Elizabeth Milligan
Writing Assignment for April 7, 2008
Voice
SHARDS
Am I her friend? Look, I flew to her wedding in Pittsburgh for God’s sake. Now, she has a kid. She and her husband and their daughter are in the City for the week-end – staying at her old apartment a few blocks away on 21st and 3rd - and I have invited them here for dinner on Saturday. I pray that the kid will sleep all the time. I know what messes those little terrors can make from visits with my brothers and their families.
My apartment here is decorated just the way I want it to be – all white, chrome, and glass with original art everywhere. And you know what, I am going to defy the baby-proofing gods and set the table with my Limoges, Baccarat, and Jensen. I always entertain with them. And damn it, I am NOT going to change anything for a kid. I’ll just tell Emma that her daughter can sleep on my bed. Emma will understand.
Thank God I asked some other friends over too. I would die if all we talked about was baby bowel movements and diaper services. I don’t think Emma would ever do that, but you never can tell … Marriage and babies do real jobs on people.
……………………
So the kid actually did sleep through dinner. And we all took our drinks a few feet to the living room. After a few minutes, Emma said she heard her daughter and that as lovely as the dinner and conversation had been, they would have to start getting ready to leave. Truth be told, as much as I loved Emma, I was ready for some peace and quiet. Emma whispered something to her husband and walked away to my room to get her daughter and their coats.
Her husband carefully lifted the coffee table over the carpet and away from the couch so that there would be room to spread the kid’s snowsuit on the floor and stuff her into it. I had to laugh – she looked so funny, like a scarecrow on a post. As soon as the kid was all zipped in, he held her in his arms, started to stand up, and turned to look at Emma.
At that moment, one of the kid’s stiff bundled arms knocked over the partially filled wine glass that her father had put down on the coffee table. It shattered against the glass table top and the wine spread and dripped on the carpet. Thank God he had chosen the white wine!
Emma was so upset and apologized all over the place. It was embarrassing. She wanted to replace the glass. I told her it had been part of a set, not to give it a second thought, and waved them out the door. After closing the door, I braced myself against the glass dining room table top. I knew who I wasn’t going to ask to my wedding!
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Thursday, April 3, 2008
MEXICO, PART I of III
Elizabeth Milligan
Writing Assignment for 24 March 2008
Prompt: Shadow Box Technique
MEXICO
PART I of III
Raul
It had rained everyday for the past thirty days in El Progresso. Raul had cut a notch in a branch near his head to mark each one of them. The palm leaves woven into the roof acted like oiled ponchos and the branches were so full of water that they touched. No rain fell on his face while he counted them and thought.
It was morning and Juanita, the sister he shared a hammock with, was still asleep. He could hear morning sounds of his mother making breakfast on the other side of the room and the animals outside, grunting, clucking and snorting. It was January, a month of cold mornings. But it would be warmer when the bus arrived.
His mother was calling them to breakfast – tortillas rolled around the green peppers, tomatoes, guacamole, and chicken they had been eating for the past two days. However, Raul did not complain. He knew that meals this week-end would be better. Millie was coming from America to visit and his mother was going to make some of his favorite dishes for the occasion.
He had been seven when Millie lived with them two summers ago. There were some other Americans who came with her then, but no one as fun. Millie played Monkey in the Center in the waterfalls behind the house, rode on top of the cab on the trucks that swayed up and down the mountain, played Hide and Seek around the houses and mountain paths, clapped her hands when he sang songs, and did not wear shoes – just like him.
Millie was about as old as his big sister Lupe who was in college in Tuxtepec, taller than his mother and father, and fun like his friends. She loved Pepe, their dog. When she went back to her family in America, she sent his family a box of gifts. Two of the gifts were special dog shampoo and a brush for Pepe. Everyone thought that was very funny, but his family had used them and now Pepe looked very nice.
He had overheard the grown-ups talk about the Americans who lived with them that summer. Except for Millie, not one of the Americans had written to their families in El Progesso. This made everyone in El Progresso sad, and they were very happy that Millie was coming to visit today. They had always liked her.
The sun balanced on the pointy top of a mountain to the place west of the lake where it disappeared every day. He and Nita wandered halfway down the mountain to the smooth ground where the bus always stopped before it went back down to Ixcatlan. Their mother had instructed them to wait there for Lupe and Millie.
On the way there, they had picked up two large sticks to stir mud with and to poke at weeds, stones, and each other. Raul also brought the little toy car that Millie gave him two years ago. Except for black tires and a white roof, the outside was all light green. There was a green fin of metal on each side of the back, too.
Now, one of the wheels was wobbly so Raul could only fly it in the air. When it was new, the car would go by itself after he dragged it backwards on the ground and then gave it a short, strong push forward. Raul hoped she was bringing him a new car.
All of a sudden, he and Nita saw the bus from Ixcatlan. At first, they could only see a tiny bit of rusty silver, but as the bus peeked over the last crest this far up the mountain road, they saw more and more of it. It rocked from left to right, puffs of black smoke came out of the end, people and animals crowded the windows, and there was Millie – holding onto the metal bar on top of the cab with one hand and waving with the other. Her pack was held down by ropes. A new car could fit in that pack – easy.
Writing Assignment for 24 March 2008
Prompt: Shadow Box Technique
MEXICO
PART I of III
Raul
It had rained everyday for the past thirty days in El Progresso. Raul had cut a notch in a branch near his head to mark each one of them. The palm leaves woven into the roof acted like oiled ponchos and the branches were so full of water that they touched. No rain fell on his face while he counted them and thought.
