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Dear Winter,
After 1. Numerous Venti Chai Tea Lattes from Starbucks 2. Trudging through a rain and wind storm carrying a heavy computer bag, a large box (bound for post office), and an umbrella (that tried to blow away) 3. Walking through my neighborhood that has golden and rusty red (wet) leaves on the sidewalk and Halloween decorations on stoops and in windows, and 4. Seeing this terrific illustration on SnuggleMuffin’s site…
Skating from http://snugglemuffin.vox.com/
I’m ready for you.
Don’t get me wrong… I’m officially excited it’s autumn, and I have nothing against it. In fact I quite love the autumn season: It smells good, the air starts to get cool, colors in nature get saturated and lovely, what’s old falls away and makes room for the new and exciting. Autumn’s great.
But I’m officially ready to have autumn usher you in, dear winter.
Bring on the snow! and hot cocoa! and cozy fires! and Christmas trees! and twinkle lights! and snowball fights! and…okay, you get the idea.
Hot Chocolate from http://snugglemuffin.vox.com/
I look forward to seeing you again, ol’ friend.
xo
Uptown Small Town
In honor of September 11th, my stepfather, a retired Marine, was asked to address my small hometown in Cali and speak at a remembrance ceremony. And across the country, I paid my respects here in NYC.
Having lived here (but just visiting on business at the moment), I always find it interesting how quiet this city can become when thoughts of 9/11 settle in, as if the collective consciousness becomes calmly introspective. Even the local news stations allow for silence on the air, followed by the lonely and haunting sounds of bagpipes which seem to play every year on the anniversary of that day.
It is hard to fathom, really. I suppose only a potent silence or a singular tune could really express what that day must have been like for so many.
But the respect people seem to have carried through is still expressed in small moments– as I was walking down the street, a firetruck was rounding the city block and a group of people, 4 or 5 grown men and women began clapping and one of them yelled out “Thank you!” in sort of a choked burst of emotion.
The honor here is palpable.
Now I wouldn’t consider myself a heavily religious person, but I have great fondness for the St. Paul Church near what is considered Ground Zero. This church was built in the 1760′s and has a history spanning from hosting George Washington’s inauguration to surviving the American Revolutionary War to surviving the attacks on September 11th. While buildings around it were destroyed in the collapse of the World Trade Center, this little church that could survived and became a place of refuge for rescuers and those rescued — while everything around it became chaotic debris, the church did not even have a broken window.
(photo by wallyg)
Inside of the chapel now stands a display of honor for those who’s lives ended or were altered forever by that day:
A chalice made from World Trade Center debris.
The boot of a rescue worker who gave his life.
Across this country, whether in a small town, uptown, or downtown, we come together in honoring all who were effected, all who are effected, and all who continue to serve our country and humanity on a whole.
Thank you.
Commutes in cities can be rather ridiculous at times. When I lived in Atlanta, my commute was about 10 miles and it took 45 mins. Each way.
When I lived in New York, I’d zip up the puffy North Face jacket and walk to work through well below freezing temperatures just to avoid squeezing into a subway car with other people and their puffy jackets, dripping umbrellas, and scowling faces. Of course one time I decided to take the subway and was completely smooshed in (and it was one of those that packed-so-tightly-that-no-one-needs-to-actually-hold-on-as-we-zoom-through-the-underground-tunnels-because-we’re-so-close-to-our-”neighbors,”-we-hold-one-another-upright sort of packed) and the guy I was pressed into turned around.
Then he looked down at me.
Then he said: Oh…hi…
I laughed and said hi back to my suited-up colleague from the office.
Now keep in mind that our faces were about three inches apart. He looked….horrified. Which made it even funnier to me. And, how does one make small talk with a work acquaintance while their bodies are unnaturally pressed into one another by the surrounding people and their puffy jackets (because silence is even more awkward)?
Well, for our 10 minute ride into the Time Warner Center he talked all about his wife. He told me about where she was raised, her job, her likes, dislikes, how they met, etc., etc. Then we got to our stop, squeezed and ‘scuse me’d our way out of the subway and said a brief “see-ya” when we arrived on the 21st floor and went about our days. (Me with heaping doses of new-found factoids about his wife. I guess it’s nice to know that while uncomfortably pressed up against a female colleague, he speaks at a very constant sort of pace about his wife.)
(My office was in that set of towers… the one on the left. Image by New Yorkled.)
(Another interesting image of the Time Warner Center by Tony Shi, NY-NJ)
Anyway, back to my point (I’m pretty sure I had one). I say all this to say: commutes can be just… odd. My current commute in San Francisco takes me through Chinatown. And, while it’s definitely not comparable to packing one’s self into the subway in NY, it has it’s packed-into-a-bus-with-pink-market-bags-that-smell-like-fish sort of thing going for it. Which is not really all that enjoyable.
