Passeggiata

By happenstance I've been reading novels set in Italy.  I spent a good bit of time in Perugia in the summer of 1973, where my boyfriend at the time was studying.  They kept this tradition there (many Italian cities do) of the 'Passeggiata' along the charming Corso Vanucci-- the evening stroll-- in which the entire city seems to participate. We pulled ourselves together every night-- I think I traveled with one or two skimpy cotton dresses in those days-- and felt less touristy and more 'native'.  The whole thing took about 30-45 minutes; the only thing in New York that is comparable is perhaps the annual Museum Mile which is never too crowded, has its own slow momentum, and makes one feel like a  tourist.  Most of the participants ignore the museums... they are crowded... but the presence of people on a thoroughfare changes it.  The architecture softens... the buildings animate. 

My son came up on Sunday and we walked in Central Park... the northern part, the Meer, up through Harlem to Morningside, along Central Park West. I'm not sure if this a post-pandemic phenomenon but there seemed to be a sort of rhythm... simply walking was the focus, not the destination.  I was reminded of Perugia.  We passed people we'd known... we kept going.  Remarkably, I find my memory for faces is better than my son's.  This, I think, is the consequence of this digital age... the zillions of images and the brief instagram-aquaintances; we process and digest people differently.

In the mid-70's I was riding a bus downtown and met a girl.  We struck up not just a conversation but a friendship in the hour or so of traffic congestion... we were both into music... she had a boyfriend who played drums in a band with 2 English guys.. appearing at CBGB's that night-- she was going to the soundcheck...  she gave me a promo single... there on the bus... it was Roxanne, by the Police.  Later I went down to the show... history...

In those days, the magic of New York was the random interaction of total strangers... the rhythm of ricocheting intersections.  I worked at the front desk of a gallery.  People from Andy Warhol to Muhammed Ali came in.  It was astounding.  They spoke to you... they connected.  People waited for meetings and shared things.  I was offered jobs, invitations.  I traveled often in the 1980's. Conversation on airplanes relieved the boredom of overseas flights and the mostly terrible movie selections which were like underserved drive-ins with people walking up and down aisles and blocking the screen. You'd hope for a fascinating seat-mate... it often happened... and in the seven or eight transatlantic hours I've had people unburden, weep, confess, entertain.  Once I sat next to a soldier-- an officer on a flight from Frankfurt who whisked me through Customs like a VIP when I was carrying some problematic painting. 

Another time this very handsome Australian rugby-player with a super athletic body sat by me.. he was funny and charming and we were like intimates when we reached London.  Weeks later, he showed up in New York at one of my gigs.  He'd brought me this gold kangaroo necklace.  I was overwhelmed; it felt like a sort of expectation.  I'd always assumed these random intimacies were like one-night-stands... one-trip excursions.  They were mutually amusing but non-committal.  Not the case.  Somewhere I have a painfully written letter from the Australian.  Apparently he'd been led astray by my gregarious spirit and my airplane MO; New Yorkers take these things with grains of salt.

Walking with my son, I realize I have an enormous social vocabulary... and the numbers of people with whom I've had a meaningful exchange, although brief, has grown.  These things took a break during the pandemic... although the better part of this culture really stopped when people began to choose face-time over social interaction.  The whole society has become a little 'spectrumesque'. Most of the time.. if you stop to ask someone a question, they have earphones on and they have absolutely no idea, until you face them... mostly they reply with 'no worries' or 'no, it's all good'.   

At the gallery where I work Saturdays, there are people-- usually of my age-- who take the time to have a little conversation-- about the work, the installation-- and sometimes they recommend things, they mention a book or a show they've seen... a film.  In the 1970's there seemed to be a common cultural frame of reference.  Everyone knew every new album, every film... I saw everything.  You can still look at the arts listings in a vintage New Yorker or New York magazine... and you get a snapshot of what was.  A synopsis.  This is no longer applicable.  The layers of culture-- of fashion, of food-- it's so complex and impossible to navigate.  My son tells me the '10-best' lists which promise so much clarity are usually a kind of paid advertising.  

Yesterday I jogged to midtown-- saw a great little auction exhibition of work by women artists, mostly from mid-century...  then I stopped at Argosy books, at the NYPL... I discovered a few things there... that led me somewhere else.  Like internet surfing, I suppose... but the tangibles... well, I think they imprint.  A Langston Hughes autobiography I'd always meant to read... there it was, for the taking, at the library... 

On the way back I met a woman who lived in the building where I had my first NYC apartment... she is 77; she must have been 30 back then.  We recognized one another which in itself was serendipitous. She showed me her ceramic work... she'd written several books.  We knew many of the same people.  We stood in the street and talked, exchanged-- yes, intimacies-- maybe slightly inappropriate things about people we knew-- literary agents, writers.  But it was fantastic.  Will we see one another again?  I don't carry a phone-- I don't leave a calling card, as one once did... I don't know... but the random meeting changed my evening trajectory-- what I looked at, what I read... the tiny adjustments one makes, moving forward through a day, which, like the slightest planetary moves, put us on a path toward winter.  Farewell, August 2022.