a scene at the Children's Magical Garden

What a week it's been! My universe was completely out of alignment it seemed for days. Today was just a perfect day to do nothing after that; it drizzled all day. All day long, continuously.

On Wednesday, I was woken up by someone calling my name outside of window. It was Michelle. She doesn't have a cell phone and I don't have a buzzer. "They are destroying the garden. You have to come. There's police and everything." I knew what happened. There was a talk about the private developer threatening us that he'll put up a fence around his property, which will take away the best portions of the Children's Magical Garden for a few months. "Taiyo, we have to go to the garden right away." "Ok, but can I eat some yogurt or something?" "Yes, you can have some yogurt. But you have to hurry up." He seemed to understand the urgency of the situation, and he quickly chugged down his bowl of yogurt. "I'm done!" On the way to the garden I told him that he should tell them to stop destroying our garden. I didn't know what to explain, but I think he somehow understood. When we got there, there was already a small crowd. Our friend Amy saw us and began shouting at the rude lawyer the developer has sent. "Look, this is one of the kids who come to the garden. You're taking away his garden. Shame on you!" She's a natural activist type, excellent heckler. Then we went into the garden to join other garden members. Mexican construction workers were quietly working- they ignored all the flowers and new plantings and digging wholes to erect a fence. There were 5-6 police officers "to protect the workers." So Amy was yelling at them "Where are the police force to protect the community? Shame on you, 7th Precinct!" Taiyo was throwing sticks at the cops. I let him be, since I didn't think they can arrest 3 year-old. I wasn't even standing next to him and pretended I didn't know him. He was walking around across police line and I was kind of looking away. Then he started yelling "Stop! Stop!" and one of the cop began to question him, "Hey, which one is your mommy?"

There were private security guards in suits standing outside. Then an angry protestor, who we've never seen in the garden, stormed in. This guy probably shows up every protest/confrontation in town. We didn't want the scene to become too violent and confrontational and tried to calm him down, but only made him more heated. The Mexicans continued working, the fence went up. Media people came and went. Since Taiyo was the only very little people there fighting for the garden, and since it was appropriate for the Children's Magical Garden, he ended up appearing in many media photos and TV news coverage. He was so proud to see himself on NBC and NY1 news later that day. Check out the
NBC segment- which I was also quoted.

We may have a long battle ahead to reclaim the whole garden. Or the case may continue to be ignored by city officials as it has been, since this is still the neglected Lower East Side, home of the many low-income families. Please sign the online petition here for the Mayor Bloomberg.

Then the next few days also brought me more bad news- our delivery bike stolen, my new personal bike's both wheels and saddle stolen, ankle sprain, and in the middle of it all I got a Health Department inspection, which turned out to be the only good event of the week resulting another "A." Taiyo has been reasonable and tantrum-less and I'm totally grateful. So this gloomy day I began making a thousand origami cranes to wish for a safe recovery of our oasis.