New York neighborhoods can be ridiculously convenient. Within five blocks of my apartment is pretty much everything I need. On the ground floor of my building is a grocery store (not just a bodega, but a real, fully stocked grocery store). In fact, the grocery built an “insiders” door that leads from our lobby to the grocery store. If I wanted to, I could grocery shop in my socks. Next to the grocery store is a coffee shop, dry cleaners and a parking garage. Across the street is the entrance to the subway, a police station and a Goodwill donation center. Around the block or down the street in any direction is everything from department stores, to a bakery, a tailors, restaurants, antique shops, gift shops, a salon, a spa, a copy shop, a drug store, a pediatrics, dentist, a doctor's office, an accountant, lawyers, several daycares, a gym, several playgrounds, a weekend farmer’s market, and three different religions to choose from if I am so inclined. It’s all very convenient.
Except when it’s not.
Let’s take the grocery store for example. While it is true that I could shop in my socks, I don’t because the store at the bottom of my stairs is terrible. It’s a big fake out, a candy house for Brooklyn’s Hansels and Gretels. The produce is the worst I’ve ever seen. The veggies bow their heads in shame and sigh in disbelief that their withered, flaccid bodies are still counted among the living. The bananas never ripen. They just go from green to hard while turning a strange color of black/brown that does not look natural. And the prices are stupid high. Shopping there is like being complicit in your own robbery. It’s like saying to a robber “Hey, you know what? Here are my shoes and my coat too.” (which I wouldn't do, because I go down there in my socks of course.)
So, instead of going to the ground floor of our building, we go to the Fairway in Red Hook. For those unfamiliar with Brooklyn, Red Hook sits on the waterfront in “South Brooklyn.” It is comprised mainly of shipping piers, old civil war era warehouses, industrial buildings and housing projects. It underwent a renaissance during the recent housing boom because Fairway, a local high end grocery store, bought a warehouse on the waterfront and turned it into a grocery store/condo. Shortly after, Red Hook became hip. Artists and yuppies started snatching up cheap housing and store fronts, converting them into deluxe condos, artist’s lofts and trendy boutiques. Then Ikea moved in. Once that happened, Red Hook’s place among the hearts and minds of gentrifying New Yorkers was firmly set. Red Hook is classic White Brooklyn; equal parts seedy and chic with a mix of extremely poor and affluent mingling uneasily together and relying heavily on its two vital organs: Fairway and Ikea.
So we, being true and dutiful White Brooklyners, go there every week. This is not as quick and simple as it sounds because Red Hook is incredibly inconvenient to get to. It’s not within walking distance, it’s not on a train line, the bus is slow and inconsistent, you can bike (weather permitting), take a cab, or you have to drive there.
We drive.
To get an idea of what it’s like to drive to Red Hook do this; choose a grocery store roughly 30 minutes away from your house. Now, call a friend and ask her if you can come pick up your car that's parked at her house. Wait about 15 minutes for her to call you back and let you know that you can now go get your car. Drive down a series of narrow, potholed roads that you have to “share with” (a.k.a. dodge out of the way of) huge, aggressive semis, delivery vans and empty tour buses. Go there every week with your five year old and two year old, get the food and then drive back to your friend’s house. Give her your keys and while she waits, go into her garage, find a wagon and load up all your groceries on the wagon. Wheel the wagon one block to your house while your five year old and two year old climb all over it, squishing the food and yelling “go faster!” and “I wanted to be in front this time!” Unload the groceries as fast as you can so nothing melts or gets salmonella and then pile your kids back into the wagon and walk it back to your friend’s garage.
We drive.
To get an idea of what it’s like to drive to Red Hook do this; choose a grocery store roughly 30 minutes away from your house. Now, call a friend and ask her if you can come pick up your car that's parked at her house. Wait about 15 minutes for her to call you back and let you know that you can now go get your car. Drive down a series of narrow, potholed roads that you have to “share with” (a.k.a. dodge out of the way of) huge, aggressive semis, delivery vans and empty tour buses. Go there every week with your five year old and two year old, get the food and then drive back to your friend’s house. Give her your keys and while she waits, go into her garage, find a wagon and load up all your groceries on the wagon. Wheel the wagon one block to your house while your five year old and two year old climb all over it, squishing the food and yelling “go faster!” and “I wanted to be in front this time!” Unload the groceries as fast as you can so nothing melts or gets salmonella and then pile your kids back into the wagon and walk it back to your friend’s garage.
Sounds fun right?
Add to this the fact that I am gathering up the weekly rations of tan, kid friendly food week after week. I’m not a foodie and thankfully no one at my house has special dietary needs. I don’t like to cook so I tend to stick to the “eat a lot of veggies, no red meat” diet. Anything more challenging then that is simply beyond me. I also have two very picky eaters. They balk at attempts to tempt their boring kid palates and I am not creative enough try something new and unexpected to tempt them. As long as they don’t starve, they aren’t obese, their teeth don’t rot, they are growing properly and they don’t get gout, I’ve done my job.
Add to this the fact that I am gathering up the weekly rations of tan, kid friendly food week after week. I’m not a foodie and thankfully no one at my house has special dietary needs. I don’t like to cook so I tend to stick to the “eat a lot of veggies, no red meat” diet. Anything more challenging then that is simply beyond me. I also have two very picky eaters. They balk at attempts to tempt their boring kid palates and I am not creative enough try something new and unexpected to tempt them. As long as they don’t starve, they aren’t obese, their teeth don’t rot, they are growing properly and they don’t get gout, I’ve done my job.