It was morning and Juanita, the sister he shared a hammock with, was still asleep. He could hear morning sounds of his mother making breakfast on the other side of the room and the animals outside, grunting, clucking and snorting. It was January, a month of cold mornings. But it would be warmer when the bus arrived.
His mother was calling them to breakfast – tortillas rolled around the green peppers, tomatoes, guacamole, and chicken they had been eating for the past two days. However, Raul did not complain. He knew that meals this week-end would be better. Millie was coming from America to visit and his mother was going to make some of his favorite dishes for the occasion.
He had been seven when Millie lived with them two summers ago. There were some other Americans who came with her then, but no one as fun. Millie played Monkey in the Center in the waterfalls behind the house, rode on top of the cab on the trucks that swayed up and down the mountain, played Hide and Seek around the houses and mountain paths, clapped her hands when he sang songs, and did not wear shoes – just like him.
Millie was about as old as his big sister Lupe who was in college in Tuxtepec, taller than his mother and father, and fun like his friends. She loved Pepe, their dog. When she went back to her family in America, she sent his family a box of gifts. Two of the gifts were special dog shampoo and a brush for Pepe. Everyone thought that was very funny, but his family had used them and now Pepe looked very nice.
He had overheard the grown-ups talk about the Americans who lived with them that summer. Except for Millie, not one of the Americans had written to their families in El Progesso. This made everyone in El Progresso sad, and they were very happy that Millie was coming to visit today. They had always liked her.
The sun balanced on the pointy top of a mountain to the place west of the lake where it disappeared every day. He and Nita wandered halfway down the mountain to the smooth ground where the bus always stopped before it went back down to Ixcatlan. Their mother had instructed them to wait there for Lupe and Millie.
On the way there, they had picked up two large sticks to stir mud with and to poke at weeds, stones, and each other. Raul also brought the little toy car that Millie gave him two years ago. Except for black tires and a white roof, the outside was all light green. There was a green fin of metal on each side of the back, too.
Now, one of the wheels was wobbly so Raul could only fly it in the air. When it was new, the car would go by itself after he dragged it backwards on the ground and then gave it a short, strong push forward. Raul hoped she was bringing him a new car.
All of a sudden, he and Nita saw the bus from Ixcatlan. At first, they could only see a tiny bit of rusty silver, but as the bus peeked over the last crest this far up the mountain road, they saw more and more of it. It rocked from left to right, puffs of black smoke came out of the end, people and animals crowded the windows, and there was Millie – holding onto the metal bar on top of the cab with one hand and waving with the other. Her pack was held down by ropes. A new car could fit in that pack – easy.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Juggling
Elizabeth Milligan
Writing Assignment for 31 March 2008
Use Juggling Technique
JUGGLING
It was a dry and sunny morning. Streams of icy wind whistled around the skyscrapers and down the canyons between them. The City’s thousands of windows magnified the early red and gold rays and returned them to the sun.
With teary ears and whipping hair, Yidi pushed her face into the frigid gusts to peer over her left shoulder and squint at the scene below.
This was always the best part of the job, seeing everyone and everything down there, below. The people looked and ebbed like the iron filings in an Etch-a-Sketch and packs of bright yellow taxicabs jerked and jockeyed for space in the rush hour traffic. Here, in the center of the city, the streets and avenues were laid out in a tight grid. At the edges, the rigid pattern unraveled.
She felt like God must feel when looking over earth; sometimes laughing softly and kindly, sometimes frowning with head shaking.
About God - all she could say with full confidence is that she did not know, and she was just fine with that. It seemed that most people needed to explain what they could not see, however.
Quickly, Yidi did a mental check of her equipment. The cables and platform of the unit looked fine and her safety harness was secured. Safety helmet, tool belt, first aid kit, buckets, squeegees, rags, extension pole, lunch - all there.
Acknowledging the possibility of God? - Fine. But insisting on explanations? And why did people come up with so many different explanations for what they can not see? Why did they use these differences as reasons for wars? Why did so many people always seem to support the wars?
If Yidi had her way, she’d put all the leaders of wars inside a cave, block the entrance with a boulder, and let them duke it out while the rest of the world went on with the business of living. But it wasn’t up to Yidi.
One day, people might not use religion as a reason to destroy civilizations. Not in her lifetime for sure, but perhaps one day – if people didn’t destroy themselves first.
Uh- Oh. If anyone heard her thinking like that, they’d look at her funny and laugh in that nervous way that they did. Why, she could be blacklisted. But they couldn’t hear her. She was alone up here with the sky and the pigeons. That was another part of this job she treasured – the time to think through whatever she wanted.
One more floor to go and she could start polishing glass. Whoa! Her safety harness dug into her armpits as it took her full weight and for an instant, she dangled seventy-nine stories above Manhattan. The platform she had been standing on had dropped a few inches; part of a cable had snapped. A polisher’s worst nightmare; high winds and metal fatigue on-the-job. As soon as Yidi felt comfortable sizing up what had happened, she shifted her weight upwards - away from the weakened cable, readjusted her footing, and radioed for help.
Writing Assignment for 31 March 2008
Use Juggling Technique
JUGGLING
It was a dry and sunny morning. Streams of icy wind whistled around the skyscrapers and down the canyons between them. The City’s thousands of windows magnified the early red and gold rays and returned them to the sun.
With teary ears and whipping hair, Yidi pushed her face into the frigid gusts to peer over her left shoulder and squint at the scene below.
This was always the best part of the job, seeing everyone and everything down there, below. The people looked and ebbed like the iron filings in an Etch-a-Sketch and packs of bright yellow taxicabs jerked and jockeyed for space in the rush hour traffic. Here, in the center of the city, the streets and avenues were laid out in a tight grid. At the edges, the rigid pattern unraveled.
