It Will Always Be Paris

It’s been a strange day, again bearing witness from afar to something I have no power to stop. A fire raging in the heart of my heart, the city that will always be the jewel in my memories. “It will always be Paris” my 18 year old hand wrote in black Indian ink in my journal, it will always be Paris. Paris was only three hours away on the train, 600 km in the car, the place where the writers and artists who crowded my teenage dreams also haunted the streets. The place where we could get lost in the streets, be free, live in a history of our own making. It was always Paris, even though in Grenoble we also had a Bastille, we also had authors, composers, and a history. It was always still Paris. Stendhal was every day, but Nerval was my desire, his spirit still roaming the streets in the dark.

One year we found the exact location where Nerval took his life in 1855, located it on an old map, and walked around and around in circles, the location lost amidst new buildings. Rue de la Vieille Lanterne, an invisible route between past and present, buried deep into Parisian history. So we went back to the side stairs of Notre Dame, smoked a few cigarettes and contemplated the trek back to the Père-Lachaise to where Nerval’s body was buried, a full pilgrimage to honor the writer of the beauty of roaming minds.*

Another time we roamed the quais de la Seine at night, plastic film camera in one hand, Gauloise Blonde in another; the only remains of that night the images in my brain, the smell of the Seine that never feels too far away, and one hazy print of Notre Dame. Every time I have wandered through Paris, Notre Dame has been under some sort of renovation, a tower covered in scaffolding one year, both another year, the side yet another year. Preserving history is an ongoing project, especially history that has made it through revolutions, wars, disregard, and neglect. If you close your eyes on the Pont Neuf at night the breeze takes you back in time for a second, a minute even. Paris feels timeless in those moments. Paris will always be immortal.

While Le Chat Noir was always our lighthouse, and the uneven stones of Montmartre got used to our Doc Martens, I would search for a sign of Notre Dame from every stopping point. The steps of the Sacré Coeur at night are a beacon to city around, Notre Dame standing safe in the distance, strong, a survivor. Much of my youth was spent searching for something that would direct me to my destiny, a god, a king or queen, a feeling, religions mixing with politics with knowledge, and ultimately with deception and disappointment in mankind and higher powers. Nowadays I look back on those times as the grounds on which I built who I am now, layers of me, a journey that ultimately gave me the answers I always knew. I neither hate nor reject religion, I respect its part in our world, no matter the deity. I just cannot believe enough to belong to a religion, but I still remain in awe of religious structures. Churches and cathedrals, ancient mosques and temples, all hold pages of lives lived before us, soaked in tears and incense.

Watching the fire go from smoke to a full blaze raging through the roof of the cathedral was painful: it is only a building, but I couldn’t help shedding a tear for the gargoyles, the angels, and the secrets. As the steeple fell I gasped, and wondered if the towers were next, and what Paris would do if all that was left would be a smoldering hulk of blackened wood and limestone. Can we mourn a building? Should we mourn a building? I believe in the preservation of history, not the desecration, but nature sometimes has the last word. And the human hand can be the creator of beauty, but also the creator of mind-blowingly stupid errors.  We are lucky that the towers were preserved, more important to me personally than a crown of thorns or a torn robe.

It will always be Paris for me. I know I will most likely never live there, but Paris was always the dream, my heart, my love. Paris IS always the dream, my heart, my love.  I can still wander the streets in my mind, smell the musty smell from the Métro, and bite into an imaginary baguette with brie. Nerval still skulks around, his resting place steps from Oscar Wilde, Chopin, and Jim Morrison, his heart amongst the lost and the lonely in the hidden Parisian streets.

(While Notre Dame burned on April 15th of this year I searched through my journals for some of the many entries I wrote on Paris over the years. I immediately came upon one dated April 15th 1999. Twenty years to the day… “I think my favourite place is Notre Dame and the quais de la Seine… We’ve been to the Père-Lachaise cemetery where Oscar Wilde and Nerval are buried, to Montmartre to see the Sacré Coeur… Everywhere.”)

It will always be Paris.

*(Read Aurélia if you ever have the chance… I have only read it in the original language, but I’m sure it translates well to English in the right hands). 

A Pair of Clean Socks, A Warm Meal, and No Solution

It’s no secret that the homeless crisis in California is steadily rising and that no long-term solutions are in place to put a dent in the growing numbers. The ongoing opioid epidemic, natural disasters such as floods and wildfires, rising rents and lack of affordable housing, and inaccessible mental health care conflagrate the issue, but homelessness is not new to the US in any shape or form. There is no one-size-fits-all solution, and the numbers that appear in city-mandated reports don’t even begin to scratch the surface. Right-wing activists use the homeless as a poster child for their anti-immigration stances (I don’t see them actually proposing actual solutions to get people off the streets though), and others pretend the issue isn’t as bad as it appears. But those of us who walk miles of city sidewalks every day know the score.

I walk eight miles a day to and from my kids’ preschool, rain or shine. During the last autumn and winter I would jot down little stories, anecdotes, and thoughts from these walks, wondering where these people were from, what brought them to the streets of Sacramento. It’s easy to turn our faces away and complain about the (multiple) discarded needles, the human feces and vomit on the sidewalks and the grass, to worry about the mental illnesses that plague so many of the people on the streets, but we have to remember that these people are still people.

Here are some of the stories, fragments of moments in time that caught my eyes.

I suddenly realized the other day that my children are growing up thinking that homelessness is normal. Every morning we walk through the streets of downtown and midtown and they see people sleeping on the sidewalks, under shop awnings, and in tents. My eldest, a four year old, wants to grow up fast so that she can build houses for everyone so “they can have beds and clean toilets and a bath”. She says that it should be easy. It should really, shouldn’t it? I don’t want them to grow up desensitized to what they see. This is not normal. This should never be normal.

