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A selection of photos from our resident photographer’s trip to Sudan
Photo Phridays: Kenya
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The Growing Season: Chapter Two
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(Editor’s note: For the previous installment of this novel see here. This installment continues from the conclusion Chapter One of Part One: Before The Lines)
I awoke the next morning in my own bed with less of a hangover than usual, since after Cara left the rest of us were too demoralized to continue partying and went instead to our separate apartments: Kennedy to the Park Avenue-at-75th pad that she paid a nominal fee to rent a room in, since technically it was the pied-a-terre of friends of her parents who visited, at most, twice a year (their other apartments were in Paris, London and Rome, along with their Richmond plantation); Abby to her one-bedroom in the East Village, and I to my alcove studio in Murray Hill. As my eyes adjusted to the light streaming through my window, the events of the night before flooded my brain and I checked my phone. No voice mail, no texts. The phone immediately buzzed in my hand with a text from Kennedy that read: ?!
I typed back, “Nothing.”
A few minutes later, Abby texted, “Sent her a text an hour ago and haven’t heard anything. Brunch?”
We agreed on Penelope’s, a spot in my neighborhood known for comfort food and long lines on the weekends. I showered and dressed slowly, then took my time walking over to 30th and Lexington. Living between two of my best friends had its advantages, the prime one being that my neighborhood was middle ground and often where we ended up brunching. Staying above-ground, away from the subway, with a hangover, though not as necessary today, was always preferable, as was avoiding the packed bus or a jerky cab ride. I arrived at Penelope’s first and put my name in, then headed back outside to wait with the masses. We were lucky today, having gotten an earlier start than usual, and the wait was only twenty minutes. Within five, Abby had walked over from her bus stop on Third Avenue, shortly followed by Kennedy pouring out of a cab.
Next year’s model
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Editor’s Note: This post originally appeared in Howard’s blog, Mead on Manhattan.
My three sons and I went to the New York International Auto Show. I’m not sure how “international” it was—the most exotic thing I saw was the family from Union City, New Jersey whose Nike sneakers were made in Southeast Asia.
But it was indeed an auto show: there were lots and lots and lots of autos. Red ones, blue ones, silver ones, black ones, white ones, yellow ones—many, many colors like these. And there were large cars, small cars, cars in the middle somewhere. They all had black tires, and most ran on gas. Most of them seated between two and seven people, but there was a big black one that could seat twelve, plus three magnums of champagne, six egos, and four sets of spike heels.
The show cost $5 for kids and $15 for adults, which was very affordable, especially in light of the NYC museum option at $20 a pop, which most people don’t realize is an option and not a requirement. But of course, the price of a ticket to the auto sale—I mean show—didn’t include admission to adulthood in the form of a new car when your suburban kids turn 16, insurance for a teenager, or the cost of several thousand gallons of American blood seeping into Iraqi sand.
Sarajevo, with Dad: Roots and Surfaces
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The following is part of a short series of essays that photojournalist Verena Radulovic wrote during a recent trip to Sarajevo.The photos that accompany this essay were first published on Verena’s site.
Roots
I landed in Sarajevo at high noon under bright blue skies, the blinding summer heat had already infiltrated the valley. Lush green hills were dotted with terracotta-roofed homes and sandy-colored mosques, whose delicate minarets rose like needles among the gentle domes of neighboring churches. Think Tuscany meets Istanbul on a smaller scale. Communist era-style buildings, restored after the most recent war, stood stoic as the taxi careened into the city center.
I am a day early. Dad joins me tomorrow.
My father and I are taking this vacation together to explore our roots in the city my grandparents once called home. The last time he breezed through this part of the world was in 1967 as a student in his Volkswagen Beetle. Born in Zagreb, he fled the country in 1946 at age three with his mother and sister under the cover of night after Tito’s Communist partisans took over Yugoslavia. My grandfather, by a stroke of luck, had already traversed the Swiss border. The reunited family then did as many Eastern Europeans escaping the maelstrom did at the time. They emigrated to the other end of the world: Argentina. Continue reading
I Remember (My) Mama
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“Her children arise and call her blessed.”–Proverbs 31:28
Like a lot of women, I didn’t want to become my mother. I didn’t want to be a stay-at-home-mom. I didn’t want to put my family before my own career or even myself. I didn’t even want her faith, offering everything in her life with open hands to her God. We are conditioned to view that sort of woman with suspicion for being regressive and potentially harmful to the cause of women everywhere.
Ironically, it is my mother’s maternal, nurturing side that made her so successful in her later career and her life. She was not just a stay-at-home-mom to my siblings and me; she was a stay-at-home-mom to eight foster children, two of whom she adopted while she was in her early 50s. She is “mom” to several men–homeless and otherwise–who come each week to the soup kitchen and food pantry that she founded and still runs. One of those men, “Halloween” came to the soup kitchen in the summer of 2000, homeless, dressed in black, and suffering from schizophrenia. Over the course of a couple of years, her constant care for him led him to reveal his real name which allowed her to track down his former college roommate from Brown and get him the help he needed.
Despite–or because of–my mother’s penchant for mothering we didn’t always get along. Even now, my mother can say the most innocent comment that has the power to either send me spinning into an oblivion of self-doubt and frustration, or to validate my entire existence. We are both too similar and too different in all the worst ways. It’s not that I fear becoming my mother. It’s more that I fear what will happen to my sense of self if I live a life that isn’t totally about me. Continue reading