She felt like God must feel when looking over earth; sometimes laughing softly and kindly, sometimes frowning with head shaking.
About God - all she could say with full confidence is that she did not know, and she was just fine with that. It seemed that most people needed to explain what they could not see, however.
Quickly, Yidi did a mental check of her equipment. The cables and platform of the unit looked fine and her safety harness was secured. Safety helmet, tool belt, first aid kit, buckets, squeegees, rags, extension pole, lunch - all there.
Acknowledging the possibility of God? - Fine. But insisting on explanations? And why did people come up with so many different explanations for what they can not see? Why did they use these differences as reasons for wars? Why did so many people always seem to support the wars?
If Yidi had her way, she’d put all the leaders of wars inside a cave, block the entrance with a boulder, and let them duke it out while the rest of the world went on with the business of living. But it wasn’t up to Yidi.
One day, people might not use religion as a reason to destroy civilizations. Not in her lifetime for sure, but perhaps one day – if people didn’t destroy themselves first.
Uh- Oh. If anyone heard her thinking like that, they’d look at her funny and laugh in that nervous way that they did. Why, she could be blacklisted. But they couldn’t hear her. She was alone up here with the sky and the pigeons. That was another part of this job she treasured – the time to think through whatever she wanted.
One more floor to go and she could start polishing glass. Whoa! Her safety harness dug into her armpits as it took her full weight and for an instant, she dangled seventy-nine stories above Manhattan. The platform she had been standing on had dropped a few inches; part of a cable had snapped. A polisher’s worst nightmare; high winds and metal fatigue on-the-job. As soon as Yidi felt comfortable sizing up what had happened, she shifted her weight upwards - away from the weakened cable, readjusted her footing, and radioed for help.
Monday, February 25, 2008
A Park in Brighton
Elizabeth Milligan
Writing Assignment
February 25, 2008
Prompt: “…it is the moment that lends significance to things.” - A.J. Heschel
A Park in Brighton
1987
When I was first married, I moved from an apartment in Houston to my husband’s apartment in Brighton. Human storage modules, that’s what my husband called the apartments there. The building was six stories high and all units had three levels, parquet floors, floor-to-ceiling sliding doors, and connecting balconies overlooking a small triangular-shaped park. Except for glass windows and metal railings on the porches, the entire building was water-stained gray concrete. In the cavernous lobby, a huge goose-in-flight was painted on the part of the dropped concrete ceiling that angled down and over visitors and tenants.
Cherry trees and a black wrought iron fence circled the entire perimeter of the park. Commonwealth Avenue ran along the outside. Once-elegant row houses and a synagogue, B’nai Moshe, faced Sutherland Street on the opposite side of the park. The Bluestone Bistro, a pizza house, Little Korea, a restaurant with displays of plastic food in the curtained front window, and Chiswick Arms, our 1960s-vintage apartment building, fronted the narrowest and shortest side, Chiswick Road.
Most of the park was grassy, dotted with saplings, and crisscrossed with gently rolling paths. Playground equipment was scattered over the sandy strip of the park nearest our apartment building. Peeling green benches, cultures, and generations mixed in the park.
1989
Every week day morning at ten, children and young teachers from B’nai Moshe’s new preschool would hold hands, form a line, and thread their way into the park. The few other park regulars tried to arrive early in order to have first dibs on the playground equipment.
Russian grandmothers would bring their grandchildren. If the grandmothers did not live nearby, they arrived by an early morning T-train; there was a stop a few yards away from the park. The children played in the sandbox and on the jungle gym - always keeping an eye out for an empty swing. The grandmothers would find nearby park benches facing the sun and sit there all day. Plastic bags of carrot sticks, tubs of whitefish and eel, crackers, knitting, and band-aids bulged their dress pockets and cloth bags.
It seemed that all Russian grandmothers produced at least one apple a day. They pared the apple in a single continuous and spiral motion, cut the pale globes into sections, and called out to grandchildren – all of whom came running. I would mime my desire to try to pare an apple like they did. Instead, the grandmothers just smiled and proceeded to teach me how to count in Russian and when to say “Dosvedanya” and “Spasiba”.
Before dinner, the young Russian mothers would arrive at the park from their jobs. All of them would be smartly dressed and coiffed. Unlike their mothers, the young women had learned to speak English well. Most had been professionals in Russia, doctors and engineers, and none had licenses to practice their expertise in the United States. Until they would, they worked as computer technicians or manicurists.
One late afternoon, after I crossed the park and headed for the gate nearest my apartment building, I stopped to greet the six or seven young Russian mothers sitting on the two most shaded park benches by the sandbox, talking animatedly. One of them invited me to join them. As soon as I smiled and replied “Da”, they all welcomed me - and slid into English.
In the early evening, the Russian fathers and the fathers of the most recent neighbors, the Brazilians, would return from their jobs and play with their children. On one particular evening, Boris felt that his son had been slighted by Bruno’s son and each man threatened to fight the other. I don’t recall that their confrontation was any more than raised fists and loud threats, but soon after that incident, the Russians moved away from the park.
The Brazilians lived across from the park in the old apartment buildings with ornate plaster trim on Sutherland Road. Except for preparing meals or orchestrating parties, the Brazilian mothers were in the park with their children almost all day. After dinner, the fathers and their children would return to the park to play until dark.
