The Reading Spot

Thinking of my reading spot. The spot I sit in now. The burgundy pillow pushed up against the arm of the old tan couch. My shoulder bone shelved against one of four pillow points, curled like withered leaves in winter.

There's a spit-up stain beneath me and I remember how I stood hunched over a toothbrush and clump of baking soda, sprayed cleansers, sighed at the distorted rings of forever, as they blackened like mildew into the folds.

I read here. I write. I watch television and movies. Tyler stands at the edge of the kitchen counter, waiting for risotto to plump. Buttered onions seer my vision. I sink into the heat of our summers. I listen to the clang of the metal heater, the croak of the wobbly kitchen table as my son slams his plastic car against its limping wooden leg.

There are days I push forward, scoot my bottom to the crack of the cushions, close my eyes and wish for a few moments of quiet, before a sticky hand is at my thigh, a knee at my knee, my boy breathing through his stuffed-up nose with a book in his hands.

Because this is the reading spot. This is years of a butt-marked dip in the catalog couch, with its velcroed cushions and the lump and sag of never-forgetting. This is the spot where the laptop fidgets against my thighs, where the overhead light cuts at the sharp edge of books from the Brooklyn Public Library, the Strand, Book Court, and the rug of my old bedroom.

This is where, he knows, we read.

In the light of the moon a little egg lay on a leaf. And a tiny finger goes from one white round circle to the other. From egg to moon. Two gaps amongst splotches of wet-paint color.

Together we sink deeper. We carve our places in the space we make for words.

You have a reading spot, too, I bet.

Halloween Here and There

I love Halloween here in Brooklyn. It's more festive than anywhere I've lived. With all the brownstones and apartments and local shops so close together, the streets are lined with people and store clerks giving out candy. There are a lot of families in our neighborhood and people come out in spectacled groups, sequined and felted, wielding plastic swords and scepters, with wild head-pieces and spooks. The leaf colors are at their peaks and it's just before we lose the lushness of our tree-lined streets and things become more stark and cold.

This year, Little O was a duck, an outfit chosen because it's a word he says emphatically. He sends his arm out, like a saluting soldier, pointing at anything in books or in life that closely resembles the feathery creature (rubber duckys, baby chicks, yellow dots). Then he calls it out with gusto: duck! 

At first, the costume made him grumpy. He ripped off his duck-billed hat and the velcro-ed web feet. Then we went to a Halloween party at his daycare, which we call school (which he calls coooool), and everyone fussed over how cute he was, so he finally understood the costume was an attention-getter, and, therefore, a welcome addition to his life.

Later, while trick-or-treating, he learned that holding out his orange and black bag would award him more oohs and ahhs, so he proudly accepted candy, with no concept that his parents would be the eager recipients of the fruits of his labor later that night.

After a long afternoon wandering the streets we went to a child-friendly bar serving pumpkin beer for the adults (we do it right here in Brooklyn) and a mound of french-fries for Little O to share with one of his little buddies.

I kept remarking to my own Dad the kind of 'damage' I could have done had I grown up in this neighborhood on Halloween. I was the kid who came home with pillow case-sized bags of loot, wandering late into the evening with my friends. Halloween was a mission to traverse as much sidewalk and bang on as many doors to get as much candy as I possibly could. 

I remember this woman 'around the corner', as we always said, who gave out whole candy bars on Halloween. They were Ronald McDonald bars -- something I haven't really seen since (though a google search tells me they can be ordered and personalized to sell for fundraising efforts) and she had a giant wheel in front her home, like one you'd steer on an old ship. She wasn't like our immediate next-door neighbor, who gave out pennies if you dared to knock on her door, who once refused to give me any despite giving them to my friends, because, who knows, any one of her crotchety, old lady excuses would do.  

We knew which houses gave the best and the worst treats of the day. We knew which darkened porches to avoid and which streets were too dangerous to cross. We knew the land like we'd settled and mapped it ourselves. 

It made me smile to think, no matter where Little O ends up doing his growing, he'll, hopefully, have his own Halloween land to map out too.