One of the all-time best nights in New York City

At night, I drive north to west 149th and St. Nicholas in Harlem, where I meet up with Scott and Sam for what evolves into one of my top ten New York City Nights: It is African night at St. Nick’s pub, which is renowned for its live jazz performances and community feel. Tonight, Kaissa, a beauituful, tall, black woman with a voice that sages my bloodstream and awakens the passions, and her band are performing. Kaissa’s songs, inspired by her Cameroon roots, fill the bar with a sweet and potent air, and I become mesmerized. As the night morphs into early morning, different men approach the stage and add their music to the cacophony of sound—a harmonica player from Louisiana, a slam poet with wavy hair and harsh words, a rock n roll bassist, and a slow, melodic trumpet player whose body overfills his seat, where he remains for his soulful performance. The entire bar seems to be swaying and jamming with Kaissa and her band.

After the music winds down, Scott and I leave, and several highways and cross-streets later, we find ourselves parked at the Fulton Fish Market, the early morning market that serves the seafood needs of the five borough’s restaurants. In a gigantic parking lot there are open warehouses where boxes of fish are rolling out, stacked up like miniature skyscrapers, splayed open to reveal neon yellow stripped snapper and twenty pound salmon.

What fascinates me is that the entire time we are at the fish market, perusing the different vendor’s sea offerings and drifting between the rows of boxes, I only see men. We meet one female photography student who seems very excited to see us, as in our plain street clothes we stand out as something of a spectacle. Indeed, I feel like a spectacle. Each man eyes me with desire in his eyes, sizing up my frame, glancing at Scott, approaching me with fish offers. My pink CodePINK Women for Peace button is affixed to my black jacket and seems to stand out like a giant “LOOK AT ME” sign. Several men approach me to talk about the organization, my work, the movement, and the current political situation. I am intrigued by these conversations. With some of the men, I know that my mere presence as a female at four in the morning at the fish market is what has prompted the conversation. Yet with others, the exchange is meaningful and friendly, and leads me to believe that this is where we need to be building our national coalition—at the fish markets, in the streets, on the subways, etc. The whole experience is enchanting, as if we are drifting through an alternate reality, the world of fish sales, the Manhattan lair of nocturnal men shoveling containers of dead, scaley creatures around on forklifts. At the end of the market, we huddle around a fire that is blazing out of an oil drum, fed by broken bits of wooden crates. And then we depart, and once again we are driving through the haunted, vacant downtown streets, passing by that gaping hole in the ground where the Towers of Babel once stood, before the invisible hand revealed itself in a violent act of unjustifiable retribution.

Scott and I go to the radio station at Columbia U, where Scott’s brother DJs his first jazz show. The night ends in a delirium to the soundtrack of Sinatra’s Cheek to Cheek and I drive back to Chelsea, for the morning’s driving and parking fiasco. The day bleeds into Friday, during which I dine at Pistichi with the Pauls for an excellent pot of mussels and the best company one can find. Sitting at the small wooden table with Scott, Jordan, and Amy, surrounded by the familiar restaurant and waiters, and eating the best salad ever, Claremont Ave. feels like home again. Friday night I go up to White Plains and have dinner with my uncle and company at a hibachi restaurant that serves fireballs and volcanoes made out of onion rings and more fire.

Chinese New Year and More

This is what’s happening during my third week in New York City:

* Ariel and I rock out in proposal land all day Sunday, planning actions in the near future, and peace projects for the far future. Sitting on the couch, we devise movements and design cross-country journeys. At four p.m. on a sunsplashed Manhattan afternoon, anything seems possible. And indeed, perhaps, it is.

* Ariel and I go to Emily’s Superbowl party where we eat vegan philly cheesesteak sandwiches and perform the best halftime show ever. ‘Nuf said.

* One afternoon, Kyla, Ariel, and I wind our way through the congested streets of Chinatown, our feet scuffling through heaps of confetti and streamers, our path occasionally interrupted by long dragons. At an intersection, we hear loud blasts and see a cloud of smoke waft around a corner. All at once we are all running towards the noise, and I am thinking that if we were in almost any other country, we would be running away in terror. But this is Chinese New Year in New York City, and we are all eager to be asphyxiated with the bluish clouds of firework smoke that hover over the asphalt. We emerge on the other side of the smoke and we race through the crowded streets, pausing only to engage in a hopeful conversation with the National Guard troops, who tell us they are grateful for our friendly approach, and interested in CodePINK because they don’t believe in the war either. Dialogue is different from animosity. Then we are back on the hunt for food again and finally we land at a Buddhist vegetarian Asian food restaurant where we receive plates heaped with tofu and veggies and brown rice and spicy soups and dumplings. And we dine and talk politics and poetics and I recognize that I am with two of my best girlfriends and sit back to bask in their glow.

* I work the coatcheck and meet several incredible women.

* Meetings, meetings, more meetings, some CodePINK, some Barnard, some coalition building. Productive. Flourescent lights. Lots of e-mailing.

There are no strangers here

I move into Karina’s apartment: a spacious studio Chelsea that feels like a home the instant I walk in. It feels incredible to be grounded in one place for over a week. And for the next ten days, I spend my nights in this apartment, e-mailing, planning out the next month, writing proposals, and savoring a few cups of steaming solitude, served with tangy lemon and clover honey. It is good to be able to explore the idea of living alone, although, of course, I am everyday seeing old friends and making new ones, and there are spirits at my side most of the time. Still, late at night I sit wholly engrossed in Coehlo’s books, with tea and Maná playing on the stereo, and I feel solid.

Tuesday evening, I meet with Khiang. This is a remarkable story that I will someday tell someone’s grandchildren (maybe my own, but who can know these things?). Almost exactly one year ago, I was sitting in the Hungarian Pastry Shop pounding the keys on my laptop into semblances of poems and my thesis paper, immersed in my final semester of college. Through the blare of the computer screen and the buzz from an almond coffee, I make out bright images of far away places being passed back and forth between the two men seated at the table to my left. We are all seated very close together—such is the setting of the Hungarian, into which New Yorkers are stuffed into small chairs at even smaller tables, digesting pastries, philosophies, and homework—and yet still I feel as though I am in a separate bubble from them, distanced by the miles of Unknown factors that create the illusory idea of “strangers.” Finally, the two men get up to leave, and pause at the counter to settle their bill. I get up to refill my mug, and decide to burst my bubble by approaching the man with the photographs. I compliment him on his artistry, and, to my surprise, he smiles and gives me his card.

Thus begins a year of emailing back and forth, during which we each learn tidbits about each other’s lives, and vow to meet again over tea the next time we are both in the city. That day arrives on this day on which I write to share the story of the reunion. We meet in the Hungarian and delve into conversations about art, education, international politics, travel, Tibetan brothels, university courses, American activism, women’s movements, Holland and Cambodia, and more. After two hours, I am not ready to leave, but I depart anyway for dinner. Khiang gives me a packet of Dutch waffles as we part, and we decide to meet again for tea soon. This is the tale which evermore will inspire me to act on my impulses to meet interesting people.

Later that night, Students Against Silence has a reunion dinner at a little Italian spot near the university. We all clamor around a very long rectangular table in the back room and spread our humor, political angst, school dramas, and personal dilemmas over baguettes oiled with garlic and vinegar. The combination of all these kindred souls and the rich food, with a few sips of red wine in between, creates a delectable, euphoric sensation in my whole body. We are, each of us, and collectively, one of the most outstanding collections of human beings I have ever experienced in a single moment.