At Auntie's

I've lately been spending much of my time visiting with the godmother of my dad - a beautiful woman in her mid 80's with the sort of patience, kindness and cheerfulness one might hope to find, but would most assuredly lose somewhere between the age of 50 and 75. She still manages to live, with some help, in her own apartment in the West Village; a place she's called home for decades. There, she raised her children, watched the neighborhood shift and the neighbors come and go.

On my most recent visit, I called and asked her if she wanted me to pick anything up for her on the way. After a sweet reply of "No, thank you. I'm not hungry just yet..." came a naughty afterthought of " Well, maybe a doughnut...." And so we noshed on sweets and talked about uncles, great aunts, Guyana, Durban St., and the evolution of her fabulous head of thick, bright white-silver hair. Her home is a gallery of memories and comforts and has the warm, worn-in feeling of a quilt; a layered patchwork of time framed on the walls, displayed on the piano, and notched in the wooden floors. I'd like to make something like that of my own some day...

Auntie has visitors.

On this day, Susan stopped by. A neighbor of my Aunts, she is an eccentric older woman who clearly has a magnitude of everyday challenges of her own ( she is mentally disabled). She heroically swept in and announced that she was on her way to pick up Auntie's medication. I introduced myself "Hello, I'm Francesca" and she replied. "Francesca, the dancer. She looks like a dancer!" As we conversed, I discovered Susan was a poet and she demanded that I give her a word 'any word at all'! I did, and she proceeded to make up impromptu, little poems that rhymed perfectly. Here's the most amazing thing. Susan writes nine poems a week all of which are published in a pamphlet called 'Susan's Sampler'. She sells them for 5 dollars and the proceeds go to The First Presbyterian Church around the corner. That's around 450 poems a year. I have an autographed copy of one of her latest publications and I have to say that her writing is beautiful.

Susan left almost as quickly as she came; nestling her hands around my aunts hair and exclaiming "Like the rain from the Virgin Mary!" before walking out the door.

"In the ghost land of the harbor, when there is no

tomorrow, when the fog and mist are coming in

I could be from anywhere. I could be from everywhere...

For a second I am speechless. For a moment I see beauty.

In the fog caressing mist there are dissolving castles...

In the distance is Manhattan beautifully invisible...

In the ghost land of the harbor, when there is no

tomorrow, when the fog and mist are coming in "

-Susan Makinen, Manhattan in My Mind