her kids
her family on the way.
"Why a 10-Day Hike Might Be the Best Thing
You Can Do for Your Kids" 6.19.2015 From the August/September 2015 issue https://www.afar.com/magazine/a-10-day-hike-might-be-the-best-thing-you-can-do-for-your-kids-heres-why
the photographer, writer, and painter looking at fifty.
the artist by nan goldin
turning this life upside down
Jimi Hendrix at the Fillmore East December 31 1969
after meeting Caroline.
Lots
of things have happened in June....
ACTing Up.
Reclaiming Streets June 18 1999 on Wall Street.
Arrest
us just try it, Stonewall was a riot.
The
Brooklyn cyclone some nine decades ago.
Thirteen
years ago the little one was born toward the end of the month.
Perhaps
the most majestic of Junes was 1969...
Two
and a half weeks before the riots that shook the world,
Some
six months before I was born.
Caroline
entered into town, just about born in a taxi cab.
Al went
on tour with Seatrain.
Riots
tore at the city.
“We are the Stonewall Girls,” Queer youth
formed a Rockette-like kick-line and sang, as they thwarted riot cops during
the riots of June 1969.
“We always dress
with flair, we wear clean underwear, We wear our dungarees, above our nellie
knees…”
My mom was a few months pregnant.
Caroline was
making her way through the Lower East Side,
Daughter
of Regina and Al.
“The first time I saw Jimmy it was
great, it wasn’t a life changing experience,”
Recalled Al.
He introduced Hendrix to the little Caroline at the Filmore East.
Al explained:
“I moved in with my your
mother. I switched to work with Seatrain…
I got the call to go to California with Seatrain. I didn’t want to go work at the farm for the
show. I went west. My dad died. I moved back. I went up to get the singer who
had been institutionalized, the band was in a disarray.”
Al moved to
Bergen Street with Donny
“…Then things got into a disarray
with us, probably because of Donny. We lived on Smith and Hoyt on Bergen,
within two blocks of the subway station.”
Decades
later we’d find our way back there.
Over
the next few years Caroline traced
her life through New York City,
Moving
from the Lower East Side to Brooklyn.
Bergen
Street.
To Staten
Island.
Bronx
burning.
“You would see fights all the time. Street fights,
arguments, confrontations,”
recalled Caroline.
“My mom was a big confrontational person
and she would run around the streets not taking crap from anyone but that
always caused awkward situations. A lot of yelling on the streets with random
people.”
And the years went on.
She looked around.
Up
state and down.
Around.
“the people who I became
really good friends with starting in 6th grade... we were all very political.
We believed that -- and music is a big part of it. You had the music of the
Talking Heads .. a little bit of punk rock, a lot of what you would call New
Wave. Music in the 80s became a big part of it and we were just joined together
as friends but we, in our limited understanding of the world, we were driven
toward social justice. We just felt that that joined us. Again, it was always sort
of in conjunction with music. The Beatles -- we listened to a lot of the
Beatles. Donovan. So I guess still back then when we were in junior high
school, the hippie movement was still very influential for us. And that was
never separate from political activism. That was a moment in time where
activism was so hopeful and so necessary and that influenced us as young
people. We knew we had to do that, that it was just an obligation. It was a
place you chose to be in the world. Whether we chose it or not, we maybe didn't
have the choices that we thought we did. Nobody ever thought for a second they
thought they'd go on to Wall St and work in an office...”
At the end of his life with his music, Joe Strummer confessed:
"Yeah, I was always a
hippie. I grew up in the 60s. 68 is when a consciousness grew and I lived in
squats and I'm always much more comfortable outside in a bonfire around more
people."
CS: It was just an extension of where we all came from. The Clash,
Go Straight to Hell, Boy. Those things meant a lot to us. This sense of
injustice in the world... As limited as we understood it, it meant a lot to us.
BS: Why?
CS: Because of the world that was around us. There was so much
suffering and inequality around us. People were poor…”
She hit
the road,
To learn
where it began.
Studying
in Germany.
Out
to California,
Seeing
beauty.
Back
to Ireland,
Back
to Manhattan.
And
the problems lingered:
“I was young and AIDS
was just becoming something in the common... It was still very non-spoken and
it was still very much something looming, something dark, something looming in
the gay world, that would intersect a little bit with mine, but not very much.
I remember going to some protests and there was an ACT UP table and they were
like, "Hey, you gotta get involved! AIDS is an important thing!" And
I was just like, "What?!" I remember being horrified that there was
this thing going on and I wasn't a part of it. I think that my choice of
activism was always... well, there was anti-nuke. There was always a lot of
anti-nuke stuff. I remember the big anti-nuke protests that would go on in I
think Central Park…”
There
was this guy she’d see at 28th and Lex.
She
lived up the street.
She
tried to stop the Mayor.
And met this one.
Sharing
the decades and moods.
Fighting
monsters outside.
Dreams.
Intergenerational
battles.
Never
easy growing.
Never easy.
Feelings
linger.
Wars
come and go.
Invasions
and insurrections.
Another
war in 2003.
You
can’t wait to have it together to have kids,
Dad
advised.
Kids arrive.
Careers
collide.
We
didn’t plan for it.
They
came.
Two
kids, a move to California and back.
New York always calling.
A hike
through Spain,
From
Assisi to Rome.
Through
France.
London
so many times.
Romping
around Istanbul.
Surfing
in Costa Rica
Traipsing
through rain forests in Puerto Rico
And Tokyo.
Two decades
together.
Five
decades since that June 1969,
Summer 2019 surprised us.
We hit
the beach.
Hot tubs.
Friends descended from points unknown.
Vodka
flowed.
The teenager
sunbathed.
The little one ran to and from.
We
battled.
And forgave.
Moods
flew, ebbed and ascended.
More
vodka.
Music.
The sun
descended.
The
moon rose on 50.
As we
sat there on Brighton Beach.
With
Gene and Leslie and Karina and Savitri and Greg,
Brother Wyatt and Caroline.
“To Caroline” we toasted.
We ran into the water.
And back to the
sidewalk.
Back to Coney Island,
She told me
“My first memory of NY... I don't really have a memory. I have a
feeling about NY. It's one that's certainly endured throughout the years.”
“The feeling is a place of excitement and mystery and endless
possibilities. Sometimes disappointments, but it was in general always a very
exciting place that I wanted to be a part of.”
Sitting in the sand feeling
that sense of wonder again,
Fifty years after
that first June in New York
City.
Celebrating fifty Junes with Caroline
and a few photos through the years.
a few moments in the life of the artist...
Such a fun night in Coney Island! Thanks for this pic of Savitri d and I about to swim Babs! Thanks everyone for coming!!! Fifty years ago...great things started... — at Brooklyn, New York.
caroline's got that spirit...reminds me of other times...
ReplyDeletewe love you savitri!
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