On spring evenings, the scent of cherry blossoms mingled with hot fragrant steam from red beans, rice, steak, and plantains which wafted across the park from the Brazilians' open kitchen windows. Twilight shadows embraced the park, the globes of light from street lamps, the cars parked bumper-to-bumper along both sides of the streets, and the chattering pedestrians. On such an evening, I joined Barbara, my good new friend from down the hall, on her balcony. Hanging over the railing, Barbara sighed: “Doesn’t it look just like a Hollywood movie set? … This is why Harold and I can never move from here. It is so beautiful.”
Marianne and her younger brother, Eduardo, adored my curly-haired one-year old daughter. Eduardo thought she was a doll. Often, he would clutch her in a bear hug and tote her about the park until she wriggled free.
Marianne and Eduardo’s parents invited our family to Marianne’s twelfth birthday party. On the evening of the party, my daughter wore a nice but not fancy dress. My husband and I dressed casually – jeans and a skirt. When Marianne’s mother answered the door, we smiled and handed her our birthday present. She ushered us into a living room packed with gifts, music, food, and their many, many friends and family from Brazil. Both adults and children were stylishly dressed for the birthday party. The guests scrutinized us with polite curiosity, smiled at us, and mingled with the others. The children moved into Marianne and Eduardo’s bedroom to jump on beds and scream with abandon.
1990
In the spring, a Japanese mother and her child and some Korean families joined us in the park. The Japanese mother’s husband was interning at Beth Israel and the Korean families owned the nearby restaurant, Little Korea, and convenience store, The Huntington.
On Halloween, we – the Brazilians, the Koreans, the Japanese, and my daughter and I - met at Eduardo and Marianne’s apartment. My husband stayed at home, lowering an Easter basket of candy from our balcony to the few trick-or-treaters on the sidewalk below. The little Japanese boy – a baby, really - was dressed as a Japanese spirit in a white pillowcase with three slits for eyes. His mother told us that in Japan, the third eye was for good luck. My daughter wore a NASCAR mechanic’s jumpsuit from K-Mart. Everyone else was either a Disney-fairy tale character or an American Superhero.
The following July, on the afternoon of my daughter’s second birthday party, the Brazilian mothers helped me tie blue, green, and red balloons to branches of trees in the park, the Japanese mother helped me serve the cake and ice cream to anyone who asked for some, the Korean families from Little Korea presented my daughter with a large construction-theme set of Du Plo blocks, and the Bluestone Bistro owners brought over a tub of dry ice for the theatrical effect; they thought the children would get a kick out of it.
That fall, our Brazilian neighbors began moving to new homes away from that neighborhood in Brighton. Barbara died, and Harold asked me to sit shiva for her. We moved a year later.
Writing Assignment
February 25, 2008
Prompt: “…it is the moment that lends significance to things.” - A.J. Heschel
A Park in Brighton
1987
When I was first married, I moved from an apartment in Houston to my husband’s apartment in Brighton. Human storage modules, that’s what my husband called the apartments there. The building was six stories high and all units had three levels, parquet floors, floor-to-ceiling sliding doors, and connecting balconies overlooking a small triangular-shaped park. Except for glass windows and metal railings on the porches, the entire building was water-stained gray concrete. In the cavernous lobby, a huge goose-in-flight was painted on the part of the dropped concrete ceiling that angled down and over visitors and tenants.
Cherry trees and a black wrought iron fence circled the entire perimeter of the park. Commonwealth Avenue ran along the outside. Once-elegant row houses and a synagogue, B’nai Moshe, faced Sutherland Street on the opposite side of the park. The Bluestone Bistro, a pizza house, Little Korea, a restaurant with displays of plastic food in the curtained front window, and Chiswick Arms, our 1960s-vintage apartment building, fronted the narrowest and shortest side, Chiswick Road.
Most of the park was grassy, dotted with saplings, and crisscrossed with gently rolling paths. Playground equipment was scattered over the sandy strip of the park nearest our apartment building. Peeling green benches, cultures, and generations mixed in the park.
1989
Every week day morning at ten, children and young teachers from B’nai Moshe’s new preschool would hold hands, form a line, and thread their way into the park. The few other park regulars tried to arrive early in order to have first dibs on the playground equipment.
Russian grandmothers would bring their grandchildren. If the grandmothers did not live nearby, they arrived by an early morning T-train; there was a stop a few yards away from the park. The children played in the sandbox and on the jungle gym - always keeping an eye out for an empty swing. The grandmothers would find nearby park benches facing the sun and sit there all day. Plastic bags of carrot sticks, tubs of whitefish and eel, crackers, knitting, and band-aids bulged their dress pockets and cloth bags.
It seemed that all Russian grandmothers produced at least one apple a day. They pared the apple in a single continuous and spiral motion, cut the pale globes into sections, and called out to grandchildren – all of whom came running. I would mime my desire to try to pare an apple like they did. Instead, the grandmothers just smiled and proceeded to teach me how to count in Russian and when to say “Dosvedanya” and “Spasiba”.
Before dinner, the young Russian mothers would arrive at the park from their jobs. All of them would be smartly dressed and coiffed. Unlike their mothers, the young women had learned to speak English well. Most had been professionals in Russia, doctors and engineers, and none had licenses to practice their expertise in the United States. Until they would, they worked as computer technicians or manicurists.
One late afternoon, after I crossed the park and headed for the gate nearest my apartment building, I stopped to greet the six or seven young Russian mothers sitting on the two most shaded park benches by the sandbox, talking animatedly. One of them invited me to join them. As soon as I smiled and replied “Da”, they all welcomed me - and slid into English.
