6/11 Back in NY, Albany Day One

    Glad to have you back diligent reader! When last we spoke, it was Wednesday the 11^th. I'd arrived in an overcast Albany, a place I'd never been, with a poetry reading on the horizon and no solid plans of where I'd be staying the night. Luckily, both of those things panned out in my favor! Lets experience the Capital city shall we?

Welcome to Albany (the helpfulness of strangers)

  I was still nervous when I'd arrived at the Albany bus station at 5pm because no attempt to stay with people in town panned out either through other friends or messages I'd sent on Couchsurfing.org. I sent out one last mass text to some friends who I knew lived in upstate NY, asking if they had any friends in Albany, and explaining my predicament. My good friend Jill Drwal was texting me and had given me a call saying that her friend Danielle lived in Albany and had a potential place for me to stay but she'd have to wait until around 7 O'clock or so I know if those plans were solid. While I nervously anticipated a response I began following my handwritten directions to the Capital Pride Center where the impending poetry reading that Mojavi suggested was to be held.

     I walked the craggy bumpy streets and kept getting lost. Eventually, I comically took out the GPS I brought with me that I usually use for my car at home and got that to work! Primitive and embarrassing to some but it got the job done, the little GPS roughly the size of a tennis ball! Roughly 20-30 minutes I spent walking up and down these hills and along highways, passing by the Romanesque architecture of the Capital building reminiscent of both Washington D.C. and Italy. If you've never been, the capital city is rather unique and by upstate standards in pretty good shape! There were also half a dozen ornate Brobdingnagian churches that towered over the neighborhoods with an antique gaudiness. 

  

 These churches and buildings of the plaza business section was contrasted interestingly against the winding side streets, bordered with rows of interconnected houses as you might see in New York City, but often with ornate dollhouse garnishes and furnishings, the stairs alternating from house to house with various eclectic colors, feeding into the sidewalk. When I reached the Pride Center at 332 Hudson ave the only thing distinguishing this from any other building was a small sign dangling evenly above the door reading “Pride Center of the Capital region” Empowering our Community. I knocked on the door, was told that I had arrived too early and a meeting was in effect, a little cafe around the corner was recommended. Having carried all my luggage and eager to just settle somewhere I was mildly chagrined but Lil Buddha Tea was very close and didn't disappoint. Stepping down from the sidewalk into a quaint room with books and tables and zen vibes abundant, I ordered a bubble tea (tea with tapioca balls in it..try it, its weird but addictive!) which was more expensive than I'd have liked but delicious cherry flavored black tea. I got some writing and reading done in a welcoming, if a tad cramped due to my luggage, environment while I waited.

Live In The Living Room Poets

   When finally arriving at the poetry reading, it was a small room in the “garden level” part of the building, meaning you stepped down into this room that felt like a side room in a library. I was greeted by the gregarious and whimsical amicable host Don Levy as well as some poets, Sampson and Keith Spencer, eventually more writers poured in slowly, Tim, Sylvia, Julie, Emily, Elizabeth Gordon, Bob and the feature for that night, Shannon Shoemaker. Everyone seemed to be a tight and active community but they endeavored not to make me feel like an outsider, everyone shared poems that ranged from relationship topics to struggles with homosexuality, “man-crying”, sensual poems and non-eulogies for the thankfully deceased fred phelps. I shared my poems “Termagant” and “Anti-Social-Net-Work-Ethic” to generous applause and reactions. Shannon's birthday was Saturday so they surprised her with a birthday cake, it was excellent to see such love and friendship unabashedly shared, the reading had a very lighthearted informal feel that still managed to maintain a clear respect for the happenings. If every you are in town the second Wednesday of the month, I'd recommend you attend and say hello to Don and make some good friends in this little family!

Learning lives in the amber ambiance

     Around 9, with the ambiguity of my lodging looming, having yet to hear from Jill's friend Danielle, I agreed to go out to a nearby bar that is a post-reading tradition for the Pride Center poets. Shannon, Emily, Don and I drove together, we climbed in full of laughs and went toPalais (rhymes with “ballet”) Royale that has a ton of history and has been around for decades and decades evidently!. We got to know one another, they gave me a wealth of information as far as poetry readings in the central New York Area. I thought it was hilarious when I was telling Tim how active the Long Island scene is and how there is such a beautiful and overwhelmingly available poetry and music community full of opportunities back home and he was shocked, thinking the area was dead or lifeless artistically. The conversation was ebbing and flowing in the amber and wood lit bar, while classic rock poured out the jukebox we exchanged stories, opinions on writing and such. In a sort of serendipitous happening, Sampson and Shannon discovered that despite never having seen one another they work for the same company, and in the same field as me with kids with developmental disabilities! I wonder if it has something to do with the empathy of the artistic and poetic writer types that draws us to that sort of altruistic, if frustrating work. Emily was a young grandmother who had lost a job several years ago and hadn't worked a day since, preferring to live with her children and help them out, travel and perform...to simply be a human being. It was such a simple yet profound lifestyle decision she was describing. She said she hopes never to work again, which is a sentiment many have but few act on, whether out of necessity or fear. She worked to keep herself on a solely organic plane of experience being relatively off the grid, walking everywhere she could help (her pedestrian fascination was a frequently revisited joke among the group). Despite having being different gender, heritage, sexual orientation, religious background, and even regional or social-economic status, I found myself relating a lot to my new friends and feeling at home quickly, a lesson I never forget but am always happily reminded of. Drinks that I declined were offered to me, tales, opinions and jokes were exchanged and many laughs were had while we ruminated on our lives and feelings aloud.

Danielle provides a friendship and a roof.

    While at the bar I heard back from Danielle who apologized for not reaching out to me sooner and assured me that I was welcomed to stay at her house, a gesture I can't possibly thank her enough for! Shannon was kind enough to drive me to Danielle's house once the events at Palais Royale transpired, and with best wishes hugs and warm thoughts I looked for Danielle's apartment. Literally as soon as I reached the door it the overcast sky made due on it's ominous promises and started pouring buckets, luckily there was an overhang!

   

 Danielle answered the door, a sweet thin girl with a shaved head and a mouth quick to smile wide. She and I went to school together back home, but never knew one another due to a two year age gap and close circles of friends that never converged fully. She has a large apartment she'd been cleaning in anticipation of a Birthday-Eve party she was throwing the next day. She is going to school for atmospheric sciences (way over my head, no pun intended), her boyfriend is a skateboarder and paints for a living. We got to know each other while she showed me around her book filled house (I made a note to myself that she was a twilight zone fan, so I knew I was in cool company!). I was shown the cluttered and comfortable guest room and invited me to whatever accommodations would make me at home! She told me that she'd maybe heard of me but regardless she'd completely trusted our friend Jill's confidence in me. This trip and the entire idea of this AllOne movement or project in my life is entirely about that connection of people and the empathy and encouragement and trust that allows us to provide for one another. I owe Jill and Danielle both a great debt for vouching for me and for trusting and taking care of me. I fell asleep feeling oddly at home in a foreign place where I'd known no one just six or so hours ago, a head filled with thoughts of my new friends.

 The world is full of friends that you have yet to meet!

-AllOne