alyssa robbins: where here ashes rest
Some places where Alyssa has traveled after she left us…
…some planned, some spontaneous
Some of us have tiny silver boxes with her ashes: her mom, her dad, her brothers Chris and Dan, her mate Jeff, her close friends Zoe, Jessica, and Gabby. So most of her ashes abide now in New York City, New Jersey and the Fiji Islands.
Divided as she was, she didn't follow the routes shown above, but if you think of every leaving-of-her-ashes as a moment touching down in this world, then she sort of did. Anyway, it makes it more interesting to mix the time and the geography, as if she were able to dart from family member to family member, whirring across the world.
From travels with her Mom:
in front of the house, to the left of the front door…as the snow melts; in the back garden under a big tree, joining the pet guinea pigs who passed away in years gone past as Alyssa was growing up; among the ferns under the spreading Japanese Split-Leaf Maple in the front of the house where she and her brothers played and climbed when they were small.
NYC
Asia Society - in the Meditation room, in the rug. We went there with Kathleen Ullman.
In a very old pub, "The Abbey," indeed once an abbey…in the cracks of the seat of a very old pew…in the main room, at the very back, on the very back seat
· On the Champs Elysees
· Into the Seine from the Pont Neuf, the first side on the way to the Louvre, the second “porch” and onto the bridge itself as the wind blows it…just by the bright lights
· Into the Seine and on its banks
· In the Tuilleries Gardens- by a statue by the biggest pool and fountain - in the grass by a statue of the handsomest man
· in the Tuilleries Gardens, in the same big fountain where the ducks swim and the children play
· at a country house need Versailles - out of a guest bedroom window onto the lawn
· inside the guest bedroom - in the cracks of a very old wooden statue of the Virgin Mary and in the joints of an antique mirror stand
· the day I arrive- in Shelly’s apartment - out the window , on the sill, falling accidentally on her rug
· On the lawn of Radcliffe College (photo)
· In the Barbican Gallery at a photo exhibit of Sebastiao Salgado “Exodus” - under a bench, in a room where there was both death and young life, in South America
· Spontaneously, after Shelly knocked over her wine glass, in my purse, and then on a wine soaked towel from the restaurant, “Little Bay”- after a delicious dinner and pleasant evening with Shelly and her friends Leyla and John
· In the guest house where I stayed- the Arran House Hotel on Gower Street near Russell Square and near the house where Bertrand Russell once lived. Tucked into cracks in the fireplace, where perhaps noone will clean them away.
· On the ILO campus, by the UN System School…outside the cafeteria , under three fruit trees bursting with clusters of pink blossoms in the warm sunshine, beside the River Po (photo)
· Port Harcourt, Rivers State - in the earth of the indoor palm tree in our apartment
· Obudu Cattle Ranch, Cross Rivers State - June, 2003 - under a tree, where the goats wander, in the mountains of this nature resort (photo)
· Afi Mountain, Cross Rivers State- July, 2003 - Pandrillus Drill Ranch - a conservation area - in a pretty stream sparkling with sunshine by some white flowers near the chimpanzees I study; and again in perhaps the same stream on the path to the chimps’ area (photos)
· During the rain in a lake used in the energy recycling processes at the Center for Alternative Technology (CAT). We are with Bill. (photo)
England -Aug 2003
· In the Atlantic Ocean in the south of England
· In the Guggenheim Museum by Frank Gehry- (she would have loved it). There is a huge, marvelous exhibit of Calder’s Mobiles and Stabiles.
· Rubbed into the inside stone walls and crevices
· On and between the slate pieces of the huge sculpture by Richard Long, “Bilbao Circle”
· In the “moat” beside the museum which flows into the river next to it.
· Into the lake waters where Chris and Shelly were married the day before. We are with her brothers Chris and Dan, Bill, her Dad and Nancy, our friends and neighbor Maria Hellen and son Spiro. (wedding photos)
· In the back garden of Dan’s little house, in the bushes by the tree stump where he sculpts (photo)
· South Beach, near Barnstaple- in the cold waters on a cold day of the weekend of the last visit I had with Don Griffin. We are with Wendy Williams and Greg Auger, friends of Don Griffin. Some ashes blew onto the land, towards a bank of sea beach grasses golden in the afternoon sun. She seemed to be saying, ”enough of all this cold, flowing, inconstant water…I want to be on some land now.” (photo)
· Martin Luther King Memorial in Buena Vista Gardens, across from the SF Museum of Modern Art. Sprinkled beneath the waterfall of the memorial, looking towards a big tree on a sunny, grassy slope where little children play. (photo)
· In a planter on the roof deck of a once vineyard growers house where we are staying- Bill, Dan and I. (photo)
· In the nearby vineyards.
Now, many of her ashes are still inside the house in Little Neck. She seems to be saying that she has traveled enough, or maybe almost enough. She wants to rest.
Travels with her Dad
New York City
· In the meadow in Central Park where she used to hang out
· Farm and Wilderness - the Quaker camp where she and her brothers went as campers and then as councilors. There is a memorial campership fund set up for Alyssa which provides scholarships for girls to attend the girls’ program in Indian Brook there each summer.
Travels with her brother Chris
· April, 2003 - rubbed into the fingerboard of her travel guitar
·At some waterfall in some park - June twenty-something, 2003
· Palolo Deep Nature Reserve - 9 Oct, 2003.
Everytime I snorkle there I come out feeling as peaceful as I have ever felt.
Travels with her brother Dan
· September, 2005 - thrown into the Delaware river at midnight.
the map is indyjunior by bryanboyer, who should open source it (what is it with kids these days?)