In the early evening, the Russian fathers and the fathers of the most recent neighbors, the Brazilians, would return from their jobs and play with their children. On one particular evening, Boris felt that his son had been slighted by Bruno’s son and each man threatened to fight the other. I don’t recall that their confrontation was any more than raised fists and loud threats, but soon after that incident, the Russians moved away from the park.
The Brazilians lived across from the park in the old apartment buildings with ornate plaster trim on Sutherland Road. Except for preparing meals or orchestrating parties, the Brazilian mothers were in the park with their children almost all day. After dinner, the fathers and their children would return to the park to play until dark.
On spring evenings, the scent of cherry blossoms mingled with hot fragrant steam from red beans, rice, steak, and plantains which wafted across the park from the Brazilians' open kitchen windows. Twilight shadows embraced the park, the globes of light from street lamps, the cars parked bumper-to-bumper along both sides of the streets, and the chattering pedestrians. On such an evening, I joined Barbara, my good new friend from down the hall, on her balcony. Hanging over the railing, Barbara sighed: “Doesn’t it look just like a Hollywood movie set? … This is why Harold and I can never move from here. It is so beautiful.”
Marianne and her younger brother, Eduardo, adored my curly-haired one-year old daughter. Eduardo thought she was a doll. Often, he would clutch her in a bear hug and tote her about the park until she wriggled free.
Marianne and Eduardo’s parents invited our family to Marianne’s twelfth birthday party. On the evening of the party, my daughter wore a nice but not fancy dress. My husband and I dressed casually – jeans and a skirt. When Marianne’s mother answered the door, we smiled and handed her our birthday present. She ushered us into a living room packed with gifts, music, food, and their many, many friends and family from Brazil. Both adults and children were stylishly dressed for the birthday party. The guests scrutinized us with polite curiosity, smiled at us, and mingled with the others. The children moved into Marianne and Eduardo’s bedroom to jump on beds and scream with abandon.
1990
In the spring, a Japanese mother and her child and some Korean families joined us in the park. The Japanese mother’s husband was interning at Beth Israel and the Korean families owned the nearby restaurant, Little Korea, and convenience store, The Huntington.
On Halloween, we – the Brazilians, the Koreans, the Japanese, and my daughter and I - met at Eduardo and Marianne’s apartment. My husband stayed at home, lowering an Easter basket of candy from our balcony to the few trick-or-treaters on the sidewalk below. The little Japanese boy – a baby, really - was dressed as a Japanese spirit in a white pillowcase with three slits for eyes. His mother told us that in Japan, the third eye was for good luck. My daughter wore a NASCAR mechanic’s jumpsuit from K-Mart. Everyone else was either a Disney-fairy tale character or an American Superhero.
The following July, on the afternoon of my daughter’s second birthday party, the Brazilian mothers helped me tie blue, green, and red balloons to branches of trees in the park, the Japanese mother helped me serve the cake and ice cream to anyone who asked for some, the Korean families from Little Korea presented my daughter with a large construction-theme set of Du Plo blocks, and the Bluestone Bistro owners brought over a tub of dry ice for the theatrical effect; they thought the children would get a kick out of it.
That fall, our Brazilian neighbors began moving to new homes away from that neighborhood in Brighton. Barbara died, and Harold asked me to sit shiva for her. We moved a year later.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Manhattan Neighborhoods & Points of View
Elizabeth Milligan
Writing Assignment, Points of View
March 2, 2005
Manhattan Neighborhoods Host a Protest March
Saturday, 15 February 2003
In The Beginning, Maynard, Massachusetts
First Person, Present
Before the telephone conversation with my old friend Ashley, I had planned to buy a ticket for a ride in a bus full of strangers. Then, Ashley told me that she, Charlie, and their son, Harlan, planned to drive into Manhattan themselves for the protest march, I was amazed. Not that they shared a conviction that this was an important thing to do, but that they all agreed to do it. When Ashley offered me a ride with them, I was grateful and very pleased. I looked forward to spending time together with old friends and yes, to the luxury and comfort of a free ride. The Lieberman-Berg family and I shared a strong feeling that this protest march was very important. The Lieberman-Berg family went to NYC. I went with them.
Leaving Massachusetts, Manhattan-bound
Second Person, Present
It is Friday evening and you have decided to join old family friends the next morning for a day in Manhattan. Your own family is riveted to the TV screen in the darkened family room of your home. With ghostly TV images dancing across their upturned faces, your family lets you know that they are not in the least interested in sharing the experience.
The wintry weather is bitter cold and windy so you go to the local clothing store to buy extra thermal socks and multiple heat packets for hands and feet. The bedside alarm beeps at 4 AM and you depress it quickly before any family member is awakened. You dress hastily, but with care not to forget your medicine and your warm hat.
An hour later, you park on the street outside of your friend’s home, the passenger side tipped up on the snow heaped on the curb. They, mother, father, and pre-teenage son, are just about ready to leave – foraging for the misplaced shoe and checking supplies –water, snack, blankets, and pillows. The day’s first rays of light hug the horizon and bleed into the dark morning as you pile into the white SUV. You are going to a protest march.
Later in Manhattan, United Nations-bound
Third Person, Past
She had not intended to go, but so many of her friends were backing out because of the government’s code alert for the City that day. Although the weather was frigid, she believed people’s fear of terrorism was their main reason for staying at home. And although a shadow of a doubt about the safety of it all nagged at her too, she decided to join the march. It was a surreal day. From the dark of an early winter dawn to a ride in a lavishly equipped SUV from a home in Newton, Massachusetts to a private garage in Manhattan.