As I walk to and from preschool with the kids every day I see the same scenes, different people, but the same poverty, despondency, the rock bottom I hope none of my loved ones ever meet. My father may or may not have been homeless for a while before he died, and while it was a different country, a different time, it was the same sort of drug, and the same issues that none of us lucky enough to have a roof over our heads seem to be able to solve. Sometimes I see a boot, black hair, and I look for him in a stranger’s eyes, but that is a story for another day.

As the sun rises behind the Capitol we walk past figures curled around underground steam outlets, wrapped in blankets with their shoes and bags tied together, some empty cans or food wrappers in a corner. People rise from makeshift beds in the Capitol Gardens, rolling up sleeping bags and putting on shoes, washing their faces in the public bathrooms, walking over to wait for the Central Library to open as no one stops anyone from using the restrooms there. Everyone deserves to have access to basic commodities, to the privacy of a restroom, to a mirror, and warm water. But based on the amount of human feces we have to step around in some areas, that doesn’t seem to be a priority for the officials of Sacramento.

There is the beautiful lady with the elaborate hairdo who is probably much younger than she looks. She applies her make up in the public toilet in the Capitol Gardens, and walks away with her neatly packed cart, her face serene, her age unknown, but definitely in the over 50 range. How long has she been on the streets? Who knows…

What about all of the people who are homeless and breathing the Camp wildfire smoke into their lungs? The micro particles embedding themselves into their internal organs, the air quality deemed hazardous. We are told to go inside, to stay inside, but those people have no indoors to enter.  There is nowhere near enough space for everyone in the shelters, so they have to stay outside and breathe through the toxic smoke. My kids had coughs for months afterwards, so I can only imagine how it would have affected those who couldn’t stay indoors.

The first time I saw the arm flexer I was walking alone near the girls’ school. I saw him from afar, flexing his arm muscles as he walked, as if he were readying himself for the ring. He may have looked threatening and possibly creepy from afar, but I took my chances anyway and walked past him: harmless. And then I thought about how life on the streets is so dangerous for him, more dangerous, because those who would call the police are really just calling death. Don’t call the cops on homeless black men in Sacramento, they will arrive 5 at a time and aggressively pin your arms to your back and let your pants fall to the ground while they muscle your yielding body into the patrol car*. Sacramento PD have a notoriously terrible reputation when it comes to gunning down mentally ill and/or homeless black men. I see their actions frequently while walking, four to five to one person, manning their bikes like riot gear, ordering people from their sleeping bags, telling them to move on. This is not a solution. This is not even a Band-Aid. Move on? From the streets to the riverside that is currently flooded, bloated with water from another wet winter?

I see the arm flexer regularly now, in different locations, always flexing his muscles, hyping himself up for the powerful walk into the ring, a boxing ring that only exists in his imagination. Or maybe just every day on the streets of Sacramento is the big fight to survive. I can believe that.

The man who always stands on the corner of 10th and L by the traffic lights selling the Homestead newspaper never forgets to smile, to acknowledge you, and to ask you how you are. He deserves the same consideration, a smile, a hello. I don’t know how he arrived here, and I don’t know where he will go, but our paths cross frequently and he always remembers me. I feel so guilty that I rarely have a dollar on me for his newspaper.

I don’t know whether the drugs came first or they are the way to bear life on the street, but K Street and Cesar Chavez Plaza are where deals happen so frequently that people walk through them without even realizing what is going on around them. I see bags of meth passed between hands in front of my kids’ stroller, and want to clap my hands and tell dealers to stop profiting from the homeless, but then again if they don’t get it from one they will get it from another, right? But still, it makes me angry when I find used syringes in the grass my children are running around in, and I have to teach my daughter to never ever touch those orange plastic things we find littered around street corners all over the place.

How do we actually help people survive the streets long-term, how do we effectively treat mental illness, drug abuse, and years of surviving day to day in a world that runs parallel to ours, visible but invisible, but only invisible because we make them so?

A lady carries a basket of food items out of the dollar store without paying and no one says anything, hopefully she will eat a proper meal tonight. I have spent so many weeks when I wonder how to make $20 stretch unbelievably far, but I have never had to wonder where I will sleep tonight or tomorrow, which I know is a privilege now. There are so many of us who are one small upset away from losing our home, one less paycheck away from the worry of where we are going to go if we can no longer afford the rent. The man who used to sit outside the same dollar store with the sad eyes and the little brown puppy has gone. I sometimes wonder if he just moved on, but my spirit hopes that he got clean and made it out alive.

I used to think K Street was bad, but after our walking commute started taking us along the other side of 16th St I realized that it could be a lot worse than K. 16th St is skid row. I can hear the sound of shoes being scraped along the pavement behind me while I’m walking with the stroller, shoes that don’t fit properly, I assume, but I don’t want to turn around and look. I walk past the Governor’s House, on the floor in front of me are flyers warning of government takeovers, and across the street a homeless man is sleeping in a shuttered shop doorway. The new governor decided to move into a house in a place that is “more kid-friendly”, and while I actually like his policies, I think by doing that he just played into the same old system: building walls around his family so that they don’t have to see what we do every day. It’s just wrong, you walk around and it just gets worse, poverty on the one side, and the rich on the other, construction everywhere, but only for new condos and expensive accommodation, no affordable housing anywhere. (Although you always hear the local government talking about “more affordable housing” there hasn’t been any proof of it).

Coming up to J Street I hear the slouching foot sound behind me again, and then the sound of plastic wheels hitting concrete: someone pulling a bag on wheels. Not the sound of someone going to the airport or the train station, not the sounds of early morning commuters I could hear when I lived in my little apartment in Grenoble, France. This is the sound of people pulling their only belongings behind them, their lives in a bag. Going from one spot to another in the city hoping to find a warm place to sleep, a hot cup of coffee, a friendly face, a dealer.

