Leaving New York

Portrait of Anne by Helen Kritzler

Gallery Elena

Leaving New York

Wednesday April 13 2005

Warm May-like pretty Spring day. Slight breeze ruffling the leaves. O I can feel it on my face too. It is very gentle.

That is the call of the cactus wren. It is spirited. 3 birds took off together, they all alit on my mesquite tree. They twittered for an instant and took off. One alit for an instant on my windowsill on its way to somewhere. It was a sparrow.

It sure changes my view that now I look thru a bank of green leaves. I like this kelly green world. It is a happy day. I can feel the wellspring of happiness.

O sparrow is on the branch. Their tummies are dovegrey.

The sky has some white streaky clouds to the north. And I can see some fainter ones to the west.

O there is Bill arriving in yard, with his cup o' coffee. He is wearing checked pajama bottoms, white tee shirt, carrying cup o' coffee in one hand and “How to fix bicycles” manual in other hand, and his Jets hat. He is in the middle of the greenery, all I can see is his arm. O I see his system. He puts down the big cup of coffee on the ground, picks it up for sip or two, puts it back on the ground and opens up his how to fix bicycles book. Hahaha he is camouflaged by the leaves.

Jim in pool told me all the beautiful places he had visited. The islands in the Caribbean where he snorkeled and windsailed with his wife Annie. The islands of Maui and another beautiful island in Hawaii, and I think he has also been to the French Polynesian islands. He didn't describe those to me but he said that is where he will move when he wins the lottery. He tried to describe the beauty of the waterfalls on the island of Maui by referring to “Indiana Jones.” “Remember the part in the beginning in the jungle, that was filmed there.” I really didn't remember it at all but I said I did. Maybe he read my mind because he said “remember Bali Hai in 'South Pacific', it was filmed there.”

This time he connected. How can I ever forget the scenes from Bali Hai in the movie “South Pacific.” They are etched into my brain. I saw the movie at the Valencia in Jamaica, Queens when I was a teenager. It must have been on a weekend afternoon, and I took the bus, and went by myself. Movies in the movie theater are framed by the experience of going to them. Where I was then in life, and where the movie theater was located. Bali Hai is framed by Jamaica Queens and seen thru the eyes of 16 year old young woman who drank it all in.

It is funny to be in a swimming pool in Tucson Arizona, halfway to Bali Hai, recollecting it now with Jim. It gave me the feeling I had reached half way to the paradise I had drank in in the Valencia movie theater in Jamaica.

It wasn't a random choice to move to the southwestern desert. It began off in my dreams when I still lived in NYC. There were a series of dreams for a month or two. And when the dreams ended I had arrived in Tucson. Altho naturally I had no idea that is where my dreams were leading me. I did not expect to move.

I still remember the first dream.

In that dream I visited the palace of great glowing Goddess. The palace is where the Goddess dwelt. I didn't know whether it was in California, Arizona, or Nevada. I was vague about the Southwest when I lived in NYC. But it was somewhere in the Southwest.

At the time I didn't know the dream had anything to do with me, I woke up in the morning just lost in the glory of having spent the night with a Goddess in a palace in the glowing Southwest. I just felt so privileged and so blessed to have had that dream. I felt touched by the divine. But it was at the point when I was still writing down my dreams in a book each morning, and I remember now the dreams continued, nothing like the Goddess and being at her palace, but all having to do with being in California. I think in my dreams it was always California, but the CA of the Southwest.

These dreams continued as my NYC life fell down around me, and finally the definitive dreams began.

I dreamt I was at the candy store, Gem Spa. Originally an old NYC cigar store, which sold magazines, ice cream cones, and fountain drinks, on the corner of St Mark’s Place and 2nd Avenue, a few blocks from my apartment. And I ordered a chocolate egg cream. In my dream I said to myself “this is my last chocolate egg cream from Gem Spa.” Then I crossed 2nd Avenue to head home, and 2nd Avenue changed from a city block on the Lower East Side, to desert, heading steeply down to water down below, and I started to head into the desert.

That could have been an afternoon dream when I dozed off, or was the dream the night before.

Because the following night
I dreamt my big cousin Carl was in NYC from San Francisco, and he saw a beautiful Monet painting he wanted, it must have been “Water Lilies." He did not know if he should buy it, but I consulted with his mom, my aunt Esther, who was in Heaven, but in my dream she was available to consult. “Go for it” she said. So I said to Carl “go for it.” I told Carl “I am a great girl friday, I will bubble wrap your painting to death, insure it for a million dollars, and send it to you." So Carl decided to buy it.

That evening as I sat at my kitchen table with my life in smithereens again and I asked my Higher Self the old familiar question, “what should I do?” I didn't get the old familiar answer. The old familiar answer was always “Do nothing, I love you, calm down, have a cigarette, have a cup of coffee, have a piece of cake, have a second piece of cake, here let me pour a cup of coffee for you and cut you a piece of cake.”

This time the answer I got was “Move.”

“Move where?” I asked.

“Move to Tucson, your aunt is there, she can help you.”

“But what about all my stuff?”

“Just leave it behind” she said, “take your writing and your computer and that's all.”

“But how can we get there, we have a dog and no drivers license and no car?”

“Take the airplane, the airplane accepts dogs.”

“But how can I do it, if I can't even think about it?”

“Don't think about it,” she said, “just do it.”

So now I knew the decision was up to me. I was terrified to decide yes. But I did. And instantly I made the decision I knew it was the right decision. I was flooded with liberation. I knew I had decided to be free and I was free. In that instant I had left NYC. I hadn't arrived in the Southwest yet, but an old life ended, new one had begun.