At the beginning point of the march, NYPD checked all banners and confiscated any poles which were not hollow cardboard tubes. The avenues were empty of vehicles and packed with masses of people. Sometimes people were scattered, sometimes the crowds of them were dense. Except for occasional bursts of chanting, the marchers were relatively quiet and orderly. They ambled along the route with a level of banter similar to a Saturday crowd at a shopping mall.
Surrounded always by police in full riot gear - many poised on shiny black police motorcycles, the marchers were funneled along the avenues and streets by way of many yellow barricades erected nine blocks at a time. The only airborne traffic was police helicopters. Looking around, she stood in awe of a Manhattan without the drones and squeals of air traffic, the incessant honking of cabs, busses and passenger cars, the blaring of police cars, ambulances, and fire engines.
Having lived in Manhattan, she was both surprised and heartened to see businessmen welcome marchers all along the route through Midtown and the Upper East Side to rest and warm themselves in their shops.
Well bundled and healthy, tired and freezing, marchers huddled in storefronts along the way. Through the double glass doors to a deli, she noticed a father kneeling in a corner to change his child’s dirty diaper while his wife tied her daughter’s shoe.
Although the tall buildings cut down on the reception of her portable radio, she still heard announcements contradicting what she saw and underestimating the size of the march. Unseen loudspeakers, sporadically positioned along the route, amplified the guest speakers and entertainers broadcasting from a stage near the United Nations. Save for a handful of children, she noticed that most of the marchers were older.
Rivulets of red stage makeup dripped down the faces of two women who appeared to be mother and daughter. With fake blood and strips of white linen wrapped around their heads, the women held high a sign that read, “No Blood for Oil”. Several other marchers displayed a large sheet with “Not in My Name” scrawled on it in red paint.
Obviously, they knew about the hollow-cardboard-tube rule.
Later, on 71st Street between 1st and 2nd
Third Person, Past
Even though the weather today was horrible, I was glad to have finished a lot of errands. Collette squeezed me in for a cut and touch up and Renee found time for both a pedicure and manicure. On the way back to the garage, I stopped at Saks and bought a stunning Chanel. Then, the day fell apart.
I parked the Benz by the curb in front of our place just long enough to run inside and hang my new suit in the foyer, and was back at the wheel of my car when a solid mass of scruffy looking people with banners spilled over and around a police barricade at the end of the block on Second. It was hopeless. There was no way I was going to be on time for the consult with my interior designer. So, I just sat there. The sun’s rays set off our brownstone to advantage. My car window was open on the driver’s side. They kept gawking at me; so, I told them that I lived on this street, that I was rich, and that I was not happy. They didn’t care. Just walked around my parked car and on to First Avenue – like lemmings. Good thing they didn’t scratch the Benz, or Jonathan would have had a fit.
Still later, ending at 57th Street and Central Park West
Third person, present
She looks at Charlie, Ashley, and Harlan; her two old friends and their child. All bundled for the cold weather, all tired, all miserable, and all together, they call it quits for the day. The four of them stroll westward to the garage where the SUV is parked, planning to meet midway at Charlie’s friend’s apartment. She and Ashley buy trinkets along Central Park East. Charlie and Harlan cut through the Park. They all meet at a glistening hi-rise apartment building near some new construction on Central Park West. Charlie’s friend, Tom, lives on the 21st floor.
Tom ushers them into his spacious, sun drenched, and very white apartment and immediately, she is overwhelmed by a fedora-adorned Michael Jackson dancing jerkily across an oversized flat screen TV to his musical hit, “Thriller”.
As Charlie and Tom pull out their laptops and serve up volleys of technical jargon, the others gaze impatiently through windows at vistas dominated by more tall buildings. Eyes always riveted on his laptop, Tom asks her what brought them to NYC for the day.
When she tells him about the march, he responds absentmindedly, “Oh? I think I heard something about that. I didn’t know it was today.”
Writing Assignment, Points of View
March 2, 2005
Manhattan Neighborhoods Host a Protest March
Saturday, 15 February 2003
In The Beginning, Maynard, Massachusetts
First Person, Present
Before the telephone conversation with my old friend Ashley, I had planned to buy a ticket for a ride in a bus full of strangers. Then, Ashley told me that she, Charlie, and their son, Harlan, planned to drive into Manhattan themselves for the protest march, I was amazed. Not that they shared a conviction that this was an important thing to do, but that they all agreed to do it. When Ashley offered me a ride with them, I was grateful and very pleased. I looked forward to spending time together with old friends and yes, to the luxury and comfort of a free ride. The Lieberman-Berg family and I shared a strong feeling that this protest march was very important. The Lieberman-Berg family went to NYC. I went with them.
Leaving Massachusetts, Manhattan-bound
Second Person, Present
It is Friday evening and you have decided to join old family friends the next morning for a day in Manhattan. Your own family is riveted to the TV screen in the darkened family room of your home. With ghostly TV images dancing across their upturned faces, your family lets you know that they are not in the least interested in sharing the experience.
The wintry weather is bitter cold and windy so you go to the local clothing store to buy extra thermal socks and multiple heat packets for hands and feet. The bedside alarm beeps at 4 AM and you depress it quickly before any family member is awakened. You dress hastily, but with care not to forget your medicine and your warm hat.
An hour later, you park on the street outside of your friend’s home, the passenger side tipped up on the snow heaped on the curb. They, mother, father, and pre-teenage son, are just about ready to leave – foraging for the misplaced shoe and checking supplies –water, snack, blankets, and pillows. The day’s first rays of light hug the horizon and bleed into the dark morning as you pile into the white SUV. You are going to a protest march.