It was 32 degrees last night, freezing this morning, nothing compared to winter in my previous home of NYC, but for Sacramento this is cold. There are over 4,000 people on the streets every night in Sacramento, but those numbers are from 2017 and I know for a fact that there are many more today, just from walking everywhere. There is never enough room at the shelters, the largest holds about 600 beds but is far from downtown, and in comparison with the actual numbers on the streets is nothing. People are cold, walking around with blanket cloaks, it feels like zombie land sometimes: freezing people slouching along, vacant stares, not here anymore. Nowhere to go, no one to help them, no clue if or when they will taste their next hot meal. I walk faster, away from the footsteps behind me, never turning back to see their face.

This is the “land of the free”, the country where supposedly everyone has opportunities, but these opportunities seem to be only available to those who have the privilege of having those opportunities in the first place.

Walking down P St towards home, I realize that for what could be such a beautiful place in the world, this city houses so much gloom, sadness, and darkness. The sky is so blue, and the sun shines so much; there are so many oranges falling from the trees to rot on the ground, and people are going hungry in the streets. Nothing makes sense. All of the new buildings going up, all of the abandoned structures waiting for new life, all places only available to the richer. Sacramento is no longer the affordable city it once was. In January the townhouses in Capitol Towers were emptied, getting ready to be demolished and replaced by a luxury hotel and newer apartment blocks. They are still empty, all of those homes that could be a shelter to many. But instead they pay a security guard to patrol the area 24/7 to make sure no one sleeps there. I understand why, but it seems like such a waste all the same.

To the man standing barefoot on the freezing concrete: I’m so sorry. To the lady standing and sleeping with her head against a windowsill: I’m so sorry. To the person who left all of their belongings on the slope up to DOCO and disappeared: I’m so sorry. I’m sorry that I don’t know what to do. I walk through DOCO, this new area that feels so posh and shiny, bang in the middle of disrepair, poverty, loneliness, and addiction staring at me from each side. I just feel so sorry, and so guilty, and then angry because everybody is failing these people, myself included.

Every morning I see a new tent popping up amongst the others on a sidewalk, in front of City Hall, in a grassy space that has yet to be claimed by condo-builders. Not everyone has a tent, there are so many who just lie down on the street and cover themselves with a blanket. Residential streets, shopping streets, downtown government building streets: people set up makeshift homes for a night or two, a bed for now. This morning I walked past someone asleep in front of the house that is for sale for $900 grand.

A woman pulls a shopping cart behind her wearing shoes that are at least 4 times too big while the gentleman who spends his nights drinking cheap 40’s in the awning on S and 5th shuffles his government-issued wheelchair across the main road. And people, like me, walk by, parallel worlds in the same world.

Just after the Christmas break it felt like there was suddenly an influx of visibly mentally ill people in the downtown-midtown area. Around the school mainly. It felt like somebody had just emptied a psychiatric hospital out on the streets, a slightly Gothamesque vision every time I pushed the stroller along F St. One morning a dense fog covered all buildings and swirled through the streets, a similar effect seen during the first real snowfall of winter in NYC. Suddenly a woman’s face popped out of nowhere, cackling about Santy and candy, even though we were well into January by then, her fingers pointing at us as I sped past. I don’t know if the drugs came first, or the streets, or both, but she was not a safe person, not to herself or to others. These are the days when I question our determination to bring our kids up downtown rather than in some random suburban setting.

One day I had a sudden weird desire to cross J St earlier than I usually do, I don’t know why. I pondered my impulsive decision to cross where it was a lot less safe when I saw that a man was having a very angry and violent mental breakdown on the other side of the street. He was throwing his suitcase into the air, shouting, and throwing punches around, and there was no way to settle him down. My gut is never wrong, it usually leads me away from danger.

I walk several different routes to and from the school, depending on the weather, my mood, and my anxiety level (being spat on by a neo Nazi back in the autumn always an event in the back of mind). We always end up crossing the same streets and seeing the same people though. I realized while pushing the stroller through another rain storm on 10th St that we would run into the same man at the same time in the morning, in the same place. And then again in the afternoon. And then I saw him again, walking in the same direction at a random time on a Saturday too. Does he live nearby? He is striking, handsome, piercing light eyes, dressed in what appear to be clean clothes. One day I noticed that he was always carrying a neatly folded blanket under his arm. And that he passed by us for the second time when we were waiting on the corner of the street. That’s when it clicked: he wasn’t on his way somewhere at the same time we were on our way somewhere else every day. Passing him by on the same street at different times wasn’t chance. He was walking round the block, again and again, in a determined fashion, a sense of purpose but no real destination. Is he ex-military? Possibly. Homeless? Definitely, as it has since been confirmed that he sleeps is a doorway on that block every night.

On that same block I saw a man light his crack pipe in the middle of the sidewalk a few weeks ago, a few feet ahead of me. Broad daylight, a well-frequented street, children in a stroller close by, and a crack pipe. The streets are hard, unforgiving, it’s freezing at night most of the time, and when it rains the streams of water pound relentlessly onto the concrete, finding their way into gutters, running into doorways, soaking blankets and cardboard and tarp, pooling around tents. But the drug use is so out in the open, desperate, and unforgiving too. There has to be a better solution that ignoring it and hoping it goes away.

There was a woman dressed in a garbage bag yesterday. One of those heavy duty large black ones, a garbage bag dress. The wind was brutal, freezing cold, more NYC than Sacramento. More and more tents are appearing around City Hall, people gathering together for safety and comfort, so many women. I can’t begin to imagine the traumas experienced by women living on the streets. (But the data is readily available online, although it would be good to see more up to date studies as this is a pretty important subject). 

I am still haunted by what happened to us last year in the Capitol Gardens… I was helping one of my daughters use the public toilets when suddenly the woman who had been washing her face in the sink started shouting, cursing, screaming (in a British accent). I held my daughter close and told her not to worry and we stood silently in the stall wondering what we should do. My mother, visiting from the UK, was standing outside with the other kids asked if we were OK but I didn’t respond, afraid I would antagonize the lady even more. And then as suddenly as it started it stopped, and she walked out of the bathroom and away. Another day we saw her wrapped in a blanket not far from the toilets, sleeping.

