I live in downtown Albany, which I see as a version of Koch-era New York City when it was the breeding ground for punk and hip-hop. We’re in the most downtown of downtown neighborhoods, a few blocks away from the governor’s mansion, the Capital, and the Thruway. We moved here for our son’s schooling. We’ve maintained our lives half-to-a-full-hour south of us, but added in new haunts to our new north, east and west.
The rain of recent weeks has given way to a full spring bloom these last days. All the trees are bursting forth (as are many sinuses). Everywhere one looks are tulips in every hue imaginable. The place feels noble, with its nineteenth-century architecture highlighted. Too bad the follow-up show for the Downton Abbey crew, The Gilded Age, was canceled because of the coronavirus.
It seems everyone’s been outside. The city’s large enough to grant a blanket sense of anonymity, even though many from outside refer to us as Smallbany. I’d guess that a third of the people one sees are wearing masks when out walking. A third have masks ready to slip back up or down their face. A third are maskless.
It’s invigorating to see people smiling, taking in the flowering of their urban world. Some play old-style boomboxes. A circle in Washington Park strummed guitars and sang. Kids played, with only the boys wearing masks as if they were cool.
In the suburbs, where we headed for pickup from one of the area’s many great Asian restaurants, we spotted tailgate parties with twenty-somethings sipping bubble tea and laughing, everyone in sunglasses. We drove by five parks too crowded to let our dog off our leash before finding a rural cemetery with only a few older couples tending old graves.
The garden centers were crowded … if they were already open. One of our favorites said she couldn’t open yet because she didn’t grow vegetables. She scoffed at the intricacies of lockdown law.
At night, our neighbors likewise scoffed, albeit in a less verbal manner. They played boomboxes into the night, dancing on stoops, barbecuing on the old grill we gave to the street a couple of summers ago. Several strains of weed scent filled the air. It went on into the wee hours. I thought of calling 911, as I’ve done before, but the glow of the day was still in me. So I just feel asleep to the rhythms of their music.
You can’t easily regulate joy and release, even when it seems to endanger. The invigorating aspects of urban life have kept returning millennium after millennium, no matter the American dream of buying oneself a back forty.
Nature’s call can be heard louder when one is alone, or in suitably small groups. But sometimes it can be better enjoyed en masse, anonymously, a glory most natural when shared.
Read more installments of Village Voices by Paul Smart.
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