One Response to Today's Difficulties: Pausing

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A Pause Might Lead to Greater Creativity

By Norma Jaeger Hopcraft

How are you doing? What are you doing? Write to me at norma at normahopcraft dot com to let me know. Now that I'm working remotely, I'm no longer commuting an hour each way each day and I have extra time to respond. I'd love to hear from you! What's happening in your life?

I am doing okay -- I thank God, I was able to get out of Brooklyn in mid-March, when the sirens were already sounding all day all night. The sirens were very distressing, adding to the anxiety already in the air in my poor neighborhood, among people who worry every month about making rent -- what happens now, with so many jobs shut down?

I am blessed because I was welcomed to go to Rochester, New York, near Lake Ontario, where my daughter, darling son-in-law, and hilarious 2-1/2-year-old grandchild live.

"Social distancing is so much better with other people," a friend said. 

Very true. I'm grateful for the quiet companionship.

After one week in Rochester, I caught a cold--I don't think it was COVID because my temp never went up above 99.4. "If it's not 100.4 or above, it's not a fever," a nurse told me. I had a dry cough for three weeks afterward though. 

Other than that, I've been fine, cooking up a storm. I made chicken soup yesterday, and baked cornbread, for dinner. Actually, I put so much rosemary in my chicken soup, it's really rosemary soup. I love the flavor mysteries that that tortured herb puts into cooking. There's lots of white wine in my soup too -- a generous helping of Clos de Bois this time.

I'm calling my older friends who are stuck quite alone. I hope you'll do the same.

I'm taking my grandson for walks around his neighborhood. I tell him to look for cats, for dogs, for the daffodils that are finally blooming in Rochester. The small pleasures are growing in importance as the playgrounds, library, the Museum of Play, have all been shut down.

He's learning the names of the flowers: snowdrops, crocus, primrose. He has a little-child lisp, so "crocus" comes out as "cwocuth."

I am cut off from the big excitements in New York City, like taking an acting class as part of the research I do on the theater for my next novel. Museums. Ballroom dancing. All closed.

But hearing my baby grandson say "cwocuth" takes away any regret over not having access to those grown-up pleasures.

I'm grateful for the quiet life I'm leading in the company of my family. Evenings are spent talking a bit, reading a bit. Jane Austen lived like this, and the Bronte sisters. I'm hoping that this quiet life leads to a focus of energy that results in great novel writing that I can leave behind in the world.

So there's an upside to this pause. I'm privileged to be able to enjoy an upside when so many people have lost loved ones and jobs. I thank my Higher Power and hope that people will see that they can get through everything with the help of their Higher Power.

I confess, I've also been watching TV a bit with my family. We're enjoying Shetland, a murder mystery series on Britbox. Except for one episode that I thought too graphic and violent (Season 3, Episode 2), it's been a huge pleasure. I may never get to the Shetland Islands, but I'm very happy to know that such a beautiful place exists.

One thing I can recommend to you is to enjoy Fire Island. I won't be able to go to my hiking club cabin this summer -- the cabin is shut due to Covid-19. But I have pictures for you from a stay there in 2012, just one month before Superstorm Sandy. The pictures will provide a mini-vacation at the beach for you, in time for Memorial Day. Check out the loveliness on my blog, here.

How about you? Any excellent shows to share? Do you see an upside to this quieter life we're living? Do you put lots of rosemary in chicken soup? Write to me at norma at normahopcraft dot com. I'd LOVE to hear from you! Or comment below! I'll be sure to respond.

Chicken Wings and the American Dream

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A Window into a Life

By Norma Jaeger Hopcraft

"I've gotten used to the cold," he said, as if he wanted to comfort me, the person with plenty of heat in her apartment.

Yes, I've kept loose tabs on Mr. Kosher. 

He lives under a canopy of three layers of plastic tarps just outside of Brooklyn's Prospect Park. His campsite is a 20-minute walk from my place. 