16th Street Donuts is hands down the best donut shop in the city, with the kindest owner. It’s the kind of place where you tack on an extra dollar or two to your bill and ask them to give the next homeless person to walk through the door free breakfast. The kind of place where you can go and receive a warm cup of coffee when you have no money and no home. That strip mall on the corner of F and 16th is home to many people, their faces the same, their faces changing overnight, new ones replacing old. The parking lot is adjacent to the elementary school, a fenced wall separating the two. I’ve seen people shooting up, relieving themselves, buying drugs, sleeping, reading, eating, fighting, and just living in that small 20 or less car parking lot right against the school grounds. I’ve seen people set up camp in front of the school, and in the school playground. I hear the words “but its downtown, you have to expect it” as I walk by. I’m sure apathy never helped anyone though… I think the donut shop has the right attitude though: treat everyone as human. Most days my empathy overwhelms me, but some days I get angry because I don’t want to have to yet again tell my kids to never ever touch a needle like the one we just stepped over.

Those days when I am angry I go into the donut shop and remember that we are all human.

There are so many more stories, so many more people. I just continue to jot them down in my journal, remember their faces, and hopefully remind those around me that we can choose to look away, or we can choose to be present.

*I’ve seen this happen several times. Sacramento PD has a very bad reputation for shooting first, asking questions next, especially when it comes to homeless and/or possibly mentally ill black men.

You Don't Have To See Me

I walked through Times Square wearing a real British red, a slim pillar box of a woman, standing out amongst the dim greys and browns of winter. Or so I thought until one person after another jostled me, tourists pushing through me towards the bright lights, red not enough to shine a light on my existence. You don’t have to see me, but why can’t you acknowledge my existence? If a stranger walks through me and you don’t even notice, how can I even expect you to be the beacon I always assumed you were? I ask too much, I know.

First it was Kurt. No wait, go back. First it was my father, dangling into dust with Joy Division playing in the background. Then it was him, the one who cloaked himself with the role of father, and moved his family around like chess pieces on a board, simultaneously playing you against one another and most often against yourself. A few weeks after his departure Kurt blasted himself into oblivion, leaving me clutching my cassette tapes and crying into my diary, abandoned. Alone. Invisible. Then the boy I was in love with, but had never spoken to, moved away, and my diary talks of broken hearts and depression, of sadness and also of longing. Longing to be seen, growing steadily up, a flower in need of light, gasping for air, breaking free from the Girl Guide knots in the ropes that were containing her.

Freedom is an ocean that swells unexpectedly, dragging you off to places that nourish you, but sometimes also break you. It’s a learning curve, freedom is.

Walking against the crowds in Times Square, invisible in my red coat, brought me back to that year, 1994, when everything was either amazing, or the end of the world. I had yet to learn to temper my emotions, let them trickle down the slide rather than cascade down the mountain, avalanche or ball of fire. 1994 was a year of turning heels and turning backs, and of wandering down the soft slopes at the base of the mountain, wishing I could just fall right off the face of the earth. I hid beneath ripped jean, long hair, and oversized sweaters and music that tempered my wild thoughts. I still listen to that same music, the lead singers long gone into voids of drugs and depression and events they didn’t manage to control, but the music still speaks to me. I would walk home from school, shaking off the dank grimness of the monotonous and constant taxing demands on my brain, my Walkman carrying songs that spoke to me alone, that made me stand out and stand up. Music gave me visibility; music gave me purpose. I could be me, all of me, without all of the boxes and the cloaks and the expectations.

I took steps to solidify my existence amongst others, choosing to weave in and out of the path ahead, rather than plod along, unseen and unheard.

But there is always something that suddenly makes me even more conscious of the space I take up... So I pack myself into a smaller box, hide in the shadows, and revel in this ease of traveling through time in low visibility. There is something safe about walking through people, knowing they don’t see you, passing you by without even an acknowledgement of your presence. This invisibility serves me well, I don’t leave a visible trace, but you know I have stopped by. I think... Do you? Have I left an invisible mark on your life? Do you remember my face? I remember yours. I always remember yours.

I used to sit in class and look ahead stoically, willing the teacher to pass me by. It worked most of the time, my will forcing my body to become invisible, folding myself into a tiny space where no one would notice me, where no spotlight reached. I walk through the streets and wonder why I am always the one who has to move out of the way, but I never stand my ground, so used to moving, creating space between myself and the other, space being a protective cover, space meaning I don’t have to interact. I battle with this need for space, for cover, and the same need to be heard and seen: and as neither ever wins I hide behind my words. This, my voice; these, my words. They are strong and powerful like me, but often indirect, metaphor, for what the reality is. Words have longevity. You may forget my face in an instant, and forget how my fingers felt on you face, my voice in the wind now, but my words will stay with you.

I’m still 1994, but I’m also 2018, still hovering between the space and the spotlight, finding a place that is me. Do we ever find our real place? Are we meant to have a place? I do not accept my place amongst you, I do not accept the role, the cloak, or even the mold that you play upon my being. For that I will always stand strong and teach the same to my children, for that I will never back down.

I’m not transparent: I’m hued. Each flicker sends ripples of effervescent sparks your way, each shake a wave of golden, yellow, warm orange rays. One turn may block the light, another may be a beacon. I vow to not hide behind myself anymore, and I pledge to stand taller, to not move out of the way when I’m on my path. You don’t have to see me, but you must acknowledge my presence, and the presence of all of us around you, all of us so used to fitting into smaller boxes, hiding behind the light, moving out of your path. We all belong, we all have light to share.

I walk through the city gardens, eyes straight ahead, pushing my children, scanning the surroundings for invisible dangers. I tell my eldest to run with the butterflies, to enjoy the freedom that comes with space and youth, and I whisper to myself to hold my head high.

No more boxes for me, and only space for my offspring: space to run, and space to hold hands with others. We all hold our heads high, searching the sunlight rather than the cracks in the pavement.

