Letter from America
Posted on Thu., Mar. 19, 2009
Friday 13th March 2009, 2.15 pm
Here I am, sitting on a bench in Union Square, Manhattan, New York. It's cold, but not too cold; the sky is a brilliant blue, the sun is shining and the air is crystal clear. Behind me is Broadway, with its constant stream of traffic. In front are the gardens in the middle of the square, the grass closed to pedestrians for the winter but not to the squirrels, who are busy rooting in the glossy green shrubs which line the pathways and the piles of leaves which have fallen from the trees.
I'm watching the people. A youngish girl walks past dressed in lime green, pale blue and pink, her outfit set off nicely by a beige furry hat with teddy bear ears. She sits down and eats a muffin, then she's off. A young man sitting next to me is drawing - the faint outlines of the trees appear beneath his pencil, then some people and the buildings behind. Opposite is an elderly lady in a big fur coat, a fur hat and trainers.
Between me and the road a farmers' market has been set up – stalls selling huge cheeses, joint of meat, vegetables and flowers. A man stands next to a camera on a tripod. He's been there for twenty minutes and he hasn't moved. Three girls are sitting on a park bench which has been lifted into the air on a platform. They have no visible means of getting down. They are chattering and waving their legs in the air.
I arrived in New York yesterday. This morning I saw my grandson, Henry, for the first time since Christmas – saw him walk for the first time, read him the books he fetched for me, sang The Wheels on the Bus twenty times, helped him with a jigsaw. When he went for his morning nap I walked to the subway and went to Bloomingdales, where I spent a pleasant half hour having my makeup done by a typical New Yorker whose aim was to make my skin look “dooey” (dewy!).
In a minute my son David will come a find me, smart in his business suit and dark overcoat, and we'll go to Pete's Tavern (the oldest bar in New York, est 1864) for a drink and then back to his apartment in Brooklyn on the subway, and I'll play with Henry again and help bath him and put him to bed.
Tomorrow I'll go for a walk with Henry and his father and we'll eat chocolate croissants and look at the view of Manhattan from the Brooklyn Promenade and wave to Lady Liberty. In the afternoon we'll take Henry to the Aquarium on Coney Island and see fish, sea lions and maybe a penguin. We'll go to the Boardwalk and look at the sea and the beach. We'll see the huge ferris wheel and Cyclone, a ricketty old rollercoaster ride made of wood.
On Sunday we'll go to the swings Henry will laugh and laugh as his daddy makes him go higher and higher and his mummy and I pretend to catch him as he comes down again. And then I'll say goodbye to them all and get back on the aeroplane and fly home.
But for now I'm happy to sit on my bench in the sunshine, watching the world go by and trying, just for a while, to make time go a little bit more slowly.