It's now the last week of February, and he has managed to avoid going into a homeless shelter all winter.

He's managed to do that in spite of my best efforts.

The homeless man I'm writing about has lived outdoors outside the B and Q subway station, near this spot in Brooklyn's Prospect Park, all winter, at least so far.

In my previous post (see below), I described what happened when I took him a hot--well, warm--ham dinner. He turned down the dinner because he's Jewish and eats kosher.

I couldn't stop thinking about him. One bitter cold Saturday morning soon after, I felt that I just had to do something to give him some bit of comfort. Reluctantly I walked up to the three layers of plastic sheets that covered him in his wheelchair and that partially covered the three or four shopping carts jammed with stuff that surround him. 

I called a hello, to warn him, and found a small slit in all the plastic sheets. There he was, in hat and jacket. 

"Hi, would you like a hot cup of coffee or tea?" I asked.

"No, thank you," he said, politely enough. "But would you get me a plate of chicken wings and fries? From the deli right here?"

Since it was close by, I said I'd to it.

"And a two-liter bottle of ginger ale?"

"Okay."

"Tell the cook I want the wings cooked extra brown and the fries very lightly."

This guy had been sitting in his wheelchair outdoors for months. All spring, summer, autumn, and now all winter, in the cold day and night, hour after hour. He needed something hot. I said I'd do it.

As I walked towards the deli, I heard more instructions coming from under the tarps. "Chicken cooked real well," he said.

I went into the deli and placed the order.

"The fryer is being cleaned. I can't make french fries," the short-order cook, a Bangladeshi man, said.

"OK, make it rice." I hoped Mr. Kosher wouldn't complain--I didn't want to hear it. "And cook the chicken wings really well."

"Is this for the guy outside?"

I nodded.

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When the order was ready, I took it back to Mr. Kosher, planning to get his real name for the receipt in case the IRS ever asked. I handed the plastic container of food and the giant bottle of ginger ale through the crack between tarps.

"Thank you," he said sweetly.

"What's your name?"

"Hosea, like in the Bible."

He started talking about his life. The homeless say that one of their greatest hardships is that they're invisible, nobody talks with them. So I listened.

He told me he only has one leg (I couldn't see that because his lap was covered by blankets and another tarp). He told me that he's used to the cold, as if to comfort me. He spoke longingly, just for a moment, of wanting to take a shower. He smiled at me and asked me if I didn't have a place for him. He didn't know that the part of me that's like Don Quixote had thought of it, and the part of me that's practical had brought me to my senses.

I managed to break in to his flow of words for a moment to ask why he didn't go to a shelter to get out of the cold. That really set him off on a diatribe about the police being the enemy, stealing the drums he sold for a living; about the shelters housing people doing crack and ecstasy while he only smoked weed (he delivered that line with a sidelong glance at me and a little smile); and that the last time he was in a shelter, the previous winter, someone had stolen his two leather jackets.

Leather jackets? I don't feel I can afford a leather jacket (and it wouldn't look good on me : ). What was he doing living outdoors in the rain with two of them?

He said he had to get his stuff into storage, and then he'd go live with his son in the Bronx. Well, the weed explained why he hadn't managed to get his mind wrapped around his storage situation. 

I broke into his flow of words to say that I had to go.

"Would you exchange this Seagram's ginger ale for some Schweppes?"

"No, I can't." I really had to go, and I had no desire to hunt for a store that sold Schweppes.

"That's okay, I'll get somebody else to do it."

I've kept my eye on the overnight forecast for weeks. Twice, when the forecast was for overnight lows in the 20s, I called Department of Homeless Services. They checked on him and emailed me that he had refused services. When the temperature actually descends below 32, the DHS refers my calls to the police, who respond under "Code Blue." Code Blue allows them to take homeless people to local shelters, even if they don't want to go.