Home and the Heart

I will always remember the first snowfall of winter, that sudden peace all around, snowflakes creating a barrier against the usual city sounds. I would watch and wait, hoping that it would settle fast, so that I could make the first footsteps in the snow, a satisfying crunch in those soft layers of snow. There is something very special about that first snowfall, magical nearly, everything is slower and less sudden, and a soft glow emanates around the city, silence. By the time February arrives the snow has become an inconvenience, piles of blackened ice-snow packed up against sidewalks and eyes searching for the first signs of Spring, but back in December the snow is just magic. Have you ever been snowed into your apartment building? I have, quite literally, and had to wait for friendly outsiders to dig us out. New York City may be a huge city but it is on the cusp of so many elements, and sometimes lets Mother Nature unleash herself all over the population.

That includes hurricanes. We were warned but never really believed the hurricane would hit us straight on like a ton of bricks. Hurricane parties, all snuggled up in our homes or local bars and then BAM, the power disappeared, only to return over a week later. Tunnels and streets flooded with salt water, houses destroyed by wind and rain and waves and fire. Utter destruction. There was a huge shortage of gasoline, cars would line up for blocks and blocks near a gas station, drivers sleeping in their cars, waiting for a tanker to hopefully arrive. We walked a lot, thinking about friends and family and strangers who were a lot worse off than we were, hoping that we would be able to go back to work sooner rather than later, collecting food and clothes for people who had become homeless overnight, losing everything in the process. A hurricane is no laughing matter, no matter the category, and can cause massive damage in the space of minutes. I will never, ever underestimate the power of Nature again.

I sometimes did very stupid things. I went up to the roof of our building when the storm was hitting the hardest and stood there screaming in the wind. There were piles of loose wood on the roof and I could only stand up by holding on the railing with both hands. Exhilarating but so, so stupid.

My feet still walk through the streets, blindly following the routes that I would take day in, day out. Up the steps from the J train stop on the corner of Essex and Delancey, along Delancey, turning north on Orchard. Popping into Le French Diner (the original one) for a coffee or lunch before heading into 200 or Taqueria for work. Walking around the neighbourhood in Flushing, listening for the sounds of the ice cream truck and wondering when we could move back to Brooklyn again. I can close my eyes and look up, up, up to Empire State Building, see the reflection of the sun in the Chrysler and then stomp down, down, downtown towards my Ludlow and Orchard again, ready for anything that the day or night would throw at me. I can still smell all the city smells so vividly, the trash, the Laundromats, the fresh food frying from carts on the street. The subway smell, one that you never forget, and definitely not after 11 years of taking it up and down, east to west, west to east, north to south and all the way back round again.

Spring always arrived as a surprise, but a well-awaited and old-friend surprise. One day you would be complaining about the bitter wind in March and the next windows would be opened and the fresh, sweet air would bear tidings of sun and longer days and blossoming magnolia trees. Winter coats and scarves and hats took the backseat of the closet again, replaced by dresses and cardigans and my everlasting Fryes, stomping through the city streets season after season, bar after bar. Spring always brought hope and happiness, bright lights and better times, beaches and lazy days exploring new places in the city, photographing walls and people and buildings. I always moved house in the spring, from the Lower East Side to Spanish Harlem to the West Village to Brooklyn. Only my last move happened in the winter, between two snowstorms at 34 weeks pregnant. There was more of a rush with that one, the rush to create a new family home in the city we all loved so much.

Good news and bad news, life and death, friendships born and friendships disappearing, all moving parts in the whirlpool that is life in New York City. For such a little island that is Manhattan, there is a lifetime of discoveries and happiness, sadness and changes to come across, a death on Broadway leading to a marriage on 116th and a birth on Avenue A. Scars created by heartbreak and sadness, healed by ointments created from love and joy, an army of people always by your side wherever your feet took you to. I have never felt as at home as I felt in New York, from the moment I saw the skyline in my cab ride from JFK, and the moment I said goodbye to the skyline 11 years later. Not a day goes by when I don’t think of the city, of the streets, of the smells, of the memories, of the friends. I think of the many mistakes, and of all the better things that I did. The stories are coming along, I sometimes worry I will forget them and then I remember that I can’t forget nearly a third of my life just like that. So while I shed a tear writing this, I also feel so inspired and renewed and know that once a home is found, it always remains home, no matter how far away your feet are, pieces of your heart and soul remain, even if all of the buildings have disappeared…

Rockaway Beach in the summer, hungover or sober, year after year. Those waves, that sand, the Sand Bar. That humid air, unrelenting, but never bad enough to actually wish for winter. Enough to wish for sunset when the breeze would brush the hairs on your arms ever so slightly, live music sounds coming from bars and clubs and open windows, strolling down the busy streets, smoking cigarettes and chatting about love and life and dreams. Midnight would turn into 5am and sometimes artificial joy would turn to black, but other times 5am meant pulling the gate on the bar and grabbing a sandwich and tea at Sugar on the corner. Going to bed when the sun was rising, or already risen, was a normal activity, waking in the early afternoon, ready for the next adventure. Walking across the Williamsburg Bridge was always a highlight, touching the skyline with the tips of my fingers and reading the words etched into the ground and the walls along the way.

And summer always turns into autumn, September bright and beautiful, perfect beach weather because everyone has gone home, and those of us who don’t work normal hours or normal days can enjoy the peace under the sun. The sunset seen from the roof, skies of fiery red and pink and purple and yellow, casting a glow over the city, one last gasp of natural light before the city lights illuminate the sky again.  Camera in hand I would walk and walk, capturing everything I could see, year in year out, through-out the seasons, memories in my head, on my screen and hanging from my walls. Beautiful city you will always be mine.        

