Instead, I hurried to load my car with all my delicates –
the stuff you just have to carry yourself, even if you have a great moving crew
– as we did. (Movers, Not Shakers.) When I finished, they guys, in a carefully
orchestrated whoosh, emptied first the boxes and then the furniture, and then
the piano out to their truck. Not before asking Josh to play the piano though,
and one of the guys showing us YouTube videos of him playing Arabic drum. The
guys, by the way, were Uzbekistani Muslims, who were speaking Russian, Farsi,
Hebrew, and Arabic – and whose all live within blocks of where we’re moving in,
and whose second jobs tend to be in kitchens with Chassidic Jews. We found out
this last part when one of them sang us a Yiddish song he learned from a guy in
the kitchen. And if that’s not a Brooklyn story, I don’t know what is.
And here’s another. As soon as – and I literally mean as soon as – we turned onto our new
block, I spied a friend who lives in Fort Greene with his son, coming back from
a soccer game at the Parade Grounds, which is a ½ block from our new place. Now
this isn’t any guy. This is one of my favorite people I’ve met through Josh,
from his Yiddish secular summer camp days. And he and his family offered that
we could move to the rental in their house in Fort Greene, which was more than tempting,
because their place is beautiful, and living in a house with them would be
dreamy. But the place was just a spec smaller than the one we finally got, and the
rent was Fort Greene higher, and there was no parking and no garden across the
street, so we gave up the dream of getting to see them all the time, and moved
to Ditmas Park. And then as soon as – and I literally mean as soon as – we turned onto our new block, there he was with his
son, coming back from playing soccer at the Parade Grounds. And guess where
they had parked their car? In front of – and I literally mean in front of – our new apartment. And so
it looks like, thanks to Saturday morning soccer, we’ll get to see him after
all. Life is so interesting sometimes. Closed doors, opened doors, cause,
effect. And all that shit.
Then the movers showed up and they filled the apartment with
boxes and furniture, and we paid them in cash, and then they left the heavy
lifting to us. Well, to me. Josh still has a five-pound limit to what he can lift,
post surgery, so he’s been hoisting the bureaucratic heft (Verizon, Con Ed, National
Grid) while I hoist the actual boxes. So I unwrapped a few chairs for us to sit
on, and a table for us to put things on, and then I went up and set up and made
the beds. (Wait, did I just use the
plural form of the the word bed? I think I did. Wait, are there two bedrooms
in this apartment? I think there are.) So I set up and made the beds, so I’d
know that whatever else happened throughout the day, I could comfortably crash
at the end of it. And I unpacked clothes into my giant closet, and then instead
of doing what I usually would do on a moving day – move in – I took a shower,
got dressed nice, and went to Manhattan for a party. Because even though it was
moving day, every fiber of my soul wanted to go to this party.
It was not just any party. It was a surprise party that has
been 6 months in the planning. A surprise party for Josh’s best friend Lee, who is a magnificent
film sound mixer, and the warmest, funniest, mentshiest mentsh of all mentshes.
A surprise party for which Lee’s friend and colleague Larry produced a film featuring Lee’s family, friends
and colleagues, including people like Mike Leigh, Woody Allen, Julie Taymor, Barbara
Koppel, and dozens of other directors and sound editors who, like Josh (who was
also in the film) have mixed their films with Lee. It was not just any party.
It was a party for someone so easy to love, so deeply kind and so profoundly
warm, that it was easy to clean up from move-in day, ignore my aching – and I
literally mean aching – feet, and
celebrate this man.
And so I discovered that pure, selfish enjoyment can
sometimes be in service to others – which should be an interesting nuance to
explore over the year. (At least, I hope it’s nuance and not a slippery slope.)
It brought me great joy to be in a room full of people who love this man as
much as I do.
Extra bonus: one of Lee’s friends is friends with Roz Chast, who made a
wonderful cartoon of Lee. (A guy sitting on his couch, and the coffee table is a mixing console, and the caption says: "Nerd in his natural habitat.") When I turned 25, and lived in a yurt in central
Maine, a friend asked me what I wanted for my birthday, and I said I wanted to
meet Roz Chast. I had never been to NYC, and had no connection to anyone who
would have been able to introduce us. But I did have balls, so I called 411 and
asked the operator for her number. And to my vast surprise, I got it. And I
called her. And she answered. And she was super nice to me, and even chatted
for a while, and thanked me for the letting her know how much I appreciated her
work. Well guess who was at the party? And guess who I finally got to meet? She
didn’t remember our phone call, but she chatted with me just as graciously as
she did 25 years ago. And on the way home, I got to thinking about how I made that
phone call back in 1988 out of pure, selfish, enjoyment.
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