But Hosea had talked to me with such hatred of the police, I was sure that, when I called for them to help him, he was showering them with abusive speech. 

I called Code Blue three or four times. And I'd walk by his campsite the next morning on my way to work hoping he was gone, hoping he was finally warm, sitting in a hot shower for the first time in maybe a year, with a chance to stretch out full length on a bed.

Hosea was still there.

He's still there today. He's made it through a New York City winter so far, into late February. He's still there after two nights in a row when it went down to 14 degrees. Maybe he'll make it outdoors year-round. Is this a case of incredible human endurance against the odds? Isn't it also a case of incredible human stubbornness? Can the shelters really be worse than living for months in the cold, day and night?

I know he's getting help -- his campsite is littered with chicken wing bones, empty ginger ale bottles, plastic forks. When I brought him that plastic container of food, he placed it in his lap on top of another one.

What do I do about calling DHS and the police to help him? He's probably abusive to them. Do I keep calling and sending these public servants into an abusive situation?

I've gone back my previous position, thinking to myself, "Hosea, you're on your own, kid. I'm not meddling any more."

But I say a prayer or two for him.

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Window into This Woman's Life in Brooklyn

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A story from last week and a family favorite recipe* : )

By Norma Jaeger Hopcraft

I called my girlfriend Jane to talk over something that had just happened.

“There’s this man,” I said. I heard her catch her breath. She’s hopeful for me, and for herself, especially around the holidays when most single people deeply miss having a partner. We agree that we just have to live our lives and find other happinesses, but that we especially feel it at the holidays.

I immediately set the record straight.

“Not a desirable man, a homeless man.”

“Oh, nuts!” she said, laughing.

I recounted to her that this man is wheelchair bound and lives surrounded by shopping carts jammed with what he may call belongings but appear to me to be detritus. And he has drums—small congas and bongos. In summer he camps under a big umbrella in Prospect Park near a semi-circle of benches called “Drummers Grove.” I can hear the drums on the opposite side of the park, and I’m not wild about it. I would prefer to hear birds.

Caption: These geese are walking amusingly on ice on the opposite side of the park from the Drummers Grove. In summer, I can hear the drums from here...You've heard of the March of the Penguins, filmed in Antarctica? This is the March/Skate of the Geese, in Prospect Park. Just 7 seconds of fun.

Anyway, I see this homeless man every day as I walk through the park to the subway to go to work. I avoid him because I feel I can’t afford the time—and he undoubtedly needs money—and I don’t want him to shout out at me every day and have expectations of me every day and to depend on me every day. So I skirt him when I see him. From behind him, one time though, I saw him reading what looked like a Bible, with double columns, and I’ve hoped for him to have a relationship with Higher Power.

The police must have forced him to leave the park because since October he’s been camped outside of the Lincoln Road B and Q station, one-half block east of the park. He lives under three layers of tarps: two clear ones, and a blue one, the kind I used to drag autumn leaves around my yard when I still lived in New Jersey and didn’t have to studiously avoid homeless people in Brooklyn.

My daughter, son-in-law, and grandbaby came to visit me just before Christmas, and we passed this man, or rather the hump of plastic over and around him. Maybe because my kids were there and I felt I should set a good example, or maybe because it was Christmas, I stopped postponing doing something for him.

I called 911. They referred me to 311, which referred me to the Department of Homeless Services, the DHS. I described the man’s location and asked them to check on him. I knew he might not accept help, but I thought I’d at least get the man on their radar for the upcoming nights when the temperature plunges into the 20s, the teens. He'd been through two nights in the 20s already. He must be holding out on going into a shelter to the very last minute. I've heard the shelters are terrible. Can they be that much worse than sitting in the freezing cold for months at a time with tarps rattling around your ears?

The DHS took my email address and gave me a case number. They updated me over the next two hours: A unit has been dispatched. A unit has arrived. The subject has refused services.

