Here’s this week’s Smartmom from the award winning Brooklyn Paper (this time it was an award for their website. Props to Ed and Gersh):
The other morning, while Smartmom sipped her iced coffee on the
steps of the Montauk Club, she noticed a man looking up at one of the
tall London Pines that hang over Eighth Avenue. So she asked him what
he was looking at.
“I think there’s a Nashville Warbler in the tree,” he said. “I can’t see it, but I hear it whistle. It’s very distinctive.”
Smartmom closed her eyes and listened. Then she tried for a minute or so to locate the bird.
“There it is,” the man said. “It’s in the middle there. It’s yellow.”
Still, Smartmom couldn’t find it. She asked the man if the Nashville Warbler is a rare find, and he said it was.
She
kept looking. But mostly, she was looking at the birdwatcher and having
her own flashback. Smartmom’s father is an avid birdwatcher and he used
to take her on walks in the Ramble in Central Park. She was never able
to see the birds. Her father tried to teach her to use his binoculars.
“Find the bird, then press the binoculars to your eyes. It’s simple,” he’d say.
But
it wasn’t, and she was never any good at it. Not being able to find
birds, Smartmom found herself frustrated and bored on these Central
Park expeditions especially when her father got into long conversations
with the other birdwatchers about their recent sightings.
At the
time, Smartmom couldn’t wait to get home. But now she wished she’d paid
more attention or that her father had been a more patient teacher.
Smartmom
wonders whether any of what she tries to pass on to the Oh So Feisty
One and Teen Spirit will be remembered. There’s so much she wants to
share. Sometimes they show little interest. Other times they’re all
ears.
For instance, OSFO loves to hear about the Stay Up All
Night Club, the club Smartmom and her friend, Best and Oldest, invented
when they were 11. On sleepovers, they’d try to stay up as late as
possible, while playing wild games of Truth or Dare.
The dares
were way more fun than the truth. Smartmom remembers running naked up
and down the stairs of her apartment building because she refused to
tell her friend the name of a boy she had a crush on.
The other
night, OSFO had two friends sleep over. After midnight, she could hear
giggles and girlish trills coming from the bedroom. When Smartmom
knocked on the door to ask them to settle down, OSFO said, “Don’t come
in! We’re playing Truth or Dare.” Smartmom left it at that. A chip off
the old block.
Yet
when Smartmom lectures her about her favorite modern artists or the
history of the labor movement, OSFO puts her fingers in her ears.
“BORING!” she says just as Smartmom gets going.
But that’s all
right. She may not seem like she’s listening, but she probably is. And
one day, she’ll remember — just like Smartmom did with that birdwatcher
on Eighth Avenue.
Teen Spirit used to love Smartmom’s little
lectures about Broadway musicals and contemporary poetry. Lately,
however, he’d rather do just about anything than listen to his old mom.
Yet the other day, he asked to look at the blonde wood acoustic guitar Smartmom keeps in a hard case under her bed.
Smartmom
finger-picked her way through high school. A regular Joni Mitchell, the
Upper West Side was her Laurel Canyon as she sang, “I could drink a
case of you…” with that old guitar.
Teen Spirit asked if he could play it. Before she knew it, they were walking up to Music Matters to buy a new set of strings.
Back
home, she showed him some old guitar licks. He listened politely, but
declined to give it a go. “It’s not really my style,” he said, taking
the guitar into his bedroom.
Still, she knew she was passing the
torch. While she still loves to play her old songs every now and again,
it’s Teen Spirit’s turn to harness the power of the instrument she
bought at We Buy Guitars on West 48th Street in 1973.
Standing on
the stoop of the Montauk Club, Smartmom was all eyes. She tried to
remember her father’s advice as she scanned the tree looking for that
little yellow bird.
“Find the bird with your eyes. Follow its song…”
“There
is goes,” the birdwatcher exclaimed. Smartmom scanned the tree. And
then, finally, she saw it. The tiny yellow Nashville Warbler flew from
one branch of the tree to another. What a delight it was to see.
And Smartmom couldn’t wait to tell her father.