Fall Bucket List 2013 -- The Harlem Edition

This list reads like it came straight out of an all-American Midwestern suburban wonderland of epic proportions. (Go on a hayride? Here? Really?) I live in New York City -- in Harlem, to be exact.  In spite of rampant gentrification and much ballyhooed "progress", this neighborhood is still a ghetto. And since I don't have gobs of money or a driver's license, I tend to have my fun whereever the subway can take me.

It's especially nice when fun can be had within walking (or biking) distance. Although I do love the idea of putting a wreath on the door for every season, I don't have a porch to decorate. And my alma mater doesn't have a football team -- or a sports team of any kind, for that matter.  So, alas -- no tailgating.

Don't get me wrong. I'm from the South. If I were home, the game would be on, delicious things would be roasting (or popping!) in the fireplace, there'd be a pie or two in the oven, and raking leaves into a massive pile over and over and over for all of us to dive onto them and roll around, screaming and laughing and freaking out would be the most fun thing to do in the history of ever.

But I'm not at home. 

All of this begs the question: if I had a Harlem bucket list for fall, what would be on it?  Well. Here it is, folks. 

1. There aren't any pumpkin patches to visit in the ghetto, unfortunately -- but Harlem Meer does have a Halloween Parade and Pumpkin Sail. That's right. At dusk, they create the biggest pumpkin flotilla in the city on the meer.  (To see how beautiful it is, click here.) 
2. Enjoy cider? No, thank you -- I'll be making my delicious, irresistable Mexican hot chocolate at the first sign of a serious cold snap.
3. I can't make a bonfire in the living room of my apartment and have s'mores -- but I can go to Cosi and make s'mores at my table, with my own little blue flames and all the fixin's.  Or if I'm feeling especially saucy, I'll order a set and have s'mores at home. Too perfect.
4. Caramel apples? Not with this dental work. Next!
5. I don't do chili. I've certainly eaten my fair share of it in my lifetime and I make better chili than anyone I know but it's not my thing. I'm from the Lowcountry.  I'd prefer to roast oysters. If I can't find a friend with a fireplace, I think I can roast a few with a hibachi in the park. (Mental note: the home I purchase will definitely have a fireplace or an "outdoor kitchen" -- or both!)
6. I bake pie all the time, anyhow. (I've got to stay in good form for my next pie contest.) Next! 
7. I give thanks to God, absolutely every single day of my life. I can't wait until Thanksgiving. There's too much to be grateful for, right now. Next!
8. There's way too many beer gardens in Harlem -- with excellent food! -- to not enjoy Oktoberfest.  Harlem Public has a fireplace, so I can check that off the bucket list in short order, too.
9. Why carve a pumpkin when I can make something with it instead? (See #6.)
10. I don't know how to drive, so going on a fall color drive isn't really an option. Instead, I'll ride my bike through Riverbank State Park, past the little red lighthouse and all the way to Fort Tryon Park -- 67 acres of lush, green wonder, filled with all kinds of flora and fauna and wildlife.  I can't go all the way up there without wandering through The Cloisters. I can take in some breathtaking scenery and medieval art and architecture, lose myself in their gardens, play in the leaves (with a camera!) and perhaps collect a few. Check, check and check.

BONUS: The Medieval Festival at Fort Tryon Park! 

the day after that

nyc can be so beautiful, sometimes. the filth they're always showing in the movies and on television doesn't ever measure up to the real thing when it's this breathtaking and simple. this is me in fort tryon park -- a place that looks and feels a lot like my parents' backyard in atlanta.

actually, in my first few years of living in nyc, i would take the train to this park and wander through it until i got to the cloisters, because it was a "pay what you wish" situation and i was all kinds of broke. it was the same deal at the met. i always thought of that place as especially spectacular because it was basically five museums in one. and believe me, i treated it like it was my very own palace. when i didn't have enough money to get on the subway and head to that glorified castle near the end of the A line, i would walk across the park and spend all day getting lost in the post-Impressionist wing, staring at my favorite one, but mostly scheming and making lists and daydreaming about my future in nyc and what it might be like.

i always thought that the cloisters are a bright shining example of what people should do with their money when they're really loaded.

later, when i had two nickels to rub together, the met was the first museum i joined. but then i joined MoMA too -- because it was so unbelievably expensive but mostly because i'd been stuck in bauhaus for years and i really needed to learn about modern and contemporary art.

i think of any work of art as a kind of snapshot: a moment in time that captures something of the artist's life, the artist's essence. when i walk through any museum, i feel as though any one of them have been split open and emotionally disemboweled right in front of me. kandinsky makes me feel that way. so does de kooning. and rauschenberg. a live performance, a song, a recording should do the same thing. seeing emmylou harris at joe's pub and listening to her sing red dirt girl made me blink back tears. i don't know if it's me or what but i don't hear a lot that moves me. i can still get lost in what i see, when i wander through a museum. and then certain pictures become touchstones in the same way that i can get so emotionally tangled up in a song or a particular lyric. so when i go, i want to see certain ones and get that particular feeling all over again.

i think i made the beginnings of pre-production plans on my next cd while sitting next to picasso's goat in the rock garden at MoMA. i like that goat. it looks unhinged. besides, i have an uncle with a farm in walterboro that has a lot of goats. if i could have a pet, it would be a goat. so until i get back down south, this one will have to do.



at first, i went to museums because i wanted to see the art that i'd been looking at in textbooks all of my academic life. and then i went because it helped me to think through ideas in this really expansive way. now i get it: it's occupying one part of my brain while another part is ticking away like a metronome. and some other part of me is exploding...