some apartment building, the convenience store? It was about to become an enduring urban mystery, but as we approached our own apartment entrance, we saw them again. They were standing on the street, looking at a parking spot.

"Can I fit there?" Tattoo asked.

"Baby, mumble mumble mumble," Cell Phone Miniskirt replied.

Baby Tattoo walked back the way we had all come. Cell Phone Miniskirt remained standing in the parking spot. We went upstairs. I was still curious, so when I got in I went to the window and looked out onto the street. I had a perfect view. She was still standing in the street, holding the spot. Parking spot drama! Tomorrow is Thursday, time for ritual street cleaning and moving of the cars.

Nothing happened for a long stretch. I began to feel silly. Then a friend arrived: a brunette! She chatted with Cell Phone Miniskirt as they both stood in the space. A few cars went by, but did not try to park. We were consumed with curiousity as to what Baby Tattoo would drive.

Finally he arrived, in a burgundy Saab. He tried to parallel park, and failed. You could tell he had gone in at the wrong angle. He paused, half in and half out. Cell Phone Miniskirt took the wheel. She angled in more aggressively, but it was obviously not going to work. She tried again. No luck, despite encouragement and coaching from Baby Tattoo and the brunette.

The brunette took the wheel. She gave it a much better go than the other two, nearly scraping the car in front as she went in at a raking angle, and then energetically bumping the car behind to gain a few precious inches. Still. Stuck at an awkard diagonal. Still. Not giving up on the first try, as parallel parking wimps do, but trying again and again. Still! It became obvious that the car was just a bit too big, that this valiant effort was doomed to failure, and we sighed, watching, no longer laughing but rooting for her, feeling her pain.

Baby Tattoo and Cell Phone Miniskirt exhorted and encouraged. Then they gave up and started down the street, apparently in search of a better parking spot. Slowly, the burgundy Saab followed, leaving the ever-so-slightly-too-small parking spot empty and unconquered.

In Brooklyn, who needs television?

The god of thunder and living in the moment

The anniversaries of our leaving North Carolina and, three days later, arriving here in Denver came and went with no fanfare, which was exactly as I wanted it. I considered a blog entry but decided against it; and now, months hence, I thought maybe I should explain myself. Too much fanfare, I thought, would give further validation to The Year of Living in the Past, which is now officially dead and buried. For that there is no sadness for me, only celebration.

I still miss my old home, and my pond, and the summer daylilies. It didn’t feel like a proper spring without dogwoods. There are no flowers here in this dry clime that can supplant the South’s embarrassment of floral riches (although tulips might come close).
Now it’s time to bury the hatchet with Denver and make this The Year of Living in the Present, for my sake as well as that of the rest of the family (including a big-surprise newcomer, known in these quarters as “Thor” until we come up with a more suitable name, who is scheduled to arrive in October). It’s not healthy for me, or for Thor, or for anyone around me, to fail to forgive the circumstances that led to our being here. It’s time to let go.

As further proof of my being over it, I have done the one thing I swore I’d never do again: move. We’re still in Denver but in a working-class neighborhood with a less pricey ZIP code. We have a larger house that we can get for less money. We won’t be able to walk to school, and the architecture isn’t nearly as charming, but so what? It’s a practical move to a practical, good house.

It’s not always easy to stay in the present tense. So many boxes at the last house remained unpacked because there was too little space, and now I’m finding them and sorting through them. I found my daughter’s old homework folder from her beloved kindergarten teacher, who hugged me and cried when we had to move away. I found one of her old crafts from preschool, from the teacher she still talks about fondly all these years later, the one who shares my son’s birthday. Just a few small nips. But we pick ourselves on, dust ourselves off, and keep going. Not much else to do.

life is but a dream

Today I slept late and dreamed, again, of returning to my house. This time the new owners were not Robin and her family but some wealthy Europeans. They graciously showed me around. They had made every improvement imaginatble -- the house looked lovely -- yet it seemed to that it no longer had a soul.

We should not have sold it, I thought in the dream. I could have gone to New York for a few years, made a name for myself, and returned to Raleigh and my old employer, but at a higher level. But even asleep I knew that was nonsense.

One feature of the most interesting dreams are how you keep noticing new and weirder things around you. As I waited in line, a few hours after my house dream, at the nearby corner food shop, it struck me that waking life in New York was often like that. The store, which I shop at often despite its high prices, is one of those unique to upscale urban neighborhoods, combining the best features of gourmet shop and convenience store. Just a block away from me, it has everything one could want: produce, dairy products, pasta, a deli counter, imported cheeses, an olive bar, bread. It is run by Arab men of uncertain nationality, but the cashiers are exclusively Polish women, for some mysterious reason. The lines are usually short, giving me scant time to study the decor, but today there were a lot of customers and only one cashier, so I had time to notice the odd decoration I had never seen before, about 10 feet up on the wall above the banannas: an old-fashioned-looking pearl-handled pistol and an ornately carved, curving knife in a scabbard, affixed to a plaque. There was a black and white photograph, too, and presumably an explanation, but it was too far up to possibly read, which made me wonder why it was there at all. Some souvenir of the store owner's Ottoman ancestors? Why not keep it at home, then? As I studied this I became aware of more decorations. Someone had festooned the ceiling pipes with extravagent swags of plastic fruit and flowers all over the store. I had never really noticed this before; why? A symbol of abundance? (I had just finished The Da Vinci Code and was inclined to see symbols everywhere.)

The woman ahead of me in line, I suddenly noticed, was holding three or four pods of fresh fava beans like a bouquet. This seemed to be all she was buying, and I was mystified, more mystified by this than by the gun-and-knife decoration. Having cooked fresh fava beans myself, I knew that once you get home and take off the outer layers of pod and husk, there isn't much left to eat. She was holding the equivalent of two mouthfuls of fava beans. If you need fava beans, why not get more than that? Otherwise, why bother? It's not like a vital herb, the absence of which will totally change the quality of the dish. Yet that must have been it. She was cooking some recipe, and had forgotten to buy favas, or could find them only here. She seemed as annoyed as only a person waiting 15 minutes in line to spend 87 cents can be.