Approaching Secaucus

Approaching Secaucus… the announcement is automated… never used to point out Secaucus before they built the new terminal. I started taking some pictures.

Ice floats on the meadowlands, the vast marsh separating Hudson from Bergen County, Newark in the horizon… some factories are still left… it is late in the afternoon so the sun is setting, but it is still not peak commuting time so the highways are not jammed.

Approaching Secaucus… last stop before Hoboken

A power plant, a factory in the distance… A CSX freight locomotive… more swamp in ice, electrical tower. A microcosm of America, vestiges of our industrial past… you can see the world but not hear the chorus…approaching Secaucus

The sun hits the Plexiglas, showing the grime sometimes, other times, remarkably clear.Erie Lackawanna rail routes, been here for more than 100 years and the original tracks were laid over popular trails. Some of the view, the things in it, are new, but the sunset this time of year… seen by everyone approaching Secaucus….

Baseball Field in Snow & Fog

Foggy morning, the air warm and the snow wet and damp, crusted with clumps of ice, fading. Was walking around where the fog is thick, near the woodlands beneath the turnpike, where downtown begins to border the heights.

The crack of wood against ball. In the bleachers are family members, friends. They are yelling run. You can hear their excitement. The bat is flung. Cleats take off in the dirt.

Just memories now, the usual ghosts.

You can hear them when snow covers the field. You can see them in the fog

J.C. Street Art Past & Present

See there, that’s an image of Gary Coleman, may he rest in peace. Years and years ago, more than five I reckon, a hometown artist tagged the town with this stencil. Coleman was still alive. This is from the what you talking about Willis era. I bet if you could dislodge the base of this traffic sign post you could make some money on eBay with this random piece of our local Banksy. It was back in the day when this kind of thing was relatively new.

But I didn’t notice Gary right off. The odd tattoo like image on the wood caught my eye

This seems to be the latest manifestation of street art around time, which I like to call random art, although that may not be so accurate. This new iteration is not tagging something with paint or a glued on paper, but affixing something to a street sign. I guess it’s far enough removed from vandalism to be given a pass by the authorities. The image echoes primitive art and comic book imagery. It’s vaguely trippy.

Street Art seems to coalesce around a symbol in order to convey its statement. Yet, on this shard of a plaque, the icon is oblique, the meaning deliberately obscure. But I like the color, the white in the gold near the black outline.

Dig the entire scene. The withered paper flier of some nearby resident, faded by the weather, the message faded, long gone. The abandoned shopping cart from the distant store lot, the Use Cross Walk sign—the pedestrian symbols on the sign, the opposite of the painting. These iconic images with deliberate meaning, they’re universal symbols are they not? They’re instantly recognizable no matter where you come from or what language you speak. The random becomes the deliberate, the deliberate the random.

We have Gary to thank for this here in Jersey City don’t we?

Man of Snow in Snow

The man of snow emerged out of this mountain of snow that was formed by the plows and shoveling clearing the sidewalks and street. The hands of children resulted in this Mr. Frosty. The weather turns warmer, rain is expected. The mountain and the man will melt away as one.

Pigeons & Statues Above Us

The statue of the owl, the statue of the lion, fascinate me, on the upper edge of this building. Pigeons nest here. Were the statues meant as decoys to scare off these winged, urban scavengers? Some kind of totems? Might explain the owl, but not the lion. Either case, seems the pigeons have long since gotten wise, or are they just using the safe ledge.

Discarded Holiday

Somebody wanted these holidays over quick, first weekend of the year, throw out the artificial tree. Who throws out an artificial tree? Who gets rid of their tree on January 1st? Tossed to the curb, just another piece of debris, into the grimy snow. The blizzard is past, the snow is old, trash pick up expected to resume. Merry Christmas, I don’t want to fight tonight, sang the Ramones. Looks like one family probably didn’t get that wish. Just throw it out, lights and ornaments, all of it, so we will never remember our sad holiday. Made me think of Raymond Carver.

Welcome 2011

Last January 1st I posted a picture of mom in the purple 2010 new year glasses. I might as well continue the new tradition. She’s 91 and doing pretty well.

She’s rang in many a New Year. Soon there will be men and women entering adulthood with no memory of a non-internet world, and in another decade we will see young adults with no memory of a non-blog internet. Mom remembers a world where there was no computers at all. I can only vaguely recall a world where there was no personal computers. Mom is still sharp and funny and fun to be with. She’s as astounded at the number that is her age as everyone else—she’s never been 91 before just like you have never been the age you are now or will be this year. The difference is more people have been your age than her age, so there are fewer inklings available.

It might appear overwhelming to look back and contemplate the amount of changes within your span to date. For mom it’s the better part of a century. That’s a heck of a lot history. It’s easy to glorify political events and technology innovations into being cosmic watershed moments. We cite Obama being elected or the introduction of the Android Smart Phone to support our assertion that life was one way and now it’s another. Not without truth, but true only as far as it goes. For me what keeps coming back is what hasn’t changed, like love, friends, family and the search for meaning. the importance of compassion, our need for knowledge, the unending desire to improve the self. Our impulse to create... our loyalty to ideals.

Maybe that is one aspect of getting older that isn’t so bad, realizing the vast amount of change you have witnessed thus far only enhances your understanding that the most important stuff is the stuff that never changes.

The stuff we all desire and need and cherish is stuff essentially immune to those dual loud heralds of change—politics and technology. In other words, it’s the stuff of our humanity that really matters most and that is the stuff mostly unaffected by the winds of history we call current events.

I can’t believe it’s 2011 already... we’ve all had that thought in the last day or two. I wonder when we first have that sense of perspective, when we first realize that the time we have witnessed has a significance of length, that we indeed are mortal, that we have endured passage, that at least some of our youth has mysteriously yet irrefutably been lost while getting here. When do we first feel astounded at the exactness of the year when the ball drops and corks pop? Hard to gauge, but I might suggest it happens soon after we stop saying half when responding to the question how old are you if asked six months before or after your actual birthday.

Yes, things change and things stay the same. You don’t need me to tell that to you but I never resist reminding you, or myself, of simple truths.

The holidays come to a close, a New Year begins. It’s a time of year that encourages reflection. Indeed, resolutions are a symptom of that reflection.

Life is an adventure. I believe that in the sense that discovery is the purpose of adventure. We have another chance to see how it all turns out, another chance amid the whirl of change that is life that, generation upon generation, we all are bestowed the stuff that doesn’t change.

Please don’t take this as mere affirmation. In spite of my appreciation of the wonder of life, I don’t want to reassure anybody it’s a wonderful life. On the contrary, life contains suffering, hardship, challenges and disappointment. That’s not the sum of life, but life would not be life without it.

What we need to withstand those bad times is the stuff that doesn’t change. It’s that stuff we celebrate when the calendar changes.

You, me and Mom endured the last year of the first decade of the first century of a new millennium and are ready for the first year of the second decade... well, you get the drift... Happy New Year!

And, the adventure continues,...

Thanks for reading Dislocations. All the best to you all and God bless you all.