One of those posts that serves as a marker for future me, noting the kinds of things that seem like furniture now and I may someday nostalgically long for.
Saw Queen of Katwe last night, the second in the "films that have significant Zohran Mamdani relevance" diptych. (First was Mississippi Masala, the film that is the reason he exists, as his mother met his father in the process of researching it. Then Zohran worked on Queen of Katwe and it marks one of the peaks of his rap career.)
Leonard and I are making friends with a couple who live in our neighborhood. We walked over and administered a NAAT, we chatted, they tested negative for COVID, we unmasked, we started the movie, we ate delivery Thai and then chocolate-pecan brownies that Leonard made, we talked some more, Leonard went home and I stayed hours later as the conversation just kept going. And then I walked home a few minutes, in the skin-warm air on the nearly empty streets aglow with building lights and streetlamps.
I now know enough people in my neighborhood that it feels decidedly normal to see someone I recognize when I'm walking around for ten minutes. That really wasn't true two years ago. A few weeks ago I celebrated the one-year anniversary of sitting at that outreach table every weekend. I have regulars now.
Not too long ago I was accompanying my niece on a vacation. Whenever we needed to cross a street, I asked to please hold her hand. After several hours she said, "You know, you don't have to ask." It touched me, just as it touches me when an adult friend and I agree that we are on hugging terms, that we don't need to ask each time anymore.
The snow early this year, and the subsequent weeks of below-freezing temperatures, turned New York City into an icescape. I got accustomed to a flat layer of white atop everything, except in the specific paths humans had carved. When it melted I felt disoriented. There's a saying that it takes three weeks to form a habit; perhaps more broadly it can take as little as three weeks to normalize the alien, for good and for ill. Now the streets are bare and the trees are budding with green leaves, first small, but soon large enough that their branches will block out the hot sun and their shadows will sweep the hot bare asphalt as the wind sways them. And I'll get used to that, and it will feel like the way the world is, and then those leaves will color and wither and fall.
The Mamdani administration held a rally to celebrate the first 100 days of his administration. They played two pre-made videos: one tying his aspirations to the legacy of Fiorella LaGuardia, and one summarizing the administration's accomplishments so far. The former used the song "New York, New York" as background music. Sentimental, patriotic (or whatever the proper term is for city-based pride), and ambitious. A few weeks ago, a local activist group held a singalong in a local park -- it was chilly enough that most of us were wearing beanie hats, and we laughed when we realized that the colors of those hats formed a decent rainbow. We sang "Bread and Roses" and "American Pie" and "Closer to Fine" and "Solidarity Forever" and a bunch of other stuff. Many people (re)discovered "Bread and Roses" because of Lucy Dacus's performance at Mamdani's inauguration.
Well a theme definitely emerged there. Future Sumana, I hope this is helpful or interesting, and I hope you're doing well.