Harlem: A Reflection of Life’s Cycles

reflections...

 

A Harlem: A Reflection of Life’s Cycles

Today, the spotlight of my gaze shifts from the past to here-now.

Yesterday a good friend of mine and I drifted through Harlem. We flowed with the current of this Memorial Day Sunday, allowing it to carry us along as we relaxed into Life and re-connected with the Village of Harlem.

I loved the quaintness of the French Bistro on 7^th, and the TAKE THIS CRAP FOR FREE yard “sale” outside that brownstone on 139^th Street. I now have a cake of handmade soap, a work of art that adds to the uniqueness of my bathroom decor; and yet another book to add to the overflowing piles in every room of my apartment.

I love the fact that I am now inspired to clean the crap from my own closets and drawers and set up a TAKE THIS CRAP FOR FREE corner in the laundry room of my building. I am always seeking ways in which I may begin to live a life of more giving and less taking.

Harlem loves me and I love Harlem. I love drumming with the folks in Marcus Garvey Park on as many Saturdays as I get my Bertha butt out of the house and on the express bus to Manhattan.

I love the hustle and bustle—the unique Harlem energy—of 125^th Street where I sometimes walk the strip from 8^th Avenue to 3^rd—just for the feel of it. (Sorry, I’m old school and can’t remember those new names for the Avenues I’ve known since childhood!)

I loved the crush of Sunday tourists at brunch up at Londell’s yesterday; the accents; the cacophony of so many foreign tongues; the strangeness of so many white faces.

Then…there were the closed for-business-businesses…the gated storefronts…block after block after block…

Melancholy…bittersweet is what I begin to feel as I battle to accept the changing face of Harlem.

Death and rebirth…decay and new life growing from that decay…like the cycles of my own life.

Like Harlem, I experience my own mini-deaths each day as the no-longer-useful parts of who I’ve been gradually die-off to make room for the birthing of La Diosa–Crista.

And then one day—behold—a new face…a new form…a new life.

Just like Harlem.