Karen on the Brooklyn Bridge

Karen Beth Hunter took this picture in July of 2005. She stopped for a moment as she rode her bicycle over that bridge in order to do so.

(This entry is still a work in progress, but it feels right to publish it, even as I work on it, if only for the picture. The elegy I wrote in Karen's honor, "Cardinal n30491 requesting clearance for takeoff" is one of the first entries on the blog. I wrote it in March, 2006.)

---Almost every day for most of the months of July and August, Karen rode her bicycle across the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan. Serendipitously, the very first artwork her parents bought together was a sketch of the bridge, which hung in her den/dining room. Most of the time, actually, we ate on the deck of her apartment which had a view of that bridge and of the city. We caught about 80 percent of the fireworks on the fourth of July and invited about thirty people over to share the event.

---She took a small, digital camera with her when she rode, though most of her work had been done on a traditional camera which she treasured. The digital camera was smaller and lighter, by far and she still managed to take beautiful shots. She was wrong – she wasn’t a craftsperson, but a true artist. She could see like no one I had ever known and she saw in huge frames. She’d become fascinated, in fact, with huge pictures. She took several of the water on the beaches of the Bahamas. We had wanted to develop one in poster-size and hang it on the wall of the bedroom, but we didn’t get to do it. Again, serendipitously, she saw a street-side exhibit of photographs with that idea in mind in Soho. She took me to it, shortly after and insisted we hold hands like friends do as we walked. Feeling a little jealous, I don't think I was as generous as I could've been with what was actually a terrific idea--holding hands. Enjoying simple touch and affection as we walked.

(A little before July 4th 2004, I put out an ad on Craig’s list titled, “Lost in Space”. I was only looking for a friend – someone willing to go on small adventures in the city with me. My closest friend had been ill for some time and could no longer leave her home often. Another has a child who has become the vortex of her life. And I could not keep up with the third of the group, whose salary was much larger than mine. Within about twenty minutes of posting the ad, I got a response from “Annon” who claimed to be willing to meet even though this probably would be akin to the “blind leading the blind”. She had just left a terrible relationship, one feature of which, I found out later, was that it had isolated her from anyone but her partner’s friends and family. My initial response was to correct the spelling of “anonymous” and ask for the name of this still unidentified person. She quickly apologized for being so out of touch with things as to not know when it was appropriate to give one’s name. And she appreciated the correction. She told me later that she liked my snappishness. She was a good writer and she loved words.

The emails lead to a meeting which included a long conversation in the rain after a visit to the Brancusi exhibit at the Guggenheim (where she claimed that her photography was craft, not art). It rained our next meeting, too. Before long, rain or not, we were always talking with each other. She was extraordinary and it was she who acknowledged that there was an attraction between us. But, my adolescence always precedes me and I was never enough in my own body to be a full partner. I was/am afraid to be more than an idea, perhaps a sketch -- like many of my generation, I'm good at impressions.) We were always the closest of friends, regardless, and, except for time at work, and small vacations she took without me, we were almost always together. Oddly, we drove over the bridge many times, but I never biked it with her. Being as heavy as I am broke, I could never ride a bicycle which actually moved anywhere and did not adjust with me as I lost my breath. )

---The evening of Sept. 11, 2001, Karen walked across the bridge alone with her now-ex partner. A psychologist, she had gone down to counsel people and allowed her partner as an "assistant" though she could not really do anything except stand away while Karen worked. The two walked in silence over the Brooklyn Bridge on their way home.

---Karen loved that bridge and she loved Brooklyn where she had built the greater part of her practice and where she could find all sorts of good food, and finally, an apartment with a view of the city, in the urban paradise Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass. Dumbo, as it is known, also came with its own central, lesbian restaurant which features live country and folk music, which she also loved.

---Karen would walk her bike home with me from the gym or her office. I tried to ride it once, but it was too tall. I found that very odd because Karen wasn’t more than an inch or so taller than I am. Perhaps my problem also lay in the fact that I remember my training wheels fondly. She beat me home even when I took a cab or train. Home being her home. She never quibbled, however – it was our home because it was a home which she felt comfortable sharing and was the natural extension of the community she created just in knowing you. Having company -- being together as simply as in a playdate was essential to her. She often said she wished she had a partner who always brought people over so that even when she wanted to sit alone and read there would be people nearby. I trusted her completely, as I suspect her patients did because it was the natural response to her presence. I know she could be nervous, over-excited and Tigger-like in impatience. But, she was incredibly easy to be with, to tell your heart to, as it were.

---Being on a bridge is much like being in a plane in that you are suspended. I liked being in the air with her and I liked that feeling of nesting in mid-air between places and above the ocean. For Karen, I think, in the Brooklyn Bridge, there was also the promise of the enchanted urban carnivals on one side and the quiet on the other. Dumbo is immensely quiet though it looks onto so much activity.

---The bike path to the Brooklyn bridge is a long one and it swings around parks and traffic. Yet, once on the bridge, I imagine there is just that feeling of suspension. The sound of your own traveling. Of "being in the wind," which Karen once said she enjoyed.