19 October 2023

An Autumn Stroll



My resolve is tested to its limits, when I have to get out of the house on a cold weekend. I am tropical to the core; like a plant that creeps towards sunlight, I seek out the sun, break a happy sweat. I droop in the winter, slithering back into the nest of a comforter, curling up with a novel. But being in the last leg of my stay in Philadelphia, I have sworn against hibernation, promised myself one exploration every week, and have failed more often than not. 





Elfreth Alley  in Old city dates back to 1703. This little street is an outdoor museum with houses and buildings from between 1720 and 1836. William Penn, the Quaker  founder of Philadelphia planned the city as a rectangular gridiron with numbered and lettered streets run perpendicular to each other. Incidentally the state of Pennsylvania, gets its name from Penn, who christened  the colony he carved out of the homeland of many indigenous tribes, after his father, as Penn’s Woods.   As with the best  laid out plans, it had a flaw. Not everyone wanted to be in the grid. People started carving out forays  into Penn’s grid. John Gilbert and Arthur Wells decided to cut a pathway between their properties, between Second and Front streets, for easy access to the wharfs of the Delaware River. 


This autumn day, the alley was dotted by little knots of tourists pausing, in front of this doorway or that window. The brightly painted doors and windows, bouquets on windowsills, flags fluttering above the awnings, the warm sun emerging from behind the clouds washing the  brick and stone paved alley and the orange red walls of the houses in a golden glow- Elfreth Alley had a quiet magic.Dolly Ottie, a young woman, opened a sandwich shop at No 128 Elfreth Alley in 1934. Soon she learned that many of the buildings on the street were demolished by the paint factory that owned them at the time.  It was the conservation efforts of the 1930’s spearheaded by Ottie and others that led to the preservation of this little group of buildings, homes first to artesans and then to industrial workers. 




I had gone to Elfreth’s Alley expecting a touristy dip into time, frozen at an artificially imagined moment, separate from the city around. To my pleasant surprise the difference was not as stark as I expected. Many parts of Philadelphia, including West Philly continue to have residences from the 19th and 20th centuries still standing-row houses and modest twin brick buildings with their little porches and front gardens. The interiors of these houses are transformed, quartered and sectioned into modern habitations. My studio apartment is in  Webster Manor in Osage Avenue,  a residence for dental students  built in the 1920s. The illusion of lingering past disappears the moment I step inside my door, into the little white box with its modular kitchen, and thin walls of board. So is Elfreth’s Alley. Life is imotion behind the faces of those houses, transforming their interiors. The exterior remains static. A dilettante of historic architecture would perhaps be  able to point out the slight variations in architectural styles over time, but not I.


What was different at Elfreth Alley was that the occasional external additions and signs of delapidation were absent from these facades.  I walked the street up and down, unhurried, stopping in front of each house, listening to the audio guide I had downloaded earlier. The corner house with its bright red windows and shutters, belonged in the 18th century to Jermiah Elfreth, a blacksmith, turned silversmith, turned developer, from whom the street gets its name. Numbers 124 and 126 were owned by dressmakers Sarah Melton and Mary Smith, who lived and worked there. The little museum currently housed in these two buildings, display the tools of trade and custom made  mantua gowns like the ones the two women might have produced. When houses number 120 and 122 were built by Andrew Edge and Thomas Potts in the 1720’s.After moving in they discovered that they had somehow switched their deeds with each other…These are the kind of stories that Elfreth’s Alley tells- nothing dramatic, ordinary lives, neighbourhood tales. They contrast with the grand narratives told at  the Liberty Bell or the Independence Hall, just a few blocks away, teeming with tourists,  celebrating the nation. In comparison, my leisurely stroll through this narrow lane  made more sense in Philadelphia. 



With autumn reds and yellows, complementing Philly’s brick exteriors, and animating the gray side walks, the  last of the warm sun peeping through the still standing leaves, these few days are my final chance to know a city that I have already come to like. Philadelphia, despite being one of the unsafest cities I have lived in, has grown on me. I love how it has sustained its early layout of streets in grids, allowing me to wander yet not be lost; allowing the city to contain its growth and maintain its green squares. I have become habituated to the silent elation I feel at the moment Trolley no. 34 that I boarded  from one of the dingy, underground stations in the central city that  smells of cannabis, despair and fear, emerges out of the tunnel into sunlight, warmth and green of the 40th street trolley Portal. Like every home in a foreign city, my refurbished studio in Webster manor, a few steps from the trolley stop, is dear to me; mostly because I set them up to leave them behind. Unlike the facades of Elfreth street that store memories from centuries before, these one room homes hold on to my memory fleetingly,  only till the next resident arrives. It is almost as if I was never there. 



18 October 2023

Vignettes

I

 Tucked away, in a peaceful treelined neighbourhood, South East of the city, Philadelphia's Magic Gardens has a compact charm. Artist Isaiah Zagar converted the vacant lot near his studio into mosaic with found objects- mirror sherds, tiles, bottles, and bicycle wheels. The result is an and immersive builtscape of stairways, walls, and grottos, of colours and broken, infinite reflections. It contains more than it can hold and explodes on you as magical spaces are wont to do. Zagar began his work on the lot from found objects in 1991. In 2004, the owner of lot,for sure a Muggle, got wind of the happenings and decided to dismantle the installation. Following opposition from the community, the plan had to be abandoned and the site was opened to the public in 2008.

