Category Archives: Albany

Fridays at my office are insane. 

Especially when Mercury is in retrograde.

It’s nothing that I can’t handle, but it does occasionally alter my lunch plans, as it did this past Friday when I didn’t get out until 2:30, when the coffee shops were just beginning to shut down for the day. On that particular day it wasn’t coffee I was after, but a simple walk through downtown Albany. The later lunch time meant fewer people out and about, which lends a more contemplative aspect to the walk. At such times I don’t need to find a church to obtain quiet and the space for mindfulness – it is all around, there for the notice and there for the taking. 

The sun would dart behind clouds, then show itself for the short duration of my walk, alternating between bold and bashful in this hide and seek game – the ultimate spring tease. Some of the trees were just starting to swell with buds but nothing substantial had been brave enough to burst forth; early days yet. Instead, I had to find my fun in the circular sticker of bananas seen here on a lamp post. 

A banana planet for a world that’s gone completely bananas. 

With the removal of the winter gates from this park in downtown Albany, spring has officially arrived. Whenever this sign goes up in November, my heart sinks a little at the daunting prospect of how long it feels until spring. Then, in a flash, it’s suddenly here. 

We’ve made it through the winter wilderness, and while I fully expect winter weather to linger for a bit, we can turn the page – just keep the scarf and shovel handy. 

In ‘Simple Prayer for Complex Times’ Lara Downes provides the perfect accompaniment for the first Sunday of spring, when I have chosen to embrace hope and possibility instead of fear and dread. There will be moments to fight and illuminate, but for now, for this morning, I listen with a heart that is open and willing to find the reasons for gratitude. There are many if you think about it – like this park, once again open for walking and sitting and spending a lunch time in quiet contemplation of the luck in being alive. 

A perfect encapsulation of recent days, this plume of smoke from twin factory chimneys is a vivid representation of all that humanity has done to the earth. Maybe it’s producing heat for someone somewhere – I hope it’s worth whatever might be going into the atmosphere. I hope somehow we learn to embrace our planet. I hope… for more hope, even as I feel it dwindling away. 

Sad,

pretty,

dangerous,

gorgeous – sun and

smoke and freezing sky.

A plume of pink, a bank of blue, and we are poorer for it. 

I heard her long before I saw her. 

A litany of loud, expressive ‘fuck’s sounded on a windy afternoon in downtown Albany. As I approached, I could make out the names of the intended recipients:

“Fuck Stella!”

“Fuck the trooper!!”

“Fuck Johnson!!!”

“Fuck the cunt!!!!”

She was screaming at another woman who tried to be keeping some semblance of peace around the shopping cart filled with worn bags, and not having much success of it. I walked quickly by, keeping my head down; Andy says they all talk to me because I make eye contact. I passed unnoticed and crossed the bottom of State Street, when the shouting reared up again. 

“FUCK THEM ALL!! FUCK THEM ALL!!! FUCK THEM ALL!! FUCK THEM ALL!!! FUCK THEM ALL!!!”

By now the entire block was turned in her direction, which is where I was coming from, and I caught the eye of gentlemen who seemed as amused as me. He turned to a server who had just come out of a restaurant and asked if he knew her. 

“Oh yeah, that’s Irene. They call her ‘Irate Irene’ because of… that. But other times she’s just a sweet and normal person.”

Same, Irene.

Same. 

On my way back I had to pass her again. She was quiet and the other woman was gone. Unable to control myself, I caught her eye.

“I like your shirt,” she said, as if the previous storm had never happened.

“Thanks!” I said with a smile of relief.

Sky is at its bluest in the fall.

Sun hides behind a church bell.

Afternoon advancing amid mindfulness.

A blue moment. A sunny moment. An attempt at something.

This little park in downtown Albany opened this fall, and though I drive by it every day, and it’s literally across the street from my office building, I still have’t had the opportunity to stop by and sit there for a bit. My goal is to do that before the weather fully turns. It’s a reminder to take the time for such meditative moments throughout the day – to slow down and stop what we might be barreling through to finish. I need more moments of quiet like that. 

