Annie Q Syed

September 5th.

Harvest months. Love like loving New York. Marco Rojas. A peek into Emerson’s “Over-Soul.”

If you would like to know what Still Sundays is about, please take a quick gander here and just read the third paragraph. Thanks.

New York City inhaled the Sun and exhaled crackling heat to its fullest this past week before simmering into Fall. A magical dragon. The best few months when New York, New York is at her finest are here. The City is a marvel this time of the year: street fairs, divine weather, lush bronze, yellows, greens paint leaves everywhere and the air—the cool aloe vera  breeze—almost demands a stillness.  September comes with a fire but one that doesn’t burn and instead cooks just at the right temperature.  Harvest all you have sown in the prior months.

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August 22nd.

labels. madness which can derail you. “the feeling YOU get, I get first.” real artists know a secret. “1 in 5 people are mad.”

If you would like to know what Still Sundays is about, please take a quick gander here and just read the third paragraph. Thanks.

Last night my neighborhood was pumping with life. This morning it is sleeping like a baby. It partied too hard. It’s 1:30 p.m. and it is still drowsy.

There are articles and articles upon New York City. Some about specific neighborhoods, others about restaurants, others about the politics behind everything, and then some. They all say something different. They all say the same thing.

There is a fight over building a damn mosque in New York City. There is a flood in Pakistan. Haiti is still in shambles. I met a guy last night who told me there are parts of New Orleans which look as if Katrina happened last night.

Our collective humanity trembles but we’ll be okay as long as we dare to resolve the fight within.

Last week I dealt with a swarm of labels from various sources manufactured to contain me. Confident. Insecure. Talkative. Quiet. Conservative. Wild. Charming. Detached. Egotistical. Humble. “Nothing like a photograph.”  The way I am is being analyzed. My writings are being identified with others before me. All flattering, I suppose. Not to me.

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August 15th.

What do you know beyond a reasonable doubt? Psyche & The City. “What has been blown away, cannot be found.” Calm Madness.

If you would like to know what Still Sundays is about, please take a quick gander here and just read the third paragraph. Thanks.

Back in New York. My affinity for the City is not just because of the obvious; in fact, it is the subtleties which draw me in. The complexity, paradox, the buzz of it all. Yes, found all places where humans exist but New York boasts it. Here you are challenged to really see beyond the obvious. Every. Single. Moment. And some don’t. I do. It is not always a pleasure. It is on a Sunday morning.

Artist Sarah McLachlan’s lyrics from “Elsewhere” are precisely representative of this invisible, yet very present, tranquility I find within the chaos of New York.

I love the time and in between
the calm inside me in the space where I can breathe

I believe there is a distance I have wandered
to touch upon the years of reaching out and reaching in

holding out holding in

I believe this is heaven to no one else but me
and I’ll defend it as long as I can be
left here to linger in silence
if I choose to
would you try to understand

I am drunk in my desire. A whirling dervish I am still inside some swirling madness.

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June 13th.

If you would like to know what Still Sundays is about, please take a quick gander here and just read the first paragraph. Thanks.

New York City has not been as rainy or hot as she is known to get around this time of the year. Last night she was more in her element.  I took a sip of water from the thick humidity guarding the intervals of breeze by sticking my tongue out in the air. Twice. It’s not the same as feeling snow on your tongue.

The other day, rushing down the steps of the subway station to catch the train, I nearly ran over this young adult–eleven to thirteen years old (I am not very good at guessing children’s ages any longer: they all dress and act older than I can ever recall, yet they need adult guidance on an unprecedented level)–because she was so engrossed in reading a book that she didn’t know where she was walking! That made my afternoon. Some teacher, parent, adult, or an omniscient force, had gotten something very big right. I know too well from when I used to teach that reading alone is not sufficient for critical thinking but it’s definitely a start.

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June 13th.

If you would like to know what Still Sundays is about, please take a quick gander here and just read the first paragraph. Thanks.

This morning–not as early as I usually embrace a Sunday morning in NYC–the City is about as still as jell-lo. Easy but not necessarily steady.

A couple of blocks down the street there is a group of men who sit and play chess. Some are there every morning and the others are around only on the weekends. There is this one older guy with thick eyebrows and dark brown skin which glows who always says, “Life is a checkmate.” He doesn’t say it to me but I hear him most times I happen to pass by if he is there. I may just stop one day and ask him to explain more. I have my ideas how life is a big checkmate: either/or tug-o-wars which leave you neither here nor there. I want to be a trapeze artist when I grow up one day. Or are those just performances?

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