Later in Manhattan, United Nations-bound
Third Person, Past
She had not intended to go, but so many of her friends were backing out because of the government’s code alert for the City that day. Although the weather was frigid, she believed people’s fear of terrorism was their main reason for staying at home. And although a shadow of a doubt about the safety of it all nagged at her too, she decided to join the march. It was a surreal day. From the dark of an early winter dawn to a ride in a lavishly equipped SUV from a home in Newton, Massachusetts to a private garage in Manhattan.
At the beginning point of the march, NYPD checked all banners and confiscated any poles which were not hollow cardboard tubes. The avenues were empty of vehicles and packed with masses of people. Sometimes people were scattered, sometimes the crowds of them were dense. Except for occasional bursts of chanting, the marchers were relatively quiet and orderly. They ambled along the route with a level of banter similar to a Saturday crowd at a shopping mall.
Surrounded always by police in full riot gear - many poised on shiny black police motorcycles, the marchers were funneled along the avenues and streets by way of many yellow barricades erected nine blocks at a time. The only airborne traffic was police helicopters. Looking around, she stood in awe of a Manhattan without the drones and squeals of air traffic, the incessant honking of cabs, busses and passenger cars, the blaring of police cars, ambulances, and fire engines.
Having lived in Manhattan, she was both surprised and heartened to see businessmen welcome marchers all along the route through Midtown and the Upper East Side to rest and warm themselves in their shops.
Well bundled and healthy, tired and freezing, marchers huddled in storefronts along the way. Through the double glass doors to a deli, she noticed a father kneeling in a corner to change his child’s dirty diaper while his wife tied her daughter’s shoe.
Although the tall buildings cut down on the reception of her portable radio, she still heard announcements contradicting what she saw and underestimating the size of the march. Unseen loudspeakers, sporadically positioned along the route, amplified the guest speakers and entertainers broadcasting from a stage near the United Nations. Save for a handful of children, she noticed that most of the marchers were older.
Rivulets of red stage makeup dripped down the faces of two women who appeared to be mother and daughter. With fake blood and strips of white linen wrapped around their heads, the women held high a sign that read, “No Blood for Oil”. Several other marchers displayed a large sheet with “Not in My Name” scrawled on it in red paint.
Obviously, they knew about the hollow-cardboard-tube rule.
Later, on 71st Street between 1st and 2nd
Third Person, Past
Even though the weather today was horrible, I was glad to have finished a lot of errands. Collette squeezed me in for a cut and touch up and Renee found time for both a pedicure and manicure. On the way back to the garage, I stopped at Saks and bought a stunning Chanel. Then, the day fell apart.
I parked the Benz by the curb in front of our place just long enough to run inside and hang my new suit in the foyer, and was back at the wheel of my car when a solid mass of scruffy looking people with banners spilled over and around a police barricade at the end of the block on Second. It was hopeless. There was no way I was going to be on time for the consult with my interior designer. So, I just sat there. The sun’s rays set off our brownstone to advantage. My car window was open on the driver’s side. They kept gawking at me; so, I told them that I lived on this street, that I was rich, and that I was not happy. They didn’t care. Just walked around my parked car and on to First Avenue – like lemmings. Good thing they didn’t scratch the Benz, or Jonathan would have had a fit.
Still later, ending at 57th Street and Central Park West
Third person, present
She looks at Charlie, Ashley, and Harlan; her two old friends and their child. All bundled for the cold weather, all tired, all miserable, and all together, they call it quits for the day. The four of them stroll westward to the garage where the SUV is parked, planning to meet midway at Charlie’s friend’s apartment. She and Ashley buy trinkets along Central Park East. Charlie and Harlan cut through the Park. They all meet at a glistening hi-rise apartment building near some new construction on Central Park West. Charlie’s friend, Tom, lives on the 21st floor.
Tom ushers them into his spacious, sun drenched, and very white apartment and immediately, she is overwhelmed by a fedora-adorned Michael Jackson dancing jerkily across an oversized flat screen TV to his musical hit, “Thriller”.
As Charlie and Tom pull out their laptops and serve up volleys of technical jargon, the others gaze impatiently through windows at vistas dominated by more tall buildings. Eyes always riveted on his laptop, Tom asks her what brought them to NYC for the day.
When she tells him about the march, he responds absentmindedly, “Oh? I think I heard something about that. I didn’t know it was today.”
Monday, January 14, 2008
The Wedding Announcement & Subtext
Elizabeth Milligan
Writing Assignment for 14 January 2008
Prompt: Subtext
Subtext to Costas Christulides and Paige Veach's Wedding Announcement
« Πоυ̃̃ εĩναι τо μπάνιо » (Pwieenai toe banyoe?) It was merely the phonetic pronunciation of the Modern Greek for “Where is the bathroom”, but it impressed Costas Christulides
- Paige
I first shook hands with Costas over a Manhattan conference table two years ago as we started negotiations for a mega merger among several international corporations. The largest of them had hired me, a partner for Davis Polk, to represent them. Costas managed the investment banking division of Merrill Lynch. After a few weeks, Costas and I started to dine together between the workday meetings and burning the midnight oil. It was a good time to talk about business in a more relaxed atmosphere. That’s when I tried out my college Greek.
Costas was second generation Greek from Detroit. In 1960, his parents had emigrated from small towns on mainland Greece. They met in Grand Central while waiting for the Detroitian. Mr. Christulides had worked his way into national management for General Motors in Detroit. He died several years ago. Costas’s mother retired from teaching last year and works as a docent for the Art Institute of Detroit.
Like Costas’s parents, I was from a small town. Unlike them, my hometown was in America and in the Deep South at that - Halprin, Georgia, to be exact. My father is the president of a real estate company and my mother is a teacher.
