Author: ruhlwrite

With the gracefulness of the dancer she once was, Malini “Mala” Ekanayake primly sits on the park bench, puts her feet together in perfect alignment and closes her big, brown eyes. While she meditates, the physical world vanishes. She’s not in Astoria Park or Sri Lanka, her home country, any more. It’s 6 a.m., and this is her second meditation of the day. She’s been in the park exercising since 5 a.m., and she’s been up since 2. It helps that she calls it a day…

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Orlando Anthony Pavich wasn’t expecting morning to come so soon. He’s hasn’t shaved yet or put on a shirt. Zoe, his 2-year-old dachshund, is scurrying around the living room, jumping on the couches. The little hot dog has a big bark and poop the size of grapes. Orlando was out until 2:30 in the morning, and his coffee table, which holds a vase of dead flowers, a pair of sunglasses, a half-drunk bottle of water, a TV remote and a folded up sign-out sheet for the movie , looks like…

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Luisa Radeschi‘s been carrying the photo around for as long as she can remember. She just turned 94, so it’s safe to say that it’s been going on 70 or 80 years. She digs through her black handbag and brings it forth. The hand-size print, resting in a simple plastic slipcover, is as wrinkled as a prune. The people in the photo are her family. Her mother had already died when it was taken, so it shows only her, her father, her brother and her sister. Luisa is the little girl on…

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Walter “Wally” Boot finds himself fine-tuning a Steinway, and it’s all because of a blue suit he needed a half century ago. Back in the dog days of the summer of 1962, the aspiring industrial art designer had a big job interview. That’s why he wanted the suit. But he was only 18. He didn’t have any cash; the only thing he carried in his jeans pockets was hope. So he walked the two blocks from his family’s railroad apartment to the 11-acre Steinway & Sons factory…

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In the living room, past the pair of wire cages that confine Melanie, Peaches and Shadow, there’s a small black table that holds a toy car, a child-size football, a tablet engraved “Georgie” and a large color photo of a handsome man. Marilyn Maras, curly honey hair, cherry-red lipstick and light lavender polish painting her nails and toes, reaches into a cage and shows off Melanie, who, at nearly 7 years, is her oldest guinea pig. At one time, when Georgie was with her, she had…

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