As I get older, I become more and more interested in the concrete character of experience. I love to drive around the Washington area, or New York, and to actually appreciate the details. I do not love New York for its "citiness" or Washington for its "capitalness", I love each for a myriad of things.
In Washington, there is the amazing drive down Rock Creek Parkway, from Silver Spring to the Watergate. Unlike Central Park, Rock Creek is full of hills and nature trails and campgrounds, the further from the main road one goes. It is almost wild.
In New York, there is Ocean Parkway, in Brooklyn, with its synagogues and yeshivas, the old men in fedoras playing chess on boards fixed on stone tables in the parks in the median strips, the sudden realization of salted air as one approaches Coney Island.
In Washington, there is the Southwest waterfront, with its fish market, live crabs, fresh oysters, rock fish, all the odors that filled my nostrils since childhood.
In New York, there is the plaza of the Lincoln Center, where I used to take my son to wander at twilight when we stayed at the Empire Hotel, across the street. There is the splendor of the Opera House, the comparative austerity of Avery Fisher Hall, the fountain by which his school chorus performed a couple of years ago.
There are many other details, like my favorite deli in Silver Spring, near the top of Rock Creek Parkway, where the dining room is in the back, the pickles are free, the matzoh ball soup is made from scratch, and the sable is always fresh. There is the little restaurant in Chinatown, not far off Canal, where they have the best dim sum I have had in any city, but the staff barely speaks English. There is the movie theater off Dupont Circle, in Washington, where the theaters are small but comfortable, and you can pretty much count on catching films with limited appeal. There is the tiny Russian restaurant in Brighton Beach, where they had quality art on the walls, and a tv constantly playing Russian music videos. There are so many things.
In the same way, I value my wife and child and family and friends for a myriad of concrete details, and abstraction will not do. I hope that all of the details can live on, at least in memory, and be cherished....... |
