Brother and Grandma Herta cleaning an old bicycle and Grandpa Maury and I in the background.

I had just finished working at the greenhouse, Gullies Greenhouse in Fort Collins, CO when I got word that my grandmother had passed. I took the Amtrack from Denver to New York City for 300.00$ and met my father in New Jersey.

We had the memorial service in a catholic church and I was asked to read a selection from the Bible. I’m told that I was baptized and In New Jersey I sometimes go to church but I was not as comfortable with being asked to read from the Bible as I was quick to agree, the logic being if asked to do so, then for the ease of ceremony. I’m not fond of emotional engagements and drama off stage, I am unafraid of conflict and I am pro reclusive. Often of the social personality of charm and wit, but I often show restraint and seek quite as soon as possible.

We cremated Grandma’s body. I had put my hand on the coffin, a silver ring from mother tapped the surface memorably.

We had dinner and I sat at the bar, cousins nearby and people approaching and walking away after a few words. I was holding no conversation.

After all was said and done, I went to New Jersey to see a friend who was working on his masters. He took me to a bar and I played an open mic. They had just put a baby grand piano in the bar room and if I recall correctly, I was the first to play it. I improvised somthing with a familiar chord structure that turned out quite unique.

I wanted to go to Brooklyn. I had looked up a venue while in CO called the Owl Music Parlor. I found Bohio Music and the date they were to play lead from the funeral into the unknown. I was travelling open endedly with no train ticket back.

A Rainbow in Brooklyn

I took an Uber from the Hostel in Manhattan to Brooklyn and walked to the Owl. The beautiful and bold precense of Bohio Music filled the show space, a small bar separated from a stageless hall, the musicians and performers on the same level as the audience.

“Riva Nyri Précil moves between Haiti’s spiritual and artistic traditions and a striking, worldly perspective forged in Brooklyn” – nycfreeconcerts.com

And so went the performance. A foolish part of me was prepared to jump out of my seat and dance for her like I was presenting myself. I sat and took a short video instead, internally I was elated.

I left the venue after briefly talking to the band and to lovely Riva. I passed on a joint knowing I had a spliff to roll in my pocket. I had decided to walk the several miles over the Manhattan Bridge.

Hours after midnight I inspected the oldest architecture and sat in parks, crossing through arches and drinking a beer I had bought at the corner store.

The Brooklyn Library

Power and grandure, history, mythology, and the ancients. How did they build like this? There is a painting I had seen that depicted a robed Jesus sitting on a rock in the wilderness overlooking a construction of a building with Roman colums. His expression of sparrow and confusion about their work, tells of the wisdom of sages like Lao Tzo, Prince Siddhartha the Buddha, and Jesus Christ himself. These constructs of man and their illusions of permanence… what a problem, what a game, I don’t know whether to protest or play…

Graffiti and voice about I walked past the Brooklyn Library crossed the bridge solo in a state of wonderousness.

As so was my time in the city. I spent several days walking around without much of plan before beckoned the humiliating presence of that which dare consider contesting the developments of man, that which promts one to eye the bench in the park and requests a dirty, sweat staind shirt, and a passed out body with a swollen gut. It could be you oh righteous wanderer… and so it goes. I bought a plane ticket home to help my father move to NM.

Death brought me from the closed doors and windows of where I had been living and Bohio Music brought me to Brooklyn. A long walk brought the architects dream to experience and I pondered the beauty of it all where schedules cease to exist and plans loosely shape the framework of experience.