On the Street Where I Lived

My first night in suburbia -- more than twenty years ago -- was eerily quiet. No ambulances speeding by, not even the buzz of some steady late night traffic. No brakes screeching, no private conversations carried in some bizarre updraft through my fifth floor window. My run the next morning was equally disconcerting. The calm, quiet darkness of the suburban streets was terrifying.

I grew up on one of the most beautiful of the mean streets of Brooklyn, I learned the rules of Ocean Parkway early. Ocean Parkway, the grand boulevard that emerges with great fanfare (or at least a large green sign) from the Prospect Expressway and rolls, unimpeded as soon as you catch the first in a series of carefully choreographed lights, right up to the Boardwalk at Coney Island and the murky Atlantic Ocean just beyond. I learned that, as tempting as it might be to take a short cut and cross over at Avenue H, which dead ended right at the entrance to my apartment building, the odds of surviving the seven lanes of Brooklyn drivers were slim. When I rode my bike, my mother always reminded me to look over my shoulder when I got to Bay Parkway, where cars seemed to take the angled turn with little regard for human life. Years later, when I would visit and go for a run, she would issue the same warning. 

On the nights my brother and I walked home from Hebrew School -- at, you guessed it, the Ocean Parkway Jewish Center -- mom would peer out from the screen door on our fifth floor terrace, waiting for us to appear on the safe side of Foster Avenue. Safe in that there were no more streets to cross. Back then, I thought it was silly. Now, I can almost feel her sigh of relief. 

This weekend, my daughter and her boyfriend ran the Brooklyn Half Marathon. They saw with their own eyes what I had only ever seen through a car windshield, the great fanfare of the green sign heralding the emergence of Ocean Parkway from the Prospect Expressway. The choreography of the lights was irrelevant as they trotted the length of the grand boulevard, unimpeded except, no doubt, by some leg cramps. They did not have to worry about the treacherous crossing at Bay Parkway, did not have to brace their ears against the wailing of ambulance sirens or the screeching of brakes. 

And, when they crossed over to the safe side of Foster Avenue, to the block where I grew up, my mother was watching. She was not, as she had been long ago, peering surreptitiously our of the screen door of our fifth floor terrace. She was downstairs, outside, in the rain, Burberry umbrella in one hand, her handmade sign in the other. I would never have believed it had I not seen the picture taken from my daughter's cell phone. My mother, her grandmother, risking her hair in the rain, holding a DIY sign. Other than the Burberry umbrella, none of it made any sense. 

Or maybe it makes perfect sense. When it comes down to it, my mother will not only risk her hair or a daunting bit of arts and crafts but would go to the ends of the universe to share a milestone with one of her children or grandchildren. And a 13.1 mile milestone through the streets of her beloved Brooklyn is certainly no exception. As she waited, peering not through a screen door but through her Chanel sunglasses (yes, in the rain), it was less a sigh of relief, I would imagine, than a feeling of pure joy that went through her as her granddaughter and crew ran by.  

Ocean Parkway has changed a lot over the years. The horse path on the east side of the street is long gone. So, too, are some of the older buildings. There are still old people sitting on the parkway benches on the west side of the street, just different old people. Still, to this day, I feel a sense of coming home when I pass under the big green sign near Fort Hamilton Parkway welcoming me to the street where I lived. Sometimes, I just miss the noise.

But it's good to know that whenever any of us head over that way, my mother is waiting, making sure we are safe.