Photo by ifotog
Yesterday I stood from my seat on the bus and let an elderly Asian woman sit down. And apparently this small act garnered me a temporary membership card into the seemingly tight-knit, tightly packed community of sorts. When another seat opened up, she tapped me on my leg and tried to scurry me with her hand to the seat before anyone else could take it. And it was not only her doing this, an older Asian man and another Asian woman were also pointing at the seat, telling me to take it in an excited, hurried, half Chinese/half English language.
And I couldn’t not take the seat at this point because I might lose my membership card.
So I sat. And after settling my bag on my lap, I looked up and all three of these people, in different locations on the bus, were smiling at me. Like they’d accomplished helping one of their (temporary) own. They looked almost proud.
And it made me proud. (I’m not sure if this is a sign that I’m a good person or that I’ve reached a point of work-exhaustion/delirium. Could be either.)
So while city commutes can be fairly un-fun (puffy jacket/subway), sometimes we’re lucky enough to have little small town moments that make one smile. Well, at least they make me smile. (Even if it is a delirious/exhausted one.)
While I take my time uploading photos of the trip to the South of France (clearly I’m still operating on vacation time), I was (perhaps because I’ve been questioning what it is I really want– a dangerous question!), thinking about what home is to me. (obviously a topic on my mind)
Home, in its ultimate sense, is in the center of me and yet paradoxically much bigger than me, but I think what I mean here is the home one builds for oneself throughout life. The center that expands as we come across new desires, “additions” if you will, and that we continue to remodel and redesign as we zoom around discovering new adventures and ways of being.
Lately, perhaps because I’ve been living in those “uptown” city apartments for so many years, I find myself really craving the manifestation of home… the home that I knew growing up with a yard and a garden and a dog and a view and a kitchen guests are welcome in and a deck that invites friends to stay in their pajamas while laughing and visiting in the sunshine well past the morning hours. Home.
A friend of mine and I actually have a code word for this: Both of us grew up in a small mountain community and both of us are living that city girl life. Whenever stress levels reach the point of ridiculousness, we say to each other “Elmo!” (If you’ve ever seen the show “Men in trees”– that’s where this is from.) To us, Elmo! is that word that means, get me back home to real life!!
So, while I’m not quite pulling the Elmo! card here (how could I? I still have vacation glow), I am saying that vacation has given me a time to think and breathe…
And for those of you who know me… this can lead to many things. (She says with a devious smile.) 
“What he needed, Arnaud often told himself, was a wife.
He had one in early August, unfortunately not his own.”
Hahah. That is my favorite line, thus far, in the book Encore Provence by Peter Mayle. In preparation for my first “real” vacation in a ridiculously long-stretching dusty dry path of two years, today I purchased the book about the South of France as I’ve spontaneously decided that I am going to the South of France to explore my lil’ petite self along the Cote d’Azur. Tres enthousiaste!
My morning preparatory measures involved three missions:
1. Purchase homeopathic remedy to combat jet lag.
This morning I received a call from a family friend/hair stylist in my hometown.
She said: Hi honey! I’m here with your mom, doing her hair, and she told me about your trip to France– so excited for you! Now, you must go get this homeopathic remedy so you don’t get jet lag or it will ruin your whole trip.
I said: Oh, wow, thank you! I hadn’t actually thought of that…
She said: Well, do you have time today to find some? If you don’t find any, let me know, I have some and I’ll overnight it to you on Monday.
I said: Yeah, this is San Francisco. I don’t see it being any trouble at all locating homeopathic remedies.
She said: Okay great! Well, have fun and we love you!
I have a ridiculous love for conversations like this ~ homegrown love from the hometown. Nothing beats it.
(Remedy found at WholeFoods!)
2. Travel Guide + French book to provide path for the feeling of France to awaken within me.
It’s not hard for me to connect with the feeling of France. I do have some French ancestral roots in me and quite a few times it’s been assumed that I’m French… by fellow Americans. (a bit odd but it makes me smile every time.) Anyway, I wanted to read some sort of travel memoir about France to provide proper mood alignment. Sound weird? Maybe. I actually did this with New York too. One day I read the book The Devil Wears Prada (not my usual sort of book but entertaining nonetheless) and within 4 weeks I was living in NY without having had any real previous conscious thought about moving there.) (I’ll send postcards if I decide to move to France while there– promesse!)
Also purchased travel guide and pocket translator — essential dining translations necessary to avoid such things as duck meat cooked in flaky butter pastry