So why, with standards as low as mine, would I bother going all the way to Red Hook? Because the Red Hook Fairway is kind of fun and I am the mother of two small kids. Translation; I gotta get my kicks where I can.
The Fairway in Red Hook built a little walkway around one side that curves around the pier and looks out over the harbor. Tugboats and huge tanker ships glide by and you can see the Statue of Liberty off in the distance. At the end of the pier there are these rusted out 1950’s trolley cars that Fairway sort of claimed as their own. I think they were abandoned there by the MTA a million years ago, but rather than cart them away, Fairway propped up a few metal barriers and called it good. The boys love them. Across the street in the spring and summer, “Captain Dave,” a nice, kinda weird, middle-aged man with fantasies of being a circus performer/sailor, parks his barge. He opens his “Barge Museum” a couple days a week and he and his family host an amateur circus act in the summer. The New York Water Taxi stops at Fairway and along the opposite pier, in turn of the century shipping warehouses, rows of artists have taken up residency. Every firehouse in the area shops at Fairway so no matter what time of day or what day of the week we go there is always a fire truck parked out front and a dozen or so firemen wandering around the store. To a kid, this is the equivalent of a super hero sighting. The store itself is set up like all grocery stores; you are forced to walk through every aisle to get to the end, but they funnel you through the “fancy” prepared foods and cheeses, seafood and health food sections first which means you get to fill up on free samples and a really good look at the lobster tank before going through the rest of the store.
The Fairway in Red Hook built a little walkway around one side that curves around the pier and looks out over the harbor. Tugboats and huge tanker ships glide by and you can see the Statue of Liberty off in the distance. At the end of the pier there are these rusted out 1950’s trolley cars that Fairway sort of claimed as their own. I think they were abandoned there by the MTA a million years ago, but rather than cart them away, Fairway propped up a few metal barriers and called it good. The boys love them. Across the street in the spring and summer, “Captain Dave,” a nice, kinda weird, middle-aged man with fantasies of being a circus performer/sailor, parks his barge. He opens his “Barge Museum” a couple days a week and he and his family host an amateur circus act in the summer. The New York Water Taxi stops at Fairway and along the opposite pier, in turn of the century shipping warehouses, rows of artists have taken up residency. Every firehouse in the area shops at Fairway so no matter what time of day or what day of the week we go there is always a fire truck parked out front and a dozen or so firemen wandering around the store. To a kid, this is the equivalent of a super hero sighting. The store itself is set up like all grocery stores; you are forced to walk through every aisle to get to the end, but they funnel you through the “fancy” prepared foods and cheeses, seafood and health food sections first which means you get to fill up on free samples and a really good look at the lobster tank before going through the rest of the store.
We’ve created a ritual around grocery shopping. Upon parking we have The Talk. What is expected of us, how we’re to behave and what we get if we behave (usually dinner at the café in the store). Then we go to the barge, say “hi” to Captain Dave, take a walk around the pier and look longingly at the trolley cars. Then we go into the store. At each section of the store there is a ritual. The boys always pick out a veggie or fruit for themselves and weigh it. Then carry it around with them. They always get a piece of bread at the fancy olive oil display then go over and look at the lobsters and find the one with a “big butt!” Midway through the store, if they’ve been able to contain themselves, we park our cart and order linch from the café. Then we go to the trolley cars again. If it’s too cold, we sit inside and watch the water taxi and tug boats cruise around the harbor. After lunch we go through frozen foods and, with fingertips numb, we go through the check out where the cashier gives each boy a string of “PAID” stickers that they proudly slap onto their hands, foreheads and hair.
Grocery shopping takes me about four hours.
I don’t really have four hours to go grocery shopping. On most days the whole thing is absolutely maddening and it takes all my patience not to turn into Grendel’s Mother. But, I feel like this ridiculously overblown shopping experience is important. My children and I are participating in a ritual. We’re going through the process of cultivating patience, self control and respect. It helps us to organize and structure our lives right now. It gives us boundaries and allows us to practice skills we all need. Plus, it can be fun. And really, what is the difference between a routine and a ritual? A routine is just some mundane thing you do every day/week/month that gets you by. I looked it up on Wikipedia (because I love Wikipedia) and the one of the definitions it gave was priceless: “Ritual is an outsider's or "etic" category for a set activity (or set of actions) which to the outsider seems irrational, non-contiguous, or illogical.” That pretty much sums up grocery shopping at my house!
In yoga one of the things we most often stress is the importance of creating a regular practice. In order to find any true benefit from something we must first go through the ritual of creating a routine. And I do mean ritual. It is one thing to show up to the mat or the gym or your job each week and go through the motions, it is quite another to show up and observe what’s actually going on for you. Practicing yoga is a mini representation of practicing participation in our own lives. We can either choose to zombie through it or we can actively engage in it, warts and all, in ways that offer us the potential for joy. Note I said potential, not “it will bring you joy.” Rituals do not always inflate our hearts with joy. They simply point us towards options that make what is necessary connected to something beyond mundane existence. The process of living can be either mundane or actively engaging but the potential for joy is greatly enhanced by the latter. It may never manifest itself at all, but at least the door of possibility is open.