Like this little tomato valiantly forging its way in a long-past Boston summer, this little tree has taken hold in the impossible-small crack of earth somewhere between this old building and the sidewalk in downtown Albany. On a lunch-time walk up to church recently, I found this spot of green where nothing else dared to be growing. As they say in ‘Jurassic Park‘, life will find a way. 

My heart is always moved when I find something like this happening, and then I wonder if anyone else has noticed the noble effort at life and survival going on along a non-descript sidewalk. I also wonder at how many more simply rushed by, or absentmindedly ignored it. The power of a little tree to illuminate how much people might care is equal only to its ability to reveal how little they might care. 

No matter what size city you may find yourself in, I always advise looking up when you are first finding your way, because much is missed is you keep your gaze solely at eye level. I must have ignored my own advice for the past few decades, as I never really noticed the beauty atop the Peter D. Kiernan Plaza, which sits right across the street from my office building. Previously operating as Union Station, the building was once where trains arrived and departed from unit the late 1960’s, when it was bought by New York State. Renovated and preserved in the late 1980’s, it was named the Peter D. Kiernan Plaza for the head of Norstar Bancorp (which is still listed on the front of the building). 

Sadly, that’s all the historical and architectural Albany info I bothered to investigate. One day maybe I’ll do a deeper dive into what the sculptural elements mean, such as the lion-fronted globes on each corner of the building. I do love a lion sculpture. It’s also a good reminder to myself to look up and see what other treasures are dangling right above us every day. Now that I’m walking more in the milder weather, the world is rising before me. Remember: look up!

It had been a couple of months since I last stopped in at St. Mary’s in downtown Albany, so the other day at lunch I buttoned up my coat, slung a scarf around my neck, and walked up the hill in the direction of the church. I used to go there in the summer before and after Dad died. It was a small moment of comfort in days of sorrow.

On this January afternoon, the sky was blue and the sun was shining, but there wasn’t much warmth in the air. At least there wasn’t much wind either. I hadn’t been moving a lot in my post-holiday slump, and my calves burned as I neared the top of the hill. This was where I served jury duty in that awful murder case. Walking past the courthouse no longer left me with a haunted feeling, it was just another marker of a memory, another piece of the past living only in my head, like summer in the middle of winter. 

My contemplative mood melted into relief that I’d arrived at the church. I reached for the heavy door, but it was locked. On this day, not even God would let me in. I paused there in the  shadow of the doorway, then headed back down the hill. 

This post was originally entitled ‘Albany’s Nipper Pukes A Rainbow‘ but then I remembered it’s almost fucking Christmas so I wanted to show a little respect. Just a little bit. (Just a little bit.) 

Rainbows in December – for all the charm and wonder and beauty of them, something disturbing and foreboding lingers in the queasy light and rain. On a recent afternoon, following a day of drizzle and gray clouds, the sun peeked out, and a multitude of rainbows filled the December sky. One landed right outside my office window, another seemed to emanate from the mouth of Nipper. (Strangely enough, not the dog’s first nip at a rainbow.) Andy sent me photos from his doctor’s appointment, where a full rainbow arched over the entire sky. Social media lit up with all of them – a world of rainbows on a December afternoon – signifiers of peace or something much more sinister, like climate change, and none of us caring to be any wiser. 

So we put our pictures up and write our blog posts and go on our merry ways, thinking how wonderful and enchanting it is to have rainbows at this late stage of the calendar year. Would Noah have gone through all that trouble if he knew how little humanity would care for any of his creatures gone extinct? The planet in peril perhaps… the rainbows a plea…

And somewhere over the rainbow a heaven that may or may not exist, along with whatever might become of our souls. When you’ve seen the dust we all become, you understand what little substance makes up a rainbow, along with how pure it must be. Maybe the rainbows are angels, messengers of God, telling us when we’re getting it right, and, probably more often, when we’re getting it wrong. 

Driving home through the rainbows, I do my best to live in some sort of grace, so as not to ruffle the universe’s feathers too much. Invoking the wrath of any entity, human or otherwise, is rarely a wise motion. Silent reverence, then, in honor of all that we do not know, and a little respect. Just a little bit…