Like Costas, when I was living with my parents, I wanted nothing more than to live far away. Costas attended Dartmouth and MIT’s Sloan School. I attended Harvard and Yale’s law school. We both moved to Manhattan for our careers.
Anyway, in the last weeks of the merger-negotiations, our dinner conversations often ended with Costas talking about his wife and how she refused to grant him the divorce he wanted. The Greek Orthodox Church took a very dim view of divorce.
Although Costas did not talk about his marital situation as much as I am afraid I have suggested, he talked enough to try my patience – which I do not have a lot of. I asked him whether he would like to meet a friend of mine who had a very good record of negotiating successful divorces. At first, Costas did not seem at all interested and he talked about the joys of dual citizenship and of crewing a company yacht around the southwestern coast of Turkey. But when we parted for the evening, he asked to meet my friend. To make a long story short, Costas’s divorce was finalized six months ago.
When we announced our engagement, mother and Daddy were their usual gracious selves to Costas and Mrs. Christulides. However, when they were alone with me, they made it quite clear that they did not approve of Costas’s religion. As far as my parents were concerned, Greek Orthodoxy was worse than Roman Catholicism. You see generations of Veaches have had a pew in Halprin’s First Presbyterian Church.
I thought my parent’s objection was just silly, but Costas said that he would readily join the Presbyterians – no problem. After all, he said, it was not a matter of conversion, but only one of switching denominations. Besides, he was not the only son. So, we reserved the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church for a December wedding.
Mother and Daddy had a marriage announcement placed at the top of a page in the Sunday New York Times. The photo of us that headed the announcement was not entirely to their liking – Costas’s jacket collar gaped and his hairpiece was too obvious – but I was positively glowing and they could not resist. Besides, no one ever looks at the groom.
Costas’s ex-wife worked in the newsroom of the New York Times. When she heard about our marriage, she hacked into the pages of wedding announcements and added the following sentence to our blurb:
“The bridegroom’s previous marriage ended in divorce.”
Costas’s mother and my parents were horrified. He and I rolled our eyes and as soon as we could get our business affairs in order, we spent our honeymoon exploring the ruins and mountains of central Turkey.
Writing Assignment for 14 January 2008
Prompt: Subtext
Subtext to Costas Christulides and Paige Veach's Wedding Announcement
« Πоυ̃̃ εĩναι τо μπάνιо » (Pwieenai toe banyoe?) It was merely the phonetic pronunciation of the Modern Greek for “Where is the bathroom”, but it impressed Costas Christulides
- Paige
I first shook hands with Costas over a Manhattan conference table two years ago as we started negotiations for a mega merger among several international corporations. The largest of them had hired me, a partner for Davis Polk, to represent them. Costas managed the investment banking division of Merrill Lynch. After a few weeks, Costas and I started to dine together between the workday meetings and burning the midnight oil. It was a good time to talk about business in a more relaxed atmosphere. That’s when I tried out my college Greek.
Costas was second generation Greek from Detroit. In 1960, his parents had emigrated from small towns on mainland Greece. They met in Grand Central while waiting for the Detroitian. Mr. Christulides had worked his way into national management for General Motors in Detroit. He died several years ago. Costas’s mother retired from teaching last year and works as a docent for the Art Institute of Detroit.
Like Costas’s parents, I was from a small town. Unlike them, my hometown was in America and in the Deep South at that - Halprin, Georgia, to be exact. My father is the president of a real estate company and my mother is a teacher.
Like Costas, when I was living with my parents, I wanted nothing more than to live far away. Costas attended Dartmouth and MIT’s Sloan School. I attended Harvard and Yale’s law school. We both moved to Manhattan for our careers.
Anyway, in the last weeks of the merger-negotiations, our dinner conversations often ended with Costas talking about his wife and how she refused to grant him the divorce he wanted. The Greek Orthodox Church took a very dim view of divorce.
Although Costas did not talk about his marital situation as much as I am afraid I have suggested, he talked enough to try my patience – which I do not have a lot of. I asked him whether he would like to meet a friend of mine who had a very good record of negotiating successful divorces. At first, Costas did not seem at all interested and he talked about the joys of dual citizenship and of crewing a company yacht around the southwestern coast of Turkey. But when we parted for the evening, he asked to meet my friend. To make a long story short, Costas’s divorce was finalized six months ago.
When we announced our engagement, mother and Daddy were their usual gracious selves to Costas and Mrs. Christulides. However, when they were alone with me, they made it quite clear that they did not approve of Costas’s religion. As far as my parents were concerned, Greek Orthodoxy was worse than Roman Catholicism. You see generations of Veaches have had a pew in Halprin’s First Presbyterian Church.
I thought my parent’s objection was just silly, but Costas said that he would readily join the Presbyterians – no problem. After all, he said, it was not a matter of conversion, but only one of switching denominations. Besides, he was not the only son. So, we reserved the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church for a December wedding.
Mother and Daddy had a marriage announcement placed at the top of a page in the Sunday New York Times. The photo of us that headed the announcement was not entirely to their liking – Costas’s jacket collar gaped and his hairpiece was too obvious – but I was positively glowing and they could not resist. Besides, no one ever looks at the groom.
Costas’s ex-wife worked in the newsroom of the New York Times. When she heard about our marriage, she hacked into the pages of wedding announcements and added the following sentence to our blurb:
“The bridegroom’s previous marriage ended in divorce.”
Costas’s mother and my parents were horrified. He and I rolled our eyes and as soon as we could get our business affairs in order, we spent our honeymoon exploring the ruins and mountains of central Turkey.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)