The Firetruck

 

Monday afternoon at 12:20 PM 65th Place, a main street connecting Maspeth and Woodside was looking well having just received a facelift of hot steaming asphalt. Our intersection did not have a traffic light, but we did have older people, very young people, and young parents attempting to cross the intersection with baby carriages. In addition, the speed bump had not been reinstalled yet and the trucks used 65th Pl. as a service road connecting the L.I.E. and Queens Boulevard, two main East/West arteries through Queens.

On came the firetrucks screeching like tortured souls, or all the Hounds of Hell on a midnight ride, tearing through the streets with willful abandon. I guess it came down to a choice between people potentially burning to death or pedestrians possibly crushed by a 50-ton fire truck streaking through Maspeth.

Jim-OCTOBER 26’

Scents and Tastes

 

-- How I miss scents and tastes. This experience is so hard to explain. 

It has been six long years without my sense of smell and taste since getting covid. Such misery. Such a handicap. 

Instead, I get phantom smells. They appear out of nowhere, with no warning and no explanation. Sometimes I smell cigarettes. I will look around the room, wondering who is smoking, but there is no one there. Other times, I smell chicken and gravy or turkey and mashed potatoes. For a moment, I wonder if someone nearby is cooking. 

Then there are really strange ones—odors I can't identify at all. They seem to come from nowhere and disappear just as mysteriously. Sometimes they are unpleasant. Sometimes they are simply weird. I have even wondered if some of them could be coming from outer space. 

The strangest part is knowing that the smell isn't really there, while my brain insists that it is. I can smell it, but I cannot find it. There is no source, no explanation, and no way to make it stop. 

I live in a world that has gone strangely flat. The pleasant memories tied to apple pie, the ocean, perfume, rain, flowers, and clean laundry have become distant. 

The food is still there. I can see it, chew it, and feel its texture, but it tastes like nothing. My cup of tea reminds me of dirty dishwater. 

I can't cook in the same delicious way I used to because I can't taste the spices. Sweet, salty, sour, and savory have lost their personalities. Eating has become more about texture than pleasure. 

What I miss most is the connection between scent, taste, and memory—the way a smell could suddenly transport me somewhere, or a favorite food could bring back a moment from the past. 

The world of tastes and smells has gone on without me, and I have no way of finding my way back to it.

Georgia

Sounds of Silence

 

The silence I sensed felt physical. I could feel the space between the sounds.  Trees swayed softly in the breeze. A car passed somewhere in the distance. I heard a dog bark, followed by the familiar music of an ice cream truck. Then, nothing. 

No sirens. No horns. No buses groaning to a stop. No construction hammering away. Just the quiet. 

In New York City, true quiet is rare. There is always something moving, ringing, roaring, or calling out. Even when the streets seem calm, there is a constant hum underneath it all. 

Here, the quiet seemed to stretch out around me. I began to hear things I normally wouldn't notice—the leaves moving in the trees, a bird calling from somewhere nearby, the faint sound of a car several blocks away. 

I wasn't used to this kind of silence. It wasn't the absence of sound. It was a sound of its own. 

For a moment, I could actually hear the silence.

Georgia

Gelatinous Beings

 

Gelatinous Beings 

On my recent trip to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, I had the unique pleasure of visiting the six-month-old Jellyfish Museum. Of course, we took the tour. Our guide seemed to have an encyclopedia’s worth of knowledge about the many species of jellyfish, one of more than 4,000 species found in our oceans. 

My favorite was the Immortal Jellyfish. It can, in a sense, live forever. I am not kidding. 

This jellyfish is quite small, only about 4.5 millimeters. It is transparent, with a bright red stomach. Originally from the Mediterranean, it is now found throughout the world, having hitchhiked across the oceans in ships’ ballast water. 

It has no brain or heart and functions with a simple network of nerves. But what makes it truly remarkable is its unique ability to transform from an adult back into a juvenile and then grow into an adult again. This process is called transdifferentiation. 

These tiny hitchhiking immortals eat plankton, fish eggs, larvae, and small mollusks. They use their tiny stingers to catch their prey. 

