At JFK Terminal 4 with birds

July 7, 2011

See below photos of the small birds - perched on lights - inside Terminal 4 at JFK airport (yes the birds are tiny in photo but are visible - barely - on greenish ledges of light fixtures): 

birds tiny in photo but there are 3 perched on light green ledges of lights

there is a bird but also creepy face in ad notable in this picture

just to give you an idea of Terminal 4, people and bird ratio...

Imagine my surprise when saw and now hear them while drinking my last good iced coffee for a while.  Note to anyone who serves coffee in London: please add iced coffee to your menu, not frappuccinos, just coffee, cold, with ice.  It’s amazing, and a great way to use old coffee.  Ok, enough begging for food items from major international cities.

I am writing the text for this post waiting for my flight back to London but don’t think I’ll be able to post it until I get back to London.  Unlike other saner places, at  JFK, wifi can be received but for a fee.  I love the birds here though.  They are dive-bombing the café area for food.

Woke up today terrified of going back to London but now feeling OK.  Went to a meditation meeting, which was great, as we talk afterward, and I was able to cry and share my feelings.  Then, somehow, the deep sadness and fear feels held and lighter for that.  Though one woman came up to me twice to try to give me an annoying acronym about fear (Forgetting Everything is Alright – presumably the R is meant to be capitalized).  I hate it when people I don’t know come up to me with unsolicited advice, especially when it involves annoying acronyms.  Fortunately, no one else had that response, instead listening and holding space for the feelings.

Then I met with the lovely, irreplaceable and inimitable Martin and Rochelle Denton.  Now, for those of you not in NYC, you may not know about the miracle that is Martin and Rochelle.  Martin started a website called nytheatre.com to publish his reviews of mostly Off-Off-Broadway, but also Off-Broadway and Broadway shows that would invite a new reviewer.  Over the years, his site has become known as the most comprehensive review of the downtown (now called ‘Indie’) scene.  He had the even more brilliant and brave idea of publishing an anthology each year of plays that he had seen and particularly liked Off-Off-Broadway.  He realized that these plays were being lost and should not be.  At some point in here, and I can’t remember precisely when, his mother Rochelle moved up to NYC with him to aid and abet this endeavor.  So in a little over 10 years they are a mini-empire of reviewing and publishing, all out of their apartment shared with their cats Briscoe and Logan (two characters from Law and Order).   

They now live in midtown. Their first place was downtown near the World Trade Center and they had about a foot of ash and debris on the concrete patio outside their window after 9/11.  On the day itself, the sky outside their apartment went black (they lived in the shadow of WTC).  They had been forced to leave without their cats and were horrified that they might die, but happily they both survived.  Their story about walking through the devastation that night is gruesome and I will not detail it here, however with a little imagination you can probably picture it, along with the trauma of having been forcibly evacuated from their place and not knowing when or if they could return.

However, now they are happy and publishing and reviewing away.  Seeing them always cheers me up, not least of all because they are fans of my writing and my work, but equally because they are lovely, intelligent people who have devoted their lives to promoting independent theater in NYC.  Two of my plays will be published soon on their new e-publishing project Indie Theater Now, so you can read them for $1.29 (less than a subway ride!) along with lots of other plays.  And if you want to produce one, you contact the author and/or agent directly.  Me, I’m still represented by – well – me.  Someday soon I hope for this to change but for now, get in touch with me directly.

OK, gotta go find my departure gate now….will write more if I can.

***

July 8

Back in London, which feels like a crash landing onto a mountain of glass.  Boxes around the house, the inevitability of departure of my husband on Monday, many tears and wishing it could be different.  I knew it would be like this.  That’s why I dreaded it.

However, will post this as is for now.  Need to get up and out of the house and meet with some friends or will just sink into depression.  I know I can walk through this but right now is the excruciating bit and, as is necessary for me to stay alive, without anesthesia.