My very first walk , its exact route, has become the template for my daily morning walk, performed exactly and rarely with any diversion. As soon as we awake we go downstairs out of the building left on 7th Avenue past the morning line people of waiting for the M2 bus, past the corner deli and across the street and immediately down a lane that runs first past the children's playground then the tennis courts. At the top of the lane is when I make my first stop. Its a favored spot, many a neighbourhood canine marks the confluence of wire chain link, tarmac, weeds and miscellaneous scraps of litter. I am allowed a little time to take in the shift in the scent messages posted there since yesterday to which I add my own. Its never in exactly the same spot. When the weather is warm, the smell and debris of food eaten in the picnic area is powerful, evidence of the previous evening's cookouts linger in the bushes and the garbage cans spill over with greasy paper plates. I am quickly pulled away from all these distractions as soon as I have done my business.
We then move swiftly forward past two caged tennis courts separated by a walkway lined with benches and trees. To our right a chain link fence separates us from the rail yards that abutt the subway station housed underneath PS200. Depending on the time of day and the time of year the soundtrack to this particular stretch shifts, from either the rumble of a subway train, or the laughter and conversation of a group of summertime tennis players or the shrieks of children at the edges of the school playground. Just before we round the corner of the second set of tennis courts is another favored spot. Here a patch of ivy clutches to the chain link and spills onto the lane. I lunge towards it but pack leader holds me firmly on a short lease and insists I continue and we turn past the handball courts by the park keeper station where the park attendants are usually gathered and engaged in idle banter.
We are now at the start of Harlem Lane which runs down the back of a well maintained Housing Project. It is lined with trees, has a small grassed area, another children's playground, water fountains and two baseball courts. In the winter the lane can be completely iced over, in spring dusted in fallen lime colored blossom or blackened by stains from the fruit of the mulberry trees in the early summer but at this time of the morning it remains, almost always, without any other human activity except for the park attendants who will have a greeting for pack leader or myself.
We walk its entire length with determination until we reach the last basketball court and there by the chain link fence that separates this quiet empty sanctuary from the roar of traffic on Harlem River Drive I make preparations for my morning poop. There are cats that live there beyond the fence, underneath the highway, and there are squirrels in the trees and the occasional tramp that has spent the night on a nearby bench, all of whom might distract and I find myself staring and forgetting the purpose of our dallying. But no matter there are a couple more stops back on the way that I will be allowed to start the proceedings again, in fact most days even though things may begin here I often need to finish them elsewhere.
When we are on the last leg, the return portion of the lane by the tennis courts, we may meet one of the two locals that we might stop and have an exchange with. There is the Jehovah's Witness lady with her poodle, a strange fellow, not particularly sociable, I offer no more than a cordial greeting. Pack leader however will linger and listen curiously to the stories of her most recent travails, the death of her brother or a recent trip to Las Vegas. The other is the Poet man. "
How's my buddy ?" he will say and I will strain to greet him my ears pinned back to recieve his large affectionate hand. He always laughs and comments on my friendliness and my sturdiness. Sometimes he says to PL,"
What do you think of this one ?" and digs into his pocket pulling out a few scraps of paper, one of which will contain his most recently penned verse. There amid the grim urban landscape of stained concrete and rusted fences and stale barbecue smoke, our poet friend speaks of the shadows of trees on fresh snow or the glitter of a beautiful woman's eye.
Its not the seasonal variations or the unexpected diversions on our route that I enjoy most about my morning walk, its the constantness. Every day this ritual performed without fuss, a walking mantra expressed in an exact measure of footsteps, a physical chant treaded and retreaded over and over again, wordlessly the both of us, I waiting patiently for him as he sleepily pulls on his clothes, him waiting patiently for me as I sniff and search undecidedly for the perfect spot. Again and again, over and over, side by side.
There were other four legged creatures at the Villa La Californie but it was Lump the Dachshund that found himself immortalised in Pablo Picasso's paintings, in particular the "Las Meninas" series.