Here and There

An Angel Passes By

Autumn's Place

Of Instability and Growing Roots

The Childhood Stories

Over the past month or so I had had a collection of stories published up on Life with my Little Duck starting off during my teenage years, moving into my 20's and then ending today. It was a really interesting trip through thoughts and memories so I thought I would provide a little recap here and link them all in one place for anyone who would like to take a little journey through a few decades and a few countries... Five years ago I started to write a book loosely based on my life/experiences, but I gave up because it was both too close to home and because I didn't think anyone would be interested. I am now putting together several collections of essays which I think will be easier for me to work on and actually finish. In any case, here are the links to all of the stories... Thanks to Ally for publishing all of these stories, as well as many other wonderful and heartbreaking ones. You can see all of the stories from her Childhood Series up on her blog here. 

The Invisibility Cloak - wrap yourself in it as soon as you leave the house...

Survival Modes - high school is a real minefield.

Run, Run Away - everything is just too much and there is no escape.

Young Heart, Old Soul - a different life in different places.

Never Let Go of the Rainbow - a decade in a city that never sleeps.

Everything will be alright
Everything will turn out fine
Some nights I still can't sleep
And the voices pass with time
The Sisters of Mercy - Time To Cry

Immigration Series: Henna from the Heart

Here is Henna's story straight from the heart. Daughter of Indian immigrants, growing up Punjabi and American, navigating through the mix cultures and finding herself right there, right in the middle of it. Actually this isn't really Henna's story, as she talks about her father, but really it is. You will understand what I mean after you have read it... (And if you don't like curse words then I suggest you move along, as Henna loves to curse and there is no way I am editing her writing because it shoots straight from the fucking heart).

Before I dive into the topic of immigration, my story, and my father, I want to remind everyone that in the end of our lives we do not take this body with us, so to fear someone based on their appearance, their religion, or sexual orientation is just plain fucking stupid. People I want to remind you that when we die all this shit stays behind. Your hair, your eyes, your art, and the trees that surround you. They are all fucking staying here when you die. Oh God I sound dark again. Quite frankly, I’m just trying to make a point. I shit rainbows I swear. I also take pictures of pretty flowers all the time. Anyways, my point is that we are not immortal, so do you want to spend this life fearing and hating what you don't know or do you want to dive into it and grow from it?

There is a lot of fear and hate that surrounds the topic of immigration. Hate’s mother is fear. Fears births hate. It’s really that simple.

The Mexicans are taking my jobs.

There are too many black people.

The Indians are taking over IT.

The Asians are taking over our neighborhood.

I don’t like her hijab.

She sounds like a redneck.

I bet they have small dicks.

Why are they here?

These are all sentences with an undertone of fear or hate. You wanna know what my response is to these motherfuckers?

GIVE ME A FUCKING BREAK. IF YOU WANT TO DO SOMETHING THEN FUCKING DO IT. STOP BLAMING OTHER PEOPLE FOR YOUR LACK OF SUCCESS. WORK FUCKING HARDER. STOP COMPLAINING. WHY ARE YOU ALLOWING HATE TO HAVE A PLACE IN YOUR LIFE? LOVE BABY LOVE!! THIS IS YOUR LIFE. FILL YOUR SPIRIT WITH ALL THAT IS AMAZING IN THIS WORLD.  STOP FOCUSING ON OTHERS. WHY DO YOUR CARE SO MUCH ABOUT THEIR APPEARANCE? IS IT HARMING YOU? WHAT? YOU JUST DON’T LIKE? BABY YOU’RE WASTING PRECIOUS MOMENTS OF YOUR LIFE HATING THINGS FOR NO REASON. LIVE THIS LIFE AND FUCK IT LIKE YOU WOULD THE LOVE OF YOUR LIFE. IF YOU DON’T HAVE ONE THEN PRETEND. I LOVE HUMANITY AND THEREFORE I LOVE YOU TOO. YEAH I DON’T KNOW YOU, BUT WE’RE HERE IN THIS WORLD TOGETHER, SO LETS JUST ENJOY AND LEARN TOGETHER.

BESOS, AMIGOS.

… OK maybe I wouldn't say the besos part, but everything else I would. Yeah I’m being blunt. Maybe I just wrote a really long rant, but my intentions are for the love of humanity.

Oh fuck, right my story!! Sorry readers. I’m a little scatter brained. I also confuse my left and rights all the time. Last night I took a cab from Manhattan to Brooklyn and I kept messing up my left and rights. As you can imagine my driver wanted to murder me. Is there a term for people who fuck up their left and rights all the time? Oh fuck. I did it again.

Ok Immigration. My story. Let’s get into that. I’m an American Citizen. I don't have a crazy immigration story. Actually you know what? Let’s talk about me in another blog post. This shit is getting long. I've got mad emotions and opinions and stories people.

I want to talk about my father right now. Let me tell you about him. My daddy is an immigration lawyer and is one of the most inspiring, charismatic, and giving people I know. My father came to this country after marrying my mother. So mom put a marriage advertisement in the Indian newspaper and after all the men who responded my father was the one who stole her heart. I’m going to be honest with you. My mother was vain as fuck. She thought he was the best looking guy after all the guys she met. I mean she did mention that he also came off as good person too, but I know my mommy. She thought he was hot. Great for baby making.

Dad went to law school. Passed the bar exam on his first try and then opened up his own practice within 5 years of just being in America. Dad did it. He made it in America. Then he got famous. Dad had commercials for his law firm playing constantly on ZeeTV (An Indian television channel). Man, when dad would come on TV I would light up. I was 7, but I was proud to be his daughter. The commercials aren't there today, but he still has an advertisement in the Indian newspaper. He has for over 20 years now. If I mention my father’s name to any cab driver of Indian descent they know immediately who he is. My father has given people the opportunity to freedom and a better life. He is a man who came from poverty and has never forgotten his roots. This man never makes a trip to India without giving back to his people. He sends money for his relatives to give to people on the streets of India. If one poverty stricken child wants ice cream then he’ll buy everyone ice cream. If another girl says I don't want ice cream I want flour, so I can make roti, then he’s going to buy over 30 bags of flour for the beggars on the street. By the way this is a true fucking story.

