Harlem

I just got back from visiting my sister in Harlem, NYC. She lives at 116th Street and 2nd Avenue, up the corner from a new taqueria and grocery with an old banner: "Hot Sandwich, Cold Sandwich, ATM, EBT, WIC."

My father Tom, a farmer from New Hampshire, my boyfriend Michal, a Czech from a spa town on the German border, and my sister Katie, a textile artist trying to make it, and I (whose spotty blog you're currently perusing) huddled into the three-chair- counter-window-spot, and ate tacos con pollo y tacos con bistek.

A couple Latinas blew in and ordered some food as we drowned ours in green salsa. "Como esta?" asked the man behind the grill. "Que frio!" said the lady, shivering. "It's cold!" We looked out at the blustery December day--a pale sun shone and the bare trees bent and scraped at the air when gusts of wind came off the East River. Hah! We said to ourselves. We're from the north after all, and there was no snow, no sleet, no temps below freezing. It was hardly a winter.

Later, on a journey towards the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, we passed a street booth selling scented oils and ceramic holders where the oil sat and burned beneath a tea light. "How you doing?" asked the man, who finally emerged from somewhere after we'd stood around sniffing the burning oil--cocount breeze--for about five minutes.

(By then, with the wind whipping though our hair, we were eating our words. "Que frio," we said. My sister had just broken down and bought a hat)

"I've got Jasmine," said the seller, opening a bottle of whiskey colored oil so that we could sniff. "I've got Tahitian Vanilla." Katie asked about aphrodisiacs, and the seller looked bashful. He offered her a few other bottles to sniff, which is when he said, "and I've got Michelle Obama." "What?" I asked. "You've got Michelle's scent?" "Oh yeah," he said, and opened a bottle of pink liquid. "Smell." Michelle smelled like Gardenias; She smelled like baby powder and Chanel. Michelle smelled wonderful so we bought her. The guy was $20 richer by the time we continued our chilly stroll down the wide streets of Harlem.