CuppaGemma

I grew up on this Island in a house less than a mile from the sea. There were gulls which would land in our backyard. The boardwalk alongside the orange sand is long and large. The benches have the grey color that comes when wood and salt meet for a long time.

But if I brought you to the shore first we might not go anywhere else because the sea is full of stories and I would hope you would stay through the tide turning with me and walk all the way down and back again. I wouldn’t tell you how many miles it was until after, because it is better not to expect to how far our steps would be.

I would try to talk you into watching the sunset and if the weather was warm enough and the lifeguard chairs were out, I would most certainly wake you against your will and take you and some fresh coffee there. We would have to watch the sun rise. Then I would let you go back to sleep until a more reasonable hour.

But of course one must be practical, so let me show you other things first and save that one, the most interesting of all if you ask me, for another day. And hope that one night would spill in such a way it would close with the sun, and my idea wouldn’t be so odd at all and I wouldn’t have to rumple you and your raised eyebrow out of bed.

Likely we would be at the diner from the end of somewhere else and talk while we looked at the music selections on the juke box and watched the boys mop up the other room because not so many people would be there at half past three. And we ought to share something because the portions are too big but quite nice. I wouldn’t share my pickle with you though. And please tell me to have tea not coffee or I will never get tired. Then we could sleep all of Sunday because nothing much starts till eleven anyway.

I’d show you the Bridge in the dark when the Verrazano looks like a great gateway back to Brooklyn. We could go there for a night out because Bay Ridge is somewhere with faster steps and more things to do. The El and 86th street are like cities of their own. And the rumble of the trains above used to scare me in the most exciting way as I stood under them where it was dusty and dark, the traffic signals were painted green and the big cars would go by. Brooklyn still has corner pizza shops with window service and zeppole that are hot and wonderful.

I remember when I was small that the world there smelled of oregano and little grocers with big wooden cartons full of plums and nectarines. There were lots of Grandmothers with little metal push carts taking home bread, milk and things from the butcher for dinner. I would take bits of sawdust in my pocket and get in trouble after the laundry was done. And sometimes we would go to the Williamsburg bank which was like walking back into 1930. The tellers were behind these brass little partitions and there was a large worn marble floor. I always wanted to go down into the vault because it had a door thicker than my arm was long and you had to sign things twice to get in.

But we haven’t gotten to Brooklyn yet.

So first I must take you on the train to somewhere else. I would point you down to the Boulevard and tell you we have to go “above” it which simply means to cross the street. We would walk up the metal stairs painted in tan and brown to the train tracks that run along Railroad Avenue, North and South each of which are one ways.

But then we would have to stop again. And I would show you New Dorp Lumber and Mrs Rosemary’s Dance Studio which is still in a little yellow building and they teach girls how to stand straight and learn to be graceful.

Although then I would have to stop here for a bit more and take you to Andrew’s Bakery which has been there for forever as far as I know. I would point out the Lane Movie theater which seems only to be for rent and inside is art deco but no one has been quite able to save it yet. I would show you the side streets along New Dorp Lane where the Sycamore trees are so thick they break up the sidewalks like little rolling slopes and you can’t even put your arms all the way around them. We could walk up to Richmond Road past the church and the old telephone building with the new sign.

But we must come back to the train and get to where we are going. There is a destination, though I rather like taking you on so many short little tangents like excursions into dead end streets.

The train is a little four coach car that runs all the way down to the ferry, and that’s how we could get into the city. The boat is wonderful at night because you kind of forget the molded plastic seats, the paper bags and newspapers on them and have a nice view of different parts of famous places and I would mix up the names of the bridges and hope you wouldn’t notice.

The ride is only thirty minutes though. The boat is solid and heavy and goes across the water like a steam roller flattening the waves. There were wooden slips and carved copper walkways. But they have changed it now for a free ride with lots of cement and smooth steel and LED signs.

And the city, like my Island, is old and new and terrible and perfect depending upon where you chose to stand. That is why I will only take you between places. When I walk in straight lines, acid keeps scraping my eyes with black grumbles full of briars.

There is a whole industry dedicated to the onerous task of relationships. I purposely didn’t put a descriptive adjective there because depending upon whom you read or what you are looking for, that could mean improving them, strengthening them, revitalizing them, rebuilding them, redirecting them or maybe even sauteeing them with butter. I will have to fact check the last one, but it wouldn’t surprise me.