Here’s how it achieves its biological immortality. When its environment becomes threatening, or when it is stressed or injured, the jellyfish can transform from an adult back into a juvenile. Its cells reorganize, almost as if the adult melts away, and then, when conditions improve, it grows back into an adult with the same DNA. 

Sounds like reincarnation to me. 

Unlike typical jellyfish, this cycle can repeat indefinitely. Of course, they are not invincible. They can become sick, and predators can still kill them. 

These jellyfish were first described in 1883, but their ability to essentially reverse their life cycle was not discovered until the 1990s. The discovery sparked interest in aging and medical research and raised fascinating questions about how living organisms age and regenerate. 

I thoroughly enjoyed the Jellyfish Museum and would love to go again. I highly recommend a visit to anyone who loves the mysterious and fascinating creatures of the ocean. 

Georgia

The Bus Stop of Babel

 

At the center of the most ethnically diverse county within the United States is a bus stop that connects three separate lines. Though located in the calm vicinity of a sprawling cemetery, during rush hour it becomes a clamorous confabulation as people flock to board, or alight to transfer from one bus to another. There is a lively cacophony as friends chatter in different languages, raucous adolescents preen and strut as they squawk, crow or shriek their greetings and farewells. Older women titter and cluck as they share the day’s events; older men hoot at each other’s jokes. Mothers coo to infants nestled in carriers.

 

As this daily migration begins to ebb and the sun begins to sink on the horizon, a mockingbird often appears to perch on a nearby streetlight and fill the air with the many songs he has acquired from parts and parties unknown. In a merry voice he offers greetings to his unseen bird friends: “Bonjour, Monsieur Bluebird! Salutations, Sir Sparrow! Lovely to see you, Lady Lark! Blessings upon you, Mrs. Blackbird, and felicitations to all your fledglings!” 

 

The sun sets, the bird departs, and I drift home to roost for the night.

Shelia S.

A Reminiscent Scent

 

If only I was poorer.  If only we were on “home relief.” Then I would be able to have that soup. The poor children can eat lunch in the basement of P.S. 54. They get to eat that soup; that tomato soup; that warm reddish orange bowl of cream of tomato soup.

 

I can never ever forget the aroma of the tomato soup emanating from the basement lunchroom. How I longed to taste that soup, to join the lucky children who were served that soup . I can’t describe that scent, except to say the aroma was a delicious one. 

 

I walked home for lunch. Momma usually served me bananas and sour cream, maybe cream cheese and jelly on Wonder Bread or cold grated tomatoes soup. Momma never made hot tomato soup.  

 

As an adult, when I now open a can of Cambell’s Tomato Soup and add some milk, I have a correct visual of the cream of tomato soup but never that reminiscent scent.

 

Ethyl Haber

Humiliation

 

I was staying at my daughter Emily and son-in-law’ Josh’s house in Boston. Before Emily left for work, she reminded me to help myself to anything in the refrigerator for lunch. Ernie, their 16-year-old cat was fed by Josh before he left for work. Ernie and I would be spending the afternoon together.

 

At lunchtime, I was happy to find some soft sandwich bread and a small portion of sliced chicken. I slathered the bread with  Hellman's mayonnaise and topped the chicken with sliced Campari tomatoes. 

 

At dinnertime, Emily appeared to be taking the refrigerator apart, looking high and low. Ernie was watching this scene, meowing, as each refrigerator item appeared.  “What are you searching for?” I inquired. “The Vet has Ernie on a special diet for his constipation, “Emily responded. “Emily, I’m so embarrassed!! I’m humiliated!! I ate Ernie’s cat food for lunch, "I humbly reported.

 

Back in New York, I keep hearing those soft mellow meows. Is it a real sound or is it a sound in my imagination. Is that beautiful jet black cat’s meowing telling me something?  Maybe he misses me or maybe he’s telling me, “I’m glad you went home.”  Maybe he’s saying, “A seven day visit is enough and if you visit again, promise you won’t eat my food next time.”

 

Ethyl Haber