I could talk about my father for hours and tell you all the amazing things this immigrant has done, but it’s time for me to conclude. Freedom is everyone’s right. Everyone should have an opportunity for love, family, and even all the fuck-ups that come with life because not everything bad is bad and not everything good is good. In the end we learn from the good and bad. Who are we to deny anyone of these good and bad experiences?

The definition of humanitarian is:

1. Having concern for or helping to improve the welfare and happiness of people

2. Pertaining to the saving of human lives or to the alleviation of suffering

3. A person actively engaged in promoting human welfare and social reforms

If we all had the heart of a humanitarian then immigration wouldn't be so scary.

Immigration Series: Serial Immigrant

This week's story is my own mother's... We have lived thousands and thousands of miles away from each other for many years, but now all live together in sunny California. 

Serial Immigrant

I am an immigrant. I have been an immigrant, and an émigré, for much of my adult life: not because of dire need, or suffering, but from a desire to travel, to experience the world, and to provide a good life for my family. I’d always dreamed of travelling; as a child it was to Canada and France, or exploring the South Pole, as a teen I wanted to work on a kibbutz or travel the desert on the back of a camel; as an adult, to visit the ancient sites of Greece and Turkey and Jerusalem and Egypt and Japan. (I’ve been lucky enough to be able to do all of those, except Greece the South Pole, and while a visit to the Galapagos is still on the bucket list, I’m a little more wary of the cold these days.)

It all began when I was offered a short-term contract in the Netherlands when I was looking for full-time employment in Thatcher’s UK. The idea of spending a few months outside of what had become a depressed and gloomy Britain under Thatcher’s iron rule, in the country of windmills and clogs and Edam, was exciting and liberating. We packed a very few belongings into a mini-bus and took the ferry from Harwich to Hook of Holland, and never looked back. The children went to Dutch schools and my daughters were fluent in the language within a very few months. The short-term contract became three years, we experienced life as Europeans, and then a new job offer came along, from an American multinational with a large site in France.

Nine years in France, a country full of culture and life and history and strong friendships, and then, once again, I’m offered another job—with the same company, but this time, in the mothership—in the USA. Moving between European countries, pre-Brexit, was one thing. Across the world was another. It was a major decision: three children, divorced parents, oldest child already in university in France… but it was another adventure, it felt right, and it was an opportunity to experience yet-another way of life.

I entered the USA on an L-1 visa. That’s a visa specifically for “management transfers”: companies can bring in their managerial staff and workers with specialized knowledge, transferring them from overseas locations to a (new) location in the USA.

My employer provided help with the visa. They also provided legal help to make sure that the green card I applied for, for myself and children, were expedited, because my second child would celebrate their twenty-first birthday a few months after our arrival in the USA. Wait. Why is that important??? Because after 21, a child is considered “just another relative”, and you have to petition for them to join you, and wait years. But what about my eldest child, who is already over 21, yet still in full-time education and supported by me? Oh tough. They’ve “aged out”. No green card. You have to petition for them to join you, once you have a green card yourself, and then wait. And wait. And wait. At least seven or ten or more years.

My eldest was denied a visa to visit the USA for a few months, on the grounds that, “All your family is in the USA and you might be tempted stay.” Well duh… yes, all close family was in the USA. So you deny a child the right to stay with their only surviving parent???”

We found a work-around. My eldest was able to claim Canadian citizenship due to her father’s own citizenship, and then work in the USA on an annual TN visa, which wasn’t without stress. We waited and waited for her green card to be approved. We paid all the fees. Eventually, after several years, the green card was approved… but there would be another seven or more years before “the number would come up”, and the card would be issued. I learned that if I became a US citizen—by this time I was eligible, having held a green card for five years—then the wait for my daughter’s green card would be cut to just a few months.

So I paid all the fees, studied for the exam, and became a US Citizen. I now hold two passports, British and USA. My daughter has a green card, issued a few months after I became a citizen, and can live and work in the USA. The family is together. But am I a proud US citizen? Do I feel this glowing patriotism, and the need to put hand-on-heart when the Stars and Stripes are played? The belief in the right to bear arms? Not for one second… Do I feel somewhat compromised, and coerced into embracing a nationality, just to enable my family to be together? Some days, indeed I do. Resentful? No… I’m happy with the life we have, though I miss the history, the discussions, the cultural richness that is outside the USA. I don’t understand the American money-based mentality that drives everything and blinds people to the fact that there are better ways to manage health care and social welfare and ensure that everyone – EVERYONE – is taken care of. I don’t understand the shoot first mentality. And I really, really don’t want to live in the USA that Trump is proposing. I’m disturbed by the way the world is turning, whether it’s insulting click-bait political lies here in the USA, Brexit votes in the UK that will deny future generations the freedom of movement we enjoyed, and the rise in fear and hatred and intolerance around the globe… Maybe once you’ve seen more of different cultures and languages, you ask more questions, and are more frustrated by a brick wall of ignorance. I don’t know.

Those people who talk about immigration “done the right way”, obviously have no clue about how broken the “right way” is, how it can divide families, how much stress and anguish it can cause, how many years of wondering if your child will be allowed safely through the airport “this time”, or if they will be deported, or worse… and yes, that’s doing immigration “the right way”.

#iamanimmigrant. But I’m one of the lucky ones who had a choice, and tried to make the right decision. Was it? Ask my kids. I think you’ll get mixed answers.

In addition to being a wonderful parent and all-around great person, my mother (Alison Toon) is also a fantastic photographer and you can check out her work on her website, Facebook page and Instagram.

Immigration Series: The Ten Year Wait (Part 1)

Kicking off this guest post series with the first part of my own US immigration story. Over the next few weeks there will be all kinds of immigration stories appearing on this blog, and if you would like to see your own featured don't hesitate to contact me. This series is in no shape or form limited to the US, I am interested in featuring all types of stories from anywhere in the world.