17 April 2022

Notes of the Hesitant Explorer - A Heartful of Turkey


When it comes to new places and people I am timid. I hesitate in front of door steps and open my mouth a moment too late.  Exploring University City this one week has not been easy, and I beat myself up many times. There have been good moments too.  I have stopped mid-walk by the curb to see the breeze shake out and wildly scatter the cherry blossoms into the air. I have lazed on the park benches by Locust Walk, where the 19th century- Hogwarts- like edifices intersperse with the more recent block structures, thinking of magic among other things. On sunny days of blue sky, such as yesterday, when the resident bushy-tailed, black squirrel of the cherry tree outside my AirBNB window frolics and bounces up the branches, I think of timidity differently. For someone like me, every little thing brings the thrill of adventure- I just need to talk to one stranger, I just need to turn the doorknob and step over the threshold. 


The AirBNB on Hamilton Street,  I have rented out till the end of the month, is in a quiet tree lined neighbourhood, a fifteen-minute walk from the university centre. The street has single and two storeyed structures in gray and red with charming little gardens. The house next to mine, painted blue and white, stands out as a little surprise. Yesterday, on my way back,  I locked eyes with a jet black cat who owned one of the few houses in disrepair, who eyed me with pure disdain.  Tucked to the corner of 36th on Baring Street is  the Church of St. Andrew and St. Monica, Gothic in style, yet quaint with its gray edifice and bright red door.

On Good Friday, I decided to drop in and see what the church service looked like. My plan was to slip quietly into one of the pews in the back, observe for a while. I turned the knob of the bright red door, anxious about the creaky noise it would make and anticipating the congregation turning around to stare.. and found myself on another corridor (a slight sense of anticlimax there!). The corridor wound up to another wooden door. There was a table outside with bouquets of flowers. I opened the door and stepped in becoming aware at once of  a few things. One, it was a beautiful sanctuary, with vaulted wooden  ceilings, white walls, and lovely stained glass windows all around. Two, it was not a catholic church as I had assumed but what seems to be a small and closely knit congregation of a little less than twenty-five people. A tall man in a light blue shirt and deep voice, and kind eyes came forward, welcomed me and gave me the printed matter of the service. I saw that it was a customized service, tailored around the seven last sentences that Christ spoke on the cross, with speeches, readings and hymns around each. Some of the speakers were joining through zoom, only their voices echoing in the church. The man in the blue shirt came a couple of times to point me to the right part of the program and to offer me the book of hymns. Once he came and asked, “ What would I prefer to have, Ham or Turkey?” “Oh good. Sandwiches for after!”, thought I and opted for turkey. 



Later I found out that I  had come into an Episcopal Church. Back home in Kerala, I have often felt irritated when people mindlessly vocalize monolithic notions of Christianity. There were many who thought ‘Catholicism on-screen’ was what all Christianity was about, failing to acknowledge the diversity of regional faith practices. And here I was, assuming I had walked into a Catholic church, only because I saw the names of two saints on the board outside. So much for my self-righteous rage! Since then I have been doing quite a bit of haphazard reading on the American Revolution, the organization of the church, its struggles and negotiations with the African American community and more recently with gender diversity. One of the speakers, this day, a confident young woman, spoke of the efforts of her cousin to trace her Carribean ancestry through ancestry.com. She spoke on Jesus’s words to Mary “Woman, behold your son” indicating his disciple John to passionately argue why it was not genealogy but love that mattered. Incidentally, Reverend William White, First Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church of the United States, was from Philadelphia and was an  alumnus of College of Philadelphia (Later, University of Pennsylvania). He would have wandered the same campus, with much more spiritual  thoughts than I had, and unburdened by the complexities of using a key card to access the buildings.



After a while, when I started to leave, the man in the blue shirt came again and requested me to wait for a few minutes for him to get the food ready. I was enjoying the hymns, not so much the speeches and after one more song, I rose to leave and he gave me a few pamphlets, spoke a few more kind words and handed me a large plastic bag. I walked to my apartment, pondering the weight of my sandwich. “What is in there? Maybe bread and fruits too?” I opened the package on my kitchen counter and there sitting in front of me was a whole turkey! There were ten frantic minutes when I searched for ways to cook a whole turkey in an AirBNB, and another ten minutes of wisdom, when I realized I would never be able to eat it even if the turkey magically did cook itself. Then I remembered that the kind man had also told me about the Food Cupboard where they gave out free food on Saturdays. I seemed to have stolen a whole turkey that was meant for charity! Not a very Christian thing to do on a Good Friday. So, I lugged back my turkey to the church, explained to the man in the blue shirt why I cannot accept it and was hugely relieved when he appreciated my action. There is so much that a word of kindness and warmth can do for you in a strange city. A whole turkey on your kitchen counter can add a little something more to that.  I was stupidly happy that  whole day. 


So for Easter, I plan to go to a Catholic Church, the St. Agatha and St. James Church. I should go for the ham this time, shall I? 


















19 December 2016

...


All I would steal from you is a kiss
Not the night, nor a part of it
Not furtive embraces under the quilt
Definitely not love, nor its pretense

I am flighty
I cannot hold on to anything
Longer than a kiss

I am whimsical
I could cry when you hold me
And laugh when you touch

I am nobody's sweetheart
I am in the gray zone
I linger at the edges of your dreams
Yet I can gaze at the sky
And hide the stars in my eyes
And with a kiss I could
Soak you deep under my skin.

12 December 2016


Who teaches us to love like this
As if caught in a silent storm
To flutter and fall; To rise and drown
To be swept along; To lose all hold
I break open at your shore; I shatter


And hurt descends like a many clawed thing
Its dull leaden weight upon my chest
Like a bird of prey; her wings are shadows
Swiftly she alights; And darkness settles


I huddle beneath the open sky
I shiver under my many blankets
The storm has passed
The morning's gray
The sun is but a yellow smudge
The perennial winter has come to stay