First Street

Another weird dream. The situation: I am on a narrow path through tangled brush in an unfamiliar land, and I must walk fifty-eight miles. There are a few other people nearby, all strangers, and all tasked with the same challenge, but better prepared, and carrying supplies, and they are not particularly willing to help me out. I find two peaches, or somehow they appear, and I wrap them in a napkin, and these will be my sustenance, and I tell myself that I can do it, one step at a time, because I have no choice. Why fifty-eight miles? I have no idea. I wake in the night and try to unlock some kind of meaning in all this, to no avail. But one aspect of it pleases me: my resolve to complete the hike somehow, step by step.

I’m getting that way. Peculiarly resolved, even in my dreams. I am full of grief and fear, but nonetheless determined. Maybe it’s a form of lunacy, or denial, but I refuse to simply yield. Death will find us. We might as well be in the midst of living when it does, and striving, and believing. My ancestors dreamed this message into me before I was born.

California is burning. You’ve probably heard. And environmental catastrophes are unfolding everywhere. Here at the ranch, the air is hazy and hot, and the beauty of the place is muted, except at certain moments when there is something stark and exquisite about all of it, in the way that bleakness contrasts with beauty, thus enhancing it, and terror underscores wonder, and fragility renders everything more precious.

In politics, which has become so much more than politics, brazen abuses continue, but we have been buoyed by the Democratic Convention. Oh, how we have missed that kind of decency and humanity and fervent commitment to the ideals of democracy! Next week the “other side” will run its fear-based circus of malice and lies, and let us hope it’s a last gasp. These years (that have felt like eons) with trump have been utterly exhausting, even before the pandemic. But I am not trying to convince anyone, because if the choice isn’t obvious at this point, the brainwashing is probably irreversible. I spent some time trying to understand the mind set, but things have only gotten uglier, more dangerous, even bizarre. It’s gone too far.

Anyway, the picture above turned up as I was looking for something else, and I stared into it with fascination, savoring the stories that it tells. In the complex construction of my history, these stories are molecules, and my own life continues them. That’s my father to the left, along with Joe Gullo and Ray Elardo, his two best friends, and I would estimate the date to have been the late 1920s. It was a hot summer day, and they had fled the Brooklyn streets–First Street, to be precise–for a day at the beach. (I looked at a map once to try to figure out which beach it might have been. Coney Island? Brighton? It looks like they could have taken the MTA straight through, but someone with more Brooklyn savvy would have to confirm.)

And there they are, gazing into the future, paused, but poised for whatever comes next. Their mutual alliance gives them strength and solace; the affection among them is palpable. (Even when I was a little girl, I remember my father speaking of Ray and Joe with fondness.) It’s a very faded photo, but it still conveys the ambiance of that urban seashore, ghost-like figures in the background close together, getting sandy and sweaty. It doesn’t seem like a refreshing experience, but it was clearly an escape, and the boys were feeling their oats. The caption, written by my father, is what charms me most: “First Street is a street made by God for us to lick it.”

That’s my father for you. He rose to every challenge, and despite the relentless struggles and burdens that awaited him, he never lost his sense of dignity and purpose. He conquered many adversaries, kept on learning, and led a life of love and sacrifice. I am older now than he was when he died, but he is teaching me still. This difficult, pivotal moment in history is my fifty-eight miles to traverse; this very day is my First Street, and I guess I better lick it. Our story doesn’t end this way, and it doesn’t end now.