When I hear people discussing immigration in the US I often hear terms like “the right way” and “the wrong way” being thrown around. Or that someone came here to steal someone else’s job, or on the contrary came to find a better life. It seems that everything is black or white and that there is nothing in between: either you are a “good” immigrant or a “bad” immigrant. So I’m going to tell you a little story about someone who didn’t come here for a better life, who didn’t come here because she was particularly enamoured by the country, and who didn’t come here to steal someone else’s job. Actually this person just ended up here and just stayed here for a lot longer than she had planned to. This story is my story and I feel that it is a perfect example of how everyone’s immigration story is different, how no one’s story is “good” or “bad” and how there is no right or wrong way. Instead of looking at all of the blacks and whites let us look at the greys and pinks and blues and yellows and reds.

I wasn’t the easiest teen, but then again who was? I dropped out of school at the age of 16 because I couldn’t stand being there anymore, but by the age of 18 I realised I actually wanted to be one of the first people in my family to earn a degree. So I sat my Baccalauréat, passed, and went to university. I loved university. French universities have an element of freedom to them and you are treated like an adult, not like an annoying child. Since you are treated like an adult it is also assumed that you will act like an adult (for the most part anyway), so I went to the classes I found interesting, winged my way through my first year exams and passed with flying colours. My second year was a lot more interesting, and the third year, my BA year, even more so. That was also the year that my mother decided to take her company’s job opportunity up in California. It was the year 2000, and while I was super happy for her to go, there was no question about the fact that I would be staying put. My life was mainly in France, a little in England my country of birth, but mainly in France. I had lived there for so many years, going through school and adolescence and everything you go through and more when you are growing up.

I had never even been to the States, let alone move there. I had a couple of close friends in California, but they had their own lives and friends, and I had no intention of starting over somewhere else. France, Grenoble, was my home. I flew over to California with my mother to look for a house before her big move, liked the area, saw NIN in concert, and came home, with no desire to move anywhere except into my new apartment by the train station in Grenoble.

I hadn’t considered how my fourth year, my MA year, at university would affect me mentally, how depressed I would get after 9/11, and also how spending holidays and birthdays far away from my family would take its toll. When I read through my journals from that period I can see how I withdrew myself bit by bit from my usual life, preferring to hole myself up at home, writing about Sylvia Plath for my thesis and listening to Bob Dylan and Tim Buckley on repeat. Something had to give and I decided that I wanted to move. All of a sudden I needed to see something different, not for the first time in my life and definitely not for the last. So, on the spur of the moment I decided I was moving to the US. I spent my last summer in France with my friends, signed my half of the lease over to someone else, packed up my stuff and sent it over to my mother’s, and got on a flight with my cat.

It was September 2002 and I was 24 years old.

You become an adult in the US on your 21st birthday. If you immigrate to the US with your parents and you are under the age of 21 you will automatically fall under their immigration plan/set-up/visa etc. My mother’s work visa was fast-tracked into a green card, and her immigration lawyer made sure that my sister’s was pushed through fast too, so that it came through before she turned 21 (this was before 9/11, a lot changed after that, understandably so). My brother was 16 when he moved over to the US and got his green card pretty much immediately too. I, as an adult child of an alien, had to apply for my own green card with no idea when or if I would ever receive it.

So there I was, in the US, with no ability to work or to get a student visa/pay for tuition (and my tuition in France had been free anyway) and no idea if I would ever be able to live with my family again. Even if I had decided to move with my mother in 2000 it wouldn’t have changed a thing as I was over 21.

I went back and forth using the visa waiver program a few times, applied for a 6 month tourist visa in London and got rejected immediately because I “had too many family ties in the US and there was no guarantee I wouldn’t overstay my visa or coerce someone into giving me a job”.  I flew back to the US right after that and was immediately sent to the second room (if you have ever been there before you know what I mean, I’ve been there too many times to remember). I was yelled at, told that I was obviously working in the US if I kept coming back (I wasn’t, my mother was actually supporting me at that point), and that I was stupid to keep coming back. Then, after leaving me in a freezing cold room for 30 minutes, the official stamped my passport and told me that I could stay another three months, and after that if I came back within a year I would immediately be deported.

To be honest, I really don’t want to know how many “comments” I have on my immigration file. That wasn’t the last time I was threatened with deportation. It also wasn’t the last time I was sent to that “second” room.

I was totally and utterly depressed. I missed my life in France and I wanted to start a new life in the US, but instead I was stuck in limbo, with no real direction anywhere. I spent three months feeling lethargic and anti-social, forcing myself to leave the house, preferring to stay holed up inside with my cat, my books, my music and the internet. The end of the three months loomed in front of me and I kept pushing any kind of decision-making until the next day. Then my aunt, a world traveler who had settled in Israel, converted to Judaism and started a family there on a moshav in the desert, invited me to come over and help her with her two little children. At the same time my mother pushed me to send off my Canadian citizenship paperwork. My father was born in Canada, and while he was back in Britain before he could walk, he retained dual citizenship until he died. At the time if you had a Canadian parent, dead or alive, you were eligible for citizenship, even if you had never been to the country. It was a long shot and we were told could take a year or so, but there was no harm in trying.

I ended up living in Israel for well over a year, a life-changing experience, and came back to the US with more drive, focus and plans up my sleeve, and my Canadian citizenship was waiting for me on arrival. My original plan was to stay in California for three months, go to London and work there for a while and wait for the person I had fallen in love with to join me. The latter part never happened, and for the best as he proved to be as flighty as I always knew he was, but I did move to London and spent ten months there waiting to see where I would go next.

London was both home and away. I had my first “real” job after university (“real” meaning I worked in an office and was doing something that resembled what I had studied to do), I lived in a lovely house with really wonderful people, and I was able to spend time with my family in England whenever I wanted to. It was away because while England is the country of my birth it isn’t the country I grew up in. Familiar and foreign, and London was so expensive and big and hard to actually live in. I had kind of given up on moving to the States at that point and was just treading water in London until I could figure out my next steps (and once I had given up on waiting for the boy to make his way over to England I started to think about my future in a little more depth too). 

To be continued... Part 2 will be featured at the same time, same day next week!