East Village, 1st AvenueI wish always for that one thing that will trigger a sense memory. A long time ago, when I lived here, I thought I was an actress. I went to various classes and workshops and played along but I always felt shabby and false, and preferred to write the monologues as opposed to performing them. I learned something from one of my teachers, a much older woman from the distant, long dead New York City that I’m currently grieving over. I can hardly remember her face….but she always spoke about sensory memories, and how to evoke them to help facilitate the creation of believable, living characters as opposed to the lifeless mannequins within the capabilities of most people in pursuit of an acting career. And those are what I hope for now….a smell, the way the light hits a familiar patch of pavement at a certain time of day, the sounds of ancient Chinese folk music in a market in Chinatown. I got a memory in one of these subterranean mini Chinese department stores, and it was a shock, sadly leaving me as quickly as it came, and although I searched for it and tried to revive the feeling, it was a phantom, triggered by the sound of music like momentary electrical stimulation on a patch of brain tissue. Maybe an icy breeze blowing as I leave a favorite restaurant at night, the way it feels when you leave and push into the cold, dreading the frigid walk to the subway in a much quieter Lower East Side….the LES without children accompanied by nannies after school, and without the footsteps of the young, working upwardly mobile crowd that shops at rag and bone, and unleashed, and spends time contemplating a cupcake or snow cream binge in one of the newly minted ventures on the dearly departed streets of the former East Village. I know I need to get over it, and I know that I sort of will, some day…..the ice cream at Davy’s on 1st Avenue helps, as does the same at Van Leeuwen, or Big Gay or a smoothie at Pure Green. Maybe Bingbox? I don’t know….I haven’t decided yet. I remember the profiteroles at Caffe Della Pace now but they too are gone, as is the homemade apple cake at Kiev….but I must finish doing cardio at Blink, on Avenue A….right next to Tompkins Square Park. I have a few minutes left to make a decision.
SUZANNE STEIN PHOTOGRAPHY 