I decided to take him some dinner. I had purchased a huge ham for Christmas (every ham was huge, there were no small ones to be had). So I had lots of leftovers.

I cubed and warmed up some ham, some pineapple pudding*, and some broccoli. I covered it carefully to keep in the heat, figuring a hot meal would be so enjoyed on a late December day. I wrapped the dinner in a dish towel, put it in a thermal bag, and walked the mile to the Lincoln Road B and Q station. I even included a huge paper dinner napkin and a sturdy plastic fork.

I felt good. This is the way I like to live, I thought, helping others. Getting involved, even a little bit, even though it’s inconvenient. I felt Mother Teresa-ish, perhaps a bit Jesus-ish.

When I got to his campsite, I lifted the edge of tarp, which was flapping and rustling in the breeze.

“Hello? Hello?” Under the tent, it didn’t smell bad, which I’d been concerned about.

The man turned his head. He had on a leather hat lined with fleece, and a parka unzipped to reveal a big chest and tummy under a bright red shirt. The rest of him was lost in blankets, tarps, and detritus.

“Hello, mammy.” That’s a greeting of endearment that the other Caribbean black men in my neighborhood use.

“I brought you some dinner.”

“What’s in it?”

I thought that question was a bad sign. I steeled myself for something weird to happen.

“Ham,” I began—

“I can’t eat that, I’m Jewish.”

Never in a million years could I have anticipated that.

“Yeah, I eat kosher,” he said.

“Okay.” And I dropped the flap and took a step away.

“Would you do me a favor, though?”

I lifted the flap again.

“Yes?” I felt like I was about to be taken advantage of, if I couldn’t summon the strength to resist being taken advantage of.

“Go to Chick Filet and get me some dinner?”

I called Jane as I walked home.

“Jane, isn’t that….” I struggled to find the word…”I guess amazing? He’s homeless. Talk about someone living with food insecurity. And he turns down homemade food? And it took a lot of nerve, didn’t it?” I really wanted to know if she thought so too. “To turn down my food and ask me to spend $15 or $20 for something else?”

“Yes, that took nerve.”

“I was so happy at first to be taking him dinner and then so relieved that I hadn’t brought any cash or cards with me. So relieved I couldn’t do it even if I had been fool enough to go do it. And I’ll never take dinner to him again. I walked a mile and he turned it down.”

“He’s not very hungry.”

“No.”

“He must have someone who helps him regularly.”

“I think so. I hope so. But from now on my attitude is, ‘You’re on your own, kid.’”

I was glad to know he wasn’t very hungry. I was relieved—for him, and for the fact that I’d never have to try taking dinner again. Would I? The good and the bad of me, always at war.

I prayed for him. I had not gotten his name, which I’d meant to ask for. Homeless people complain of being invisible. I should have at least learned his name. When I pray for him, I refer to him as Mr. Kosher. It’s got a little bit of an un-prayerful edge to it, doesn’t it? I give this man so much credit for physical toughness -- he's out in the cold day and night, not able to move to warm up. 

Later I checked the upcoming nighttime lows in my weather app and put a reminder in my phone so that the next time the temp plunges I remember to call DHS and ask them to go offer him some help. But take him a hot dinner or a hot drink?

I’m off the hook.

I think.

A few pictures from Prospect Park in early winter, and then a delicious recipe!

*My mother’s Pineapple Pudding recipe, one of the most delicious foods I’ve ever tasted. Great with ham (don’t forget to serve Dijon mustard with the ham):

Pineapple Pudding (to fuel you in your search for the American Dream)

1-3/4 sticks salted butter, melted
10 slices white bread, cubed
4 eggs, beaten
1/2 Cup sugar
2 Tblspn flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
2 #2 cans crushed pineapple (#2 cans = 15 to 17 oz.)
2 tsp grated lemon peel (1 lemon)

Heat oven to 325. Butter a casserole. Mix everything together. Bake 1 hour. Makes 6 to 8 servings.