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Sunday, 16 November 2008

  • Over the past year, I've noticed a change in the homeless faces we see when we do outreach each month and there has been a distinct sense of disconnect between those we serve and those who do the serving. Many of the old faces are gone, disappearing into the deep shadows of the night's eye and it is only once in a while that I'll meet up with a familiar person from the past. It's been twenty years since I began this odyssey and instead of feeling that the old faces may have found a home, selfishly I find that I miss the contact with them. I thought about those first years  of doing outreach and I remembered the faces I sorely miss. I recalled my old and very dear friend we called The Professor, an educated man who was one of the infamous Broadway booksellers. He spent his profits on cheap vodka and invariably I'd find him sitting in the middle of Riverside Drive, quite drunk and quite content to simply "be."  Our friendship spanned a lot of years and a lot of episodes, from the eviction in 1993 to the phone call from Manhattan South, informing me of his death, requesting I come and identity him at the morgue. I did. He was my friend and on this chilly, cloudy Sunday, I'm filled with thoughts about him and the small community of homeless who lived under the West Side Highway and I miss them.
     
    Last night's run was hampered by the strangely warm and rainy weather for November but we did encounter some people who relied on us to be there. Earlier, there was a tornado warning that stretched the northeast corridor and I wondered if the kids would still want to participate. I'm not sure why I do so much thinking and questioning, but I suspect it has to do with the changes that are happening within my own life. I've become sensitive to changes in others' lives as well.
     
    My student leaders amaze me. We stopped in front of the park and while I went from group to group, making certain everyone had an opportunity to sign up for our annual Thanksgiving Dinner for the Homeless, I noticed how Nora was engaged in conversation with one of the Spanish-speaking men. She signed him up for the dinner and handed him a paper reminder so he knew where and when to catch the buses. Nora, who has always conversed with him in his tongue, had the foresight to print out reminders in both English and Spanish. Nora single-handedly had been breaking down the barriers between these men and the volunteers in our group for a long time and by extending herself using language as well as compassion, this face of homelessness was no longer distant, dark and disconnected. I realized how proud I felt of this teenager who is a resource unto herself and others and for the first time, I believe, we will have several Spanish-speaking homeless among our guests because someone took the time out to reach them in with their own words.
     
    Our last stop was along 79th Street under scaffolding. I request that the kids never wake those who are sleeping in their enthusiasm to connect, and so when we saw this sleeping man under a damp blanket, the kids went about the task of leaving food and toiletries as quietly as they could. Despite their efforts, he woke up and immediately I saw his familiar face and ran up to him, hugging him in the rain, so glad to see this very old friend once again.
     
    Charles is a member of the St. Mary's Episcopal Church choir and they sang at our dinner last year and brought the house down. I asked them to sing again this year and while Charles held court and spoke in his animated way to the kids surrounding him, I wished I had my camera with me to preserve the moment. He re-wrote an old Gospel song to exalt the election of Obama. I watched these kids, wide-eyed and engaged as he sang to the rainy Heavens, his heart and arms and soul extended, and all I could do was smile.
     
    The old faces do periodically appear, as Charles did last night, but now I know that the new faces, in the chaos of a failing economy, struggle with the cutbacks in programs and facilities, but  continue to be touched by these giving and tenacious teenagers. I know that there has been such progress in creating a new bond with these people who now understand what this outreach has been about. Last night was as eye-opening a run as my very first one twenty years ago and I have these astounding teenagers to thank for it.
     
     
     

Wednesday, 05 November 2008

  • Still I Rise

    by Maya Angelou

    You may write me down in history
    With your bitter, twisted lies,
    You may trod me in the very dirt
    But still, like dust, I'll rise.

    Does my sassiness upset you?
    Why are you beset with gloom?
    'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
    Pumping in my living room.

    Just like moons and like suns,
    With the certainty of tides,
    Just like hopes springing high,
    Still I'll rise.

    Did you want to see me broken?
    Bowed head and lowered eyes?
    Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
    Weakened by my soulful cries.

    Does my haughtiness offend you?
    Don't you take it awful hard
    'Cause I laugh like I got gold mines
    Diggin' in my own back yard.

    You may shoot me with your words,
    You may cut me with your eyes,
    You may kill me with your hatefulness,
    But still, like air, I'll rise.

    Does my sexiness upset you?
    Does it come as a surprise
    That I dance like I've got diamonds
    At the meeting of my thighs?

    Out of the huts of history's shame
    I rise
    Up from a past that's rooted in pain
    I rise
    I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
    Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

    Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
    I rise
    Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
    I rise
    Bringing the gifts my ancestors gave,
    I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
    I rise
    I rise
    I rise.

    © Maya Angelou, 1978.

Tuesday, 04 November 2008

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    © 2008 Jeanne Newman ~ Registered Copyright ~ ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
    Kindly do not reproduce this without written permission of the artist. Thank you

    "A baby is a blank cheque made payable to the human race."  ~ Barbara Christine Seifert



Sunday, 21 September 2008

  • The end of an era...Yankee Stadium

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    © 2008 Jeanne Newman ~ Registered Copyright ~ ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
    Kindly do not reproduce this without written permission of the artist. Thank you
     
    Linda Ruth Tosetti and Yankees' shortstop, Derek Jeter
     
    I edited all day in between listening and watching ESPN's coverage of this unique, intimate cathedral named Yankee Stadium...admittedly, I'm sad. I have spent many an afternoon, many an evening watching my favorite sport, baseball, and in less than an hour, the first ball of the last game to be played here, will be thrown out. My last game at this beloved monument was yesterday and it was a glorious day well-spent photographing my friend Linda who had been asked, as the granddaughter of Babe Ruth, to present an award to Derek Jeter, for surpassing a record made first by her infamous grandfather.
     
    If I close my eyes, I can still smell neet's foot oil, I can see myself as a 5 year old rubbing it into the worn leather of my older brother's catcher's mitt, the mitt I used in the sandlot next door to the apartment house where lived back then in the Bronx. I can safely see the boys of summer playing their game in the grainy black and white film of my mind's eye. I can relive the sparkle in my mother's face when Mel Allen would announce a homerun as "going, going gone!" I'm so deeply affected by this game of skill, of strength, of tenacity. Lives and careers have been made and broken on the bluegrass that carpets centerfield.
     
    Back in April, I had dinner with Linda and with Danny and David Mantle, Mickey's surviving sons and throughout the course of the evening I had to pinch myself to make sure this wasn't some odd dream. How my journey has taken these side trips is so beyond me. That's the God's honest truth.
     
    I will sit out this last game, watching it at home. I gave my ticket up for tonight and chose to simply watch it here. The sun is dipping beneath the Palisades, the dog is snoring loudly at the foot of my bed, and I'm enjoying the quiet evening alone. Yesterday was so memorable that I want to recall my last visit to the stadium as such.
     

Thursday, 11 September 2008

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    "They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old.
    Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
    At the going down of the sun and in the morning
    We will remember them."
     
    ~ Laurence Binyon