the beginnings of goodbye

I wrote this back in February of 2010.  And now, given the circumstances, I think it is appropriate to post here.

I discovered Greenpoint by accident on a really good day.  K had just finished cutting my hair in the courtyard of my building to the accompaniment of B’s sound effects and singing. “How does your hair get so BIG?”  His explosive poof sounds illustrating my giant hair’s refusal to be less giant, even under enthusiastic sheers, made it hard for K to cut straight from the laughing.  We were twenty-three.  Terrified. A year out of college, broke, and clueless.  And only sometimes aware of how happy we were.  It was a Wednesday and none of us had anywhere to be, so we decided to leave my apartment in Williamsburg and go exploring.  The three of us, one with a lighter head, set out for a walk in the new spring warmth, talking a mile a minute, sometimes singing, pointing out the things we found beautiful. We walked in circles.  We lost track of time.  But then we were pointing again and again and again.  Look at the tumble of rocks by the river.  Look at those crisscrossed pathways above that factory.   Look at those tiny bakeries with the pastries that smell like jam.  Look at the way the trees make a canopy over the brownstones.  Look at those wild cats, see how they stare at us?  Everything was beautiful.  

We ran laps around McGolrick park, eyeballed baskets of plum tomatoes at the grocers, peeked our noses into overgrown gardens, tried to count how many of the houses were magic, and walked with our heads tilted back to see to the top of the houses. When the sun finally set over the river and a hush of darkness fell on the streets, we rested our feet at the Pencil Factory and sighed.   K said it before I could.  “One day, when I get a job, I’m going to move here.”

I have lived in Greenpoint for a while now, long enough to see the majority of my twenties pass.  Just a hiccup compared to the old lady who has lived in my building longer than I’ve been alive.  So I feel a little silly saying that I love this neighborhood as if it were a person, but it’s true.  I love the unassuming, straight-lined architecture of the factories by the river.  I love the tumbles of gardens on the smaller streets. I love the expression on the face of the grocery cat on Manhattan Ave.  I love how the man at the hardware store once put his hands on his hips and said  “Wellllll?” when I walked past, waiting to hear how the paint looked that he had sold me earlier that week.  “It looks beautiful,” I told him. Whenever my family visits from out of town, they say, Greenpoint feels like Israel, or like Holland, or any place that feels like home.

I play this game when I walk home from the subway, and try to memorize the houses on my block.  I can’t do it yet.  I know there’s the one that looks like a magic castle with spiderweb grates on the windows, and there’s the church with musicians often playing in the front yard.  I know there is the tan brick building with the old man who used to sit outside and say “if only I was young again.”  There’s the brown house with the rickety wooden porch where that guy used tell everyone “nice day, nice day,” no matter what the weather.  That’s just the left side.  The right side is harder.  It goes church, garden, garden, garden.  I haven’t memorized the gardens yet. 

It’s different here than in other parts of Brooklyn.  I’m not sure why.  There’s something about the proximity to the river, being able to smell the water on clear days, or the way the neighborhood is bookended by dramatic warehouses and factories that sets it apart.  It’s a partnering of a small village feel with something darker and more exciting, especially when you try to park your car down there at night.  The neighborhood doesn’t have that upscale quality so common to Park Slope or Fort Greene.  It’s Greenpoint.  It’s grittier. There’s bad stuff here, a  sewage treatment plant that makes the north end stink on rainy days, an oil spill under the water that oil executives make only a show of cleaning up. You can go for a walk in the quiet of the night, snake your fingers through the fence at the Newton Creek, hang your head over the water and feel like you’re on an adventure.  Is the water really flammable?  Has anyone tried to ignite it?  Then you can take a different way home through tree-lined streets and discover a homemade garden sculpture tucked away between two apartments.

During the mayoral debate this year, the incumbent declared that he was all for preserving neighborhoods. Some neighborhoods.  But in Greenpoint, he said, where there’s space for it, he plans on putting massive new housing- lines of forty-story condos all along the river. 

Nothing is permanent. All things end.  But knowing that can change your perspective. And so when I walk back from the subway, I try to memorize my home before the crowds get here with their giant, sterile towers.  One house at a time.  Church, garden, garden, garden.