Matthew Gallaway

Death Culture at Sea (June)

Hi everyone -- strange times. 

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Under The Elms

On a recent morning while running through the park, I stopped to use the public bathroom and saw a flier about the elm trees. 'Fort Tryon Park has 4-dozen elm trees that are over 100 years old! These irreplaceable trees and their expansive shade canopy are in jeopardy of contracting Dutch elm disease. Your donation can help the Fort Tryon Park Trust underwrite a $55,000 inoculation treatment program to sustain the health, scenic, and ecological benefits of these majestic trees. A generous donor is providing a matching challenge grant. HELP US MEET THE MATCH. FortTryonParkTrust.org/donate.'

Sigh. Before I start complaining, let me begin by thanking everyone involved in saving these trees, whose beauty is -- objectively -- otherworldly. For as long as I've lived uptown (six hundred years and counting), I've gone to the park and almost every time I've made a point of stopping to admire these trees. They are the gods of whatever religion I follow. 

But (commence complaining) what is our government (city, state, and federal) doing if it can't spend $55,000 on these trees? That's literally like a fraction of a penny in the grand scheme of things. It's the cost of ten nails for the Department of Defense, or one truckload of cement to refurbish an unused stretch of highway in ____.*

*I'm too lazy to find actual examples, but I'm sure they're out there! 

Why do we have to rely on a 'matching donor'? And why can't the donor just shell out the $55,000? 

And why can't Mayor Eric Adams, who is turning to be exactly as inept and unfocused as we all knew he'd be, give the parks department one percent of the city budget, as he promised to do in his campaign? 

It's depressing to think about how much of our tax dollars are spent on weapons and police (and infrastructure for cars and oil), and how little is spent on things that really matter, like elm trees. 

The theme of 2022 is turning out to be the same as it was in 2021 and 2020 and every year since at least 1968 2016. I'm worried about where we are and where we're going; I need to go stand under the elms and think about the possibility of good things.  

DeathCulture@Sea (Miracle of Light)

Just in time for summer, here's something new from DeathCulture@Sea: 

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'Miracle of Light'

See the waves, see the waves

Overtake the lives

Made enough, made enough

Here again, the lies

In the case of a memory we had

The night is coming and the day is looking bad

We all know about the bills we have to pay

What's it matter when our hands are tied?

There's nothing left to say

It's a miracle of light

Over time we might open up our eyes

It's a miracle of light

We are watching as the birds are taking flight

We are waiting for the pay

Into the Trees

I recently went back to Pittsburgh, where the woods near my parents' apartment were dense with new leaves. When I had last visited, a month earlier, spring had still felt like a dream or a hallucination. Except for the tips of certain branches, the trees had been mostly bare; the ground had been coated with a faint sheen of green. Now the green was a carpet, a ceiling, and -- maybe -- a calling. 

In April, my father -- who last year was diagnosed with dementia -- still seemed like himself, but he had recently been going through a rough stretch. He now seemed more distant and disoriented, especially at night, and parts of his personality that I remembered would appear for a moment and then disappear. He was fading into and out of himself, the same way the leaves fade into and out of the forest.   

On this trip, when I spoke to him, he often met me with a blank stare. Did he understand? It was hard to say. But at other times, he revealed his trademark sense of humor. 'Is everything okay?' I asked him at one point as he was struggling to do something. 'What do you think?' he said. 'I'm old.' We both laughed a little. 

I knew he was still in there somewhere. 

According to the internet, dementia is 'a chronic or persistent disorder of the mental processes caused by brain disease or injury and marked by memory disorders, personality changes, and impaired reasoning.' 

There are stages to the disease, beginning with benign symptoms -- forgetting how to button a shirt, sleeping more than usual -- and progressing to 'complete cognitive decline.' No two cases are exactly alike. 

It's not always obvious what stage a person has reached. It only becomes clear that they need help in ways they once did not. 

Like so many conditions in life, dementia is not apparent until you're in it, although in retrospect it's easy enough to see the warning signs. I remembered the fall of 2020, when my brother and I got into a fight with him on a Zoom call about his ongoing support of Trump. 

If you had asked me then if he had dementia, I would have said 'yes,' but in the same way I would have said our entire country has dementia. 

There can be plateaus, periods when you can believe that the end is not as close as you might have feared. 'You need to live in the moment,' said the hospice nurse who has been attending to my father. 'Appreciate the good days when you get them.'

It seemed like a good philosophy, even for those of us who don't have dementia. 

I've been running through these woods for several years now, but they are still big and unfamiliar. It's easy to get lost, which even with a smart phone can be unsettling. 

But this fear -- and the corresponding remoteness -- is what makes the woods enticing. As I thought about my father, I hoped that for him, getting lost -- leaving behind the life he has known -- also has its moments of beauty. 

These days, my father no longer seems interested in politics. Like me, he seems frightened of the news. 