These are some of the titles I have come across, “Ten sure fire ways to get your guy to talk, really talk”, “How to open your man’s heart without him even knowing”, and “Five questions every man will want to answer”. This makes me wonder if there is a companion site posting themes such as, “How to get your girl to be quiet”, “Five ways to get her to quit nagging you and not sleep on the sofa”, and “How to stop a redundant conversation once and for all and still keep her smiling”.

Men and women communicate differently. This is probably the cornerstone on which every book about relationships is based. So what? Different ways of communicating does not mean we can’t. It just means we have to learn how.

Some men lament that women go on and on about the same things over and over again. We will beat the ghost of the horse into glue if you let us. But is that really always the case? Sometimes, maybe. Sometimes not.

There are times when our re-explorations are kind of like the sports news. If I know the final score is there anything else that needs to be said here? Show me the scoring drives and let’s return to the weather report.

But 3-2 wouldn’t tell me anything about what happened to get us there. Just the tally, which is beside the point when you really care about the team or the sport. It’s not the end result, but the middle that makes the exchange what it is. If I just know the score, I don’t know much at all.

I don’t know the tension in the coach’s face, the injury suffered by a key player, the save so close they had to check three different camera angles several times over before making the final call.

I don’t know they walked into the game and everyone said, they will not succeed. No way. Except they came in so strong and tight that their glides across the ice even catch the eyes of non fans with awe. Way.

They make you want to understand how to skate that fast in tune with your mates and the puck. They lost the series, but did you see Game Six? That’s what the people who really love the team remember.

When you see the hunger in the players eyes or those last minutes when something other then adrenaline is going all across the field. When a father stands up and the cameras let you into a moment of family pride. You can’t just cite the numbers. Because I forgot the actual score, I just remember everything else that happened. That’s telling it like it is, wouldn’t you agree Mr Cosell?

And sometimes our explorations are like an artist practicing a song. Yes, the chords are C F G and they are in time, but no they didn’t sound just right, so I’ll do it again. And again and again. Till you feel the guitar weeping and something that is a wee bit more than twelve bar blues coming back. Till you can hear what is under the notes. That has nothing to do with playing the music just right, it is playing the pauses and finding the way to bend the notes into your own little shapes, almost like handmade commas. When you have heard a piece like that, you must try twice as hard as you know how to give back a gentle harmony.

And women of course lament in return that we only receive little replies that give us vagaries of the highest order. You are onions making us all weep! So we must become like crusaders flipping through the dictionary with one hand, flagstaff raised in the other to determine, “What exactly do you mean?” Except even the most dedicated Oxford researcher will never be able to write a page about what’s inside “my you”. Those are things only to be found in that moment, by paying close attention to everything around it. Like feeling the sense of a long deep breath without trying to analyze exactly where your diaphragm is in each instance of the inhale.

Perhaps, we have not quite understood how to listen. There are times when less is more and we may forget that much is bundled in tiny phrases or common words. The shortest poem is two words, coined by Muhammad Ali. He is credited with delivering this poem to Harvard graduates in the early seventies, “Me we”.

Think about that for a moment.

No one spends their life in elegant phrases and with their backs straight. Our red silk evening bags are not meant for the corner grocery. But a brown paper parcel is strong and does what it needs to. It lasts without being anything it is not. We spend more time at the deli than the ballet.

Perhaps indices of comfort and companionship are at the end of a long afternoon when someone can say, “This is nice”, and “I am glad you are here”. The joy and calm that are found in these moments of tenderness doesn’t need to be overproduced, simply honest.

Because Ladies, we are all duly suspicious of phrases that drip with sweet much the way we are of that lovely chocolate cake. The one with the frosting, mousse and raspberry sauce. It’s not really wholesome and will spoil us in the wrong way. It’s not the sort of thing you can last on for a long time. Different than a sandwich with a little bit of everything and a swipe of butter all the way across the top.

A relationship, is the learning of the how. A very particular how that is really only between one man and one woman. They are a unique dyad who learn by paying attention to one another. So sometimes he tells a little more, or she a little less. It is learning how to listen, so when you share conversations they are in a language all your own.