Are you the parade?, she asked Not in the parade or at the parade It was a tremendous responsibility Being the parade, she thought. Yes, She said. I am. The parade, she Added.
Where are you?, she asked. Where Is the parade, you mean?, she said Yes. I'm in Bayside, she answered. The parade, it's in Bayside, near the Water. I mean, I can see the water From here.
The parade was going to have to go, She said. It was time to move on, she Added. I am going to have to keep on Going. The parade is here but soon it Will have to be in Flushing and then at Coney.
I'll be at Coney Island, she agreed. I'll Be the parade, there. Not in the or at The, but the parade. This was going To be all right. It was okay to be the Parade if she was coming along, too. She thought.
Craig Robinson and his sister Michelle Obama format their show, IMO, to answer a listener’s question. The issues deal with relationships and the focus is on mental health.
The query, on this episode, has to do with waiting for the guy to decide about having children.
A memory is triggered, as my memories of Burt so frequently are, watching Mrs. Obama talk with Elaine Welteroth.
Burt and I were oldish when we met. Had we been able, would we have had kids?
[Burt really hated that word but he loved little tykes.]
Burt would have wanted us to have a child. Had I been able, yes, I think I would have wanted to share a child with him.
I always erred on the side of not wanting the responsibility. Truly, we might have had very different parenting styles. I know that had we become parents, it would have changed our experience of each other.
Since parenting was not a strong suit, I don’t have to feel the guilt of messing up another person’s life.
We didn’t have to deal with all that bringing up a child involves; that made it possible for us to play together more.
I have no regrets that we couldn’t – I am even glad we did not, but I would have liked having a little Burt.
Some days, Burt is so intensely missed that I walk around in a miasma of loss.
That’s on one day, and it’s fine. It is inevitable that that feeling will come or go or both at once.
Today, I miss him but I’m digging into memories. With the memory the miasma lifts; I am not in that fog of missing-mourning-grieving that some days is paralyzing.
It will go, it will come. It’s fine. I have my memories. I know what I’ve lost, but I cherish what I had.
I was gifted a happiness that now makes me cry, tears of pain, tears of joy. It’s fine.
Mourning and loss isn’t an illness. We don’t want to recover from it. We don’t expect to recover.
We do, of course, hope to get past the initial shock and sadness. But the loss, that’s now and forever.
The loss is permanent. Burt’s not coming back. I mourn that loss.
It saddens me to have to live the rest of my life without Burt.
I know he’s not here, and I will go on without him.
It saddens me but I know I will go on. Without Burt. With Burt in my heart, in my memory; without Burt physically here. Burt’s here. Burt will always be with me.
I still greet him when I come home from my day out and about.
I still, sometimes, tell him about my day.
I still, sometimes, share things from my day that I think he would have enjoyed, or found interesting.
After he passed, I changed its configuration, flipping bedroom for livingroom. There is a kind of hush over both rooms.
In many ways, it doesn’t feel like it was his house these last few years. Well, that’s not completely true; actually the big brown chair – his recliner- was so identified as his that I refused to sit in it for a while. It was his chair.
The hospital bed is gone, and the rearranged furniture has the effect of taking the room out of his ownership.
The bedroom had definitely been Burt’s room. I stopped in to visit with him as soon as I came in from my outings, before I put down whatever I brought home.
The Burt who had inhabited our home was ill, he was impaired the last many years.
If the house doesn’t feel like it was Burt’s house, it’s because I had made it over. Really, I had to, to reclaim the better memories.
Caregiving carries with it a grand responsibility. Rather than make us grandiose, it humbles us.
One of my caregiver friends is as thrilled by the purple umbrella she gifted herself as a diva is by pearls, champagne and fancy chocolates. No diva, but a queen of caring.
My own experience has made me stronger but more pliable. I have become kinder and I judge less.
It’s not easy exercising patience now that Burt is no longer the prime customer for this precious personal mineral.
But I do. I choose the smooth ride of patience over a hot flash of anger. Most of the time. Burt has left me with this gift.
We shared this neighborhood for several months while the apartment across town was undergoing repairs. Once the renovation was completed, we often returned for theater.
Burt lamented that his address had changed from 555 West 42nd Street when mgmt put the front entry on W43rd. [Note that they have given the address to the ensite theater, see below.]
Soon after we met, his address changed again from the 500 block in midtown west to the 500 block on E72nd.
While he had my apartment refurbished, I moved into his rental and enjoyed the pool and amenities and walking to the pier with him.
We were in the heart of Bway so both Bway and off-Bway theaters were a really just a hop away.
Yesterday was a chance to go back for a revisit. I went to Theater555 (it housed the Pearl Theatre for a while as I recall, and under a different name) to enjoy Breakin’ NYC.
Like the apartment on East 72nd, this one was pretty far from the subway. I took the bus. And going home I walked along 8th Av to the favored M31.
Let me guide you through the map of pictures at the top of this bit of nostalgia.
After we left this Bway nabe, we found ourselves here often . We were avid theater goers, and the Signature Theater, Playwrights’ Horizons, and Theater Row brought us back.
Starting with the top photo left, this little motel was a home of gay pride. Now, it appears to have taken on a Hudson Yards identity.
Photo 2 is a tribute to the caprices of mgmt. (Full disclosure, not the same mgmt that elected to change Burt’s address back in the day.)
Pictured 3, 4, 5, are all The Little Pie Company, now 40 years old, a youngster in 1990. We were not regulars back in the day, but we were always fans.
On this occasion, I went for that elusive strawberry-rhubarb pie [despite a warning from my friend BW that its season was Apr-May.] Photo 2 is cherry Montmorency now in season and tart enough to be a proper substitute.
Going up 8th Av, there are snaps of building and traffic up to the 57th St stop where I caught my homeward bound bus. Some of the buildings and restaurants I passed were new to me but it all felt familiar. It’s pretty much just as it was when Burt and I walked up the Avenue.
this is our life 