One Perfect Day

5:00 a.m.

My stomach hurts from hunger.  It is five a.m. on a Sunday. I slept for three hours tonight but woke up at four a.m.

For my birthday, I received a DVD of Saraband and a bar of lettuce scented soap (I wonder what lettuce would smell like as a fragrance since I still can't smell anything) and went to tea at The Peninsula. The best scones in New York City, no arguments. I spent the morning in SoHo in the nice bookstore wrapping gifts for charity. An interesting day -- begin with a "good deed" (I don't like to think of volunteering that way, it seems too self congratulatory) and then end with genteel overindulgence at one of the most expensive hotels in the city.

We were served Earl Grey tea first and then Dragon Jasmine.  I found the jasmine too bitter but loved the way each leaf, before steeping, curled in over itself like tiny fiddlehead ferns.  When the water was poured in, the leaves unfurled and darkened like sage and the heady scent of jasmine rose so strong I  wanted to turn my head away.

Today, for my birthday again, I am going to the Frick to look at paintings and the garden in this gray winter light. After the museum closes there will be a concert (violin). Then dinner in Chinatown which I could skip but will attend and most likely enjoy. I would prefer to go a few blocks uptown and have dinner at Cafe Sabarsky but I am going to dinner with my friend who is unemployed. I know she will insist on buying dinner because of my birthday thing and because I paid for the concert tickets. Normally, I wouldn't care who pays but I watch out for this friend.  She seems on the verge of breaking (financially and emotionally) and doesn't seem to realize it herself.

She thinks dancing is going to fix everything. Oy vey.

Noon

It's raining now--lazy annoying rain. Can weather be described as perfunctory?  Why not rain all the way?

I move slowly.  My little apartment requires a lot of maintenance, picking up clothes, washing cups, gathering tissue (I am sick!) that litter my floor like puffs of cotton.  This apartment is so small that any mess shrinks the place and makes it look unkempt than it actually is.

When I think of the amount of space I live my days in, I actually find myself contemplating moving. And sometimes in the subway, when I feel someone's elbow dig into the middle of my back at rush hour, I consider it again.

If I ever do leave this city, the decision will be made in an instant like all the other decision on flight.  I am somewhat surprised I'm still here after all the crap this year.  My younger self would have fled and gone for reinvention in a new zip code. But this woman I have become insists on staying put.

11 p.m.


If I were seriously considering leaving this city, I would have changed my mind after going to the concert at the Frick Museum earlier in the evening. The violinist was young and German and had scars all over his face and neck.  He played Beethoven and Prokofiev.  The best part came at the end, three encores and two standing ovations -- he played bits of Carmen and for a minute I had to laugh because after the intermission, I kept thinking "this boy would play Carmen beautifully" even though Bizet was not in the program.  But old Georges made an appearance after all. The last piece I didn't recognize at all but the nicest surprise of the evening -- Liebesleid.

The scars on the violinist's face reminded me of Louis Kahn the architect.  I saw his face clearly after the performance when I went backstage to say hello.  So tonight I was a kind of groupie. It is always a wonder when I find myself so moved and makes me think of some woman who long ago told me that art heals --maybe she was not such a crackpot.