It was nice not to have to worry about arguing with him anymore. I stopped thinking about him as a Republican and remembered that he was my father. 

Instead of the news, he now likes watching nature shows, or just turning off the television and watching nature. He loves to see the birds and other animals crossing the field outside of his window. 

Perhaps, I thought, when I saw him happily watching the wild turkey, he was not as lost as I thought. 

Late Afternoon Light and New Leaves (Spring Break 2022)

It's only been raining for one day and I feel like I've been sentenced to solitary confinement. Maybe the lockdown is finally catching up with me, or maybe it's because the weather earlier this week was so beautiful that it feels almost cruel for it to have ended. 

On Wednesday afternoon, I went to the park, where the late afternoon sun was shining through the new leaves and flower petals. 

The Mayapples were on the march. 

It's really been one of the best springs I can remember, at least in terms of the weather. 

We had a few cold days at the end of March, but none of the crippling heat I remember from recent years. 

 The conifers are happy. 

There's so much information in the world. 

Here I couldn't remember any of it. 

March of the Camellia

I knew that spring had finally arrived when the camellia started to flower. All winter I had been watching the buds, which slowly swelled until one morning when I discovered that a few of them had opened. It happened overnight. I felt like I could breathe again. 

This year, for the first time, we had three plants blooming at the same time: red, white, and pink.  

The pink camellia is the first one we planted, and it has the most flowers. They float around the statue like perfect little clouds. Sometimes, I thought, it's possible to plan something for years that, when it finally happens, doesn't disappoint.  

I did feel sad thinking about Elektra, who loved the garden. 

 It's easy to ignore the outside world when the camellias are flowering.  

But camellia season is now coming to an end. Most of the flower petals have fallen off and now litter the ground; only a few remain attached to the branch. The outside world beckons and threatens. 

It's hard to see the flowers go, but I'm already looking forward to next year. 

DeathCulture@Sea 'Freeway to Hell'

Happy Easter to everyone who celebrates chocolate and candy. Here's a new Death Culture at Sea song we can add to the long tradition of songs about heading into (or out of) hell :) 

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Trees with Flowers

This was the week when everything changed, very quickly.

I’m talking about the trees and not the governmental response to the existential threat of global warming, of course.

The bike (and running and walking) path next to the Hudson is the busiest in the country, but is marked by buckling cement and potholes. It’s also very narrow in many places. I’m surprised that people aren’t crashing into each other all the time. (Or maybe they are.)

I’m hoping that for Earth Day this year, the mayor/governor/president/Mayor Pete will announce a new initiative to expand and widen bike paths everywhere (and reduce car lanes), starting with the west side of Manhattan.

We could plant a lot more trees, too.

It’s easy to dream when the sun is out, the wind is blowing, and the trees are in bloom. 

Green Haze

When I arrived in Western Pennsylvania, I was initially disappointed by the lack of color. In New York City, spring was up and running; here, the woods reminded me of The Blair Witch Project. 

I went running through the naked trees and felt old as I negotiated muddy hairpin turns that I wouldn't have thought twice about a few years ago. 

As I ran, I discovered here and there patches of green carpet. 

And vibrant displays of moss on the rocks and tree stumps. 

Spring was not as invisible as I had feared. 

The stream was rushing fast from all the rain. 

Notwithstanding the state of the world, I felt optimistic. 

Looking closer still, I found the wildflowers were blooming. 

Suffering and Not Suffering in Riverside Park

Yesterday I met some friends at 74th Street on Broadway. We went into Fairway*, bought some drinks and snacks, and walked over the the park, where we found an empty table and two benches to sit. 

*The uptown Fairway at 125 has closed, but the flagship store at Broadway doesn't appear to have changed in the wake of a bankruptcy -- it's still packed with food and customers jockeying for position -- although the novelty of a gourmet supermarket has perhaps worn off a bit since I first discovered it twenty-five years ago. I was a little dismayed to find that self-service checkout has replaced many of the staffed registers, but given the long lines filled with what I found to be a surprising number of mask-free UWSers (probably Biden supporters), I nevertheless tried to use one. I required assistance from the supervisor for approximately eight out the ten items I scanned and the register froze when I tied to pay, so everything had to be transferred to a new (staffed) machine. As I often do, I fantasized about living in different system that incentivized companies to hire real workers instead of replacing them with inefficient machines. 

Even though it was only fifty degrees out, we didn't get cold because our table was directly in the path of the afternoon sun. After enduring a week of freezing temperatures, the trees and flowers were coming to life. 

I'm familiar with this section of the park, but only by way of having run through it many times in the course of completing a run of at least ten miles. (This section of the park is five miles from my house.) I hadn't done such a long run in long time, however, since late 2020. Maybe soon, I thought, if my knee continues to get better. 

Or maybe not. It was nice to spend some time here without feeling like I was about to suffer.