Sax in the City

Sunday morning. There’s a fog shrouding the trees and hillsides beyond the clarity of my small yard, and that of my 96-year-old neighbor’s adjoining yard. There is an underlying rhythm in the subtle background of crickets. It is punctuated with soft knock of a woodpecker against a tree, the dropping of acorns onto my deck, and dogs barking in the distance. Occasionally, there is a muted high-pitched chirpings of a bird – the soprano solo interspersed.

I have a gentle fire going in my chimnea, hot coffee in my tall cup and the New York Times nearby. What could be more special than a quiet West Asheville morning like this?

I’ve been here for 20 months now. I don’t sit out on my deck as much as I did last year. The newness has worn off, and besides, there is so much more to do now. I know more people so there are more social engagements. I’ve become more involved with caring for and landscaping my yard. Gardening and harvesting projects create a long “to do” list on a yellow legal pad.

Lately, I’ve been remembering myself in NYC. As I continue to read the NYTimes, I realize that Manhattan is changing. New buildings are going up, old one coming down. Progress seems to be happening, albeit slowly, around Ground Zero. I continue to receive email newletters from Cranes Business; along with several social groups I belonged to there.

I miss it.

I use to get up in the mornings, pick up coffee from the Amish Market and go to the park on 48th Street. Although on weekdays I was often the only one there, I was surrounding by the street noise – garbage trucks, fire trucks, and a constant assortment of car horns. Most of the time I was able to block out the noise and spend time writing, thinking and sometimes even meditating among the flowers and trees in the small, but well kept park.

I have many wonderful memories from my 11 years in NYC, but probably the most magical one happened one fall evening as I sat in front of my computer in my apartment on the second floor. As usual in warm or temperate weather, my window was fully open. I heard a saxophone playing nearby. Not a particularly unusual sound as there was a musicians practice space two buildings down. Then, I heard a second, lower saxophone playing in harmony with the first. Very nice, I thought. When a third, even lower sax joined in, I had to know what was going on. I stuck my head out the window and looked toward the musicians building. On the sidewalk in front was one player. I decided to crawl out on my fire escape. I didn’t see any co-conspirator musicians around him, so I started looking around for the others. At that moment, a fourth, higher pitched sax joined the other three. I spotted all three others within minutes – each from a different building, out on their fire escapes.


The music continued for another 20 minutes or so. Forty-seventh Street isn’t the same as busy 9th Avenue that runs north and south. It is mostly residential and one way, with cars parked on both sides of the street. But business as usual continued that evening: people walking under the streetlights, cars and bicycles jostling for their space and smokers hanging out in front of doorways. I sat there, aware, but not really feeling the cold metal of the fire escape, wondering how this could possibly be happening. Four beautiful instruments, in total harmony, a small symphony of music, on the really not-so-mean streets of Manhattan. Did the musicians plan this? Or was it just happenstance?

I’ll never know. I just know that on one particular warm, clear September evening, in the relative quietness of my Manhattan apartment, magic happened. As the morning sun burns off the morning fog over the trees around me in West Asheville, I now remember that yellow legal pad “to do” list.