To Penny’s
On time travel, and quite literally being observant
Greer Gibney![Courtesy of ATM[Image description: A flash photograph of a striped silver and green velvet couch with two plush cushions sits on the sidewalk, against a tuft of grass]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ea4aa06c5a4c21ec1803df4/1617471261408-QG8XLUE2SOWYETQ0RWUH/61862654729__59340BEC-073F-4B33-9797-BFC5F04951F9.jpg)
Courtesy of ATM
[Image description: A flash photograph of a striped silver and green velvet couch with two plush cushions sits on the sidewalk, against a tuft of grass]
Greer
/ˈgrir/ | Scottish Gaelic, c. 1542-1598
(noun): a girl’s name derived from the name Gregor, meaning ever watchful, observant, vigilant, alert; a war cry or slogan, meaning to be mindful
I am starting to notice the way that I carry my name, or the way that my name carries me. Maybe it is not so much a matter of carrying as it is holding it close, pressed up to my skin, another heart beating against my chest. I think the observance part is knowing what to look for, and the ever watchful is knowing how tightly to hold it. Greer comes with a responsibility that I have bestowed upon myself, perhaps selfishly, to keep account of the worlds through which I pass. A younger me looked for self in other people, places, and ideas—experiences that took me out of my own body and distracted from the task of being a singular person. Greer: someone I struggle to love and care for. But to observe is to retain, and to retain is to hold close; so, I become the archivist of my own universe, finding purpose (or a sense of shameless self-importance) in collecting and cataloguing what I take the time to notice. To know that to be Greer means all of this is to make sense of myself, to bring me back to myself.
During this year in which time has burned slowly and I am faced mostly by myself, I have looked to time travel as a way to absorb the world, seeking a path to the pasts of this place. Not in a kitschy, Back to The Future sort of way (I don’t think I would drive a DeLorean even if I had my license) but more of a self-indulgent, headphones-in kind of way. This city, and the homes that I have created here, are not merely a product of where I have actually lived, but of the gardens across the way, the bodegas up the block. That neighbor with the Jack Russell terriers that kept having puppies; the friends whose roofs and kitchens were convivial and warm. The time I thought I was in love somewhere in between Gowanus and Park Slope—or the time I realized I did not know what love meant, after graduating high school somewhere in downtown Brooklyn.
The summer walks—in the first weeks that we could be together outside—provided a comfort, a morning or evening ritual, a reason to anticipate each day. Many choose to hike because getting to the top of a mountain trail gets you a beautiful view; but on a walk through time, especially here in New York (someone will get annoyed when I say this), the view lasts the entire trek.
Penny’s became my daily destination—a new home base and a point A to B, a way to bookend my breadcrumb trail of nostalgia. The house sat deep in the South Slope, a place I thought I knew by heart, flanking the park and shaded by trees. Penny herself was an enigmatic, Oz-like figure, who we only knew through family photos scattered around the living room, and who became a saving grace throughout the hotter months. My friends and I would make ourselves busy there—feeding one another, making each other laugh through the low moments, keeping cool in front of the AC—as we kept up our end of the deal: caring for the house and its sole inhabitant, a bashful tabby cat. Penny’s was a monument in and of itself; an odd, timeless but familiar gathering place for three months, and an ode to a Brooklyn that had lasted decades before me, in its own sunlit corner of the world.
In the middle of June, I decided that I would walk the six miles to Penny’s every single day. Mainly, I wanted to experience the sun and the feeling of being around people—a feeling that Hannah Black captures in better words: “It’s important to go outside because you feel different when the weather touches you directly and because there are people there...” Even if I could not touch them, I could try to understand the ways that they moved. That way I could remember them, get to know them, feel connected to them, even if only for a moment. But it was not just the people I wanted to hold onto, it was the time warp that I floated through every time I did it. Even if the route changed, I could watch the way that my neighborhoods had grown up with me. When I arrived at Penny’s, I could show up with a story, or a question, or a cup of soft serve dripping between my fingers. I would always arrive sweaty and exhausted, as if I had never done the walk before. But then I would wake up in the morning and do it all over again in the opposite direction, retracing my steps to seek what I’d missed.
I found myself committed to pausing at every point that struck a chord in my gut. The mystical old cathedral that gave me goosebumps out of sheer admiration; the sunset peeking through the trees that reminded me of a really great song. To feel like I was in a movie’s intro, I would listen to “Lips” by Baxter Drury. Jeff Buckley’s smooth “Lover, You Should’ve Come Over” would coo in my ear, welcoming the bittersweet sensation that comes with being awake before the sun. On rain-soaked days, I’d play “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues,” the Nina Simone version carrying me home on a cloud. With my own soundtrack curated for each coming block, I could visit the neighborhoods I had once known so well. Even the places that don’t exist—I’d see them every day.
There were many evenings when I passed my old street again, the one I grew up on. Everything was still there, almost aggressively so. Ruthie’s barbershop (and Ruthie inside of it). She always had trinkets and toys in the front window that I played with. Gambi, who worked on his own cars outside of his electrical company. He had a pet name for me once which I am struggling to recall. At the corner, I found the miniscule vintage shop and the woman who runs it (I can’t remember her name), still sitting out front fanning herself. It’s funny—when I was seven, I thought she was around eighty, but she must have been at least forty because she looks pretty much the same.
Walking through a time warp is funny. I don’t know if I would recommend it. I began to realize what places and moments left the greatest marks on me. What churches, trash cans, or cafes I grew dependent upon and built relationships to. The ones that I took the most notice of after they had disappeared. The ones I lingered in front of, as if asking for some kind of reply. I see you, I know you, I’ve missed you. This is home.
Home has since changed; a result of the turning gears of a quickly changing Brooklyn, a process that runs on the very nostalgia I hold close. But in that summer of walking to Penny’s—that summer where people finally came together, and the world felt a little less full of solitude and loneliness—I found the world that I longed for in my everyday: those tangible and intangible things that transported me home, those memories that remained even as my neighborhood was forcefully transformed. Maybe it was the task of observance I had gifted myself that helped me see clearly. Maybe it was a summer of slowing down, and speeding up, and coming together.
I still recognize these people and things as I pass them, but I have been gone long enough that they no longer recognize me. I no longer exist on this street. Which is the trajectory of all of life, I suppose. You exist somewhere until you leave it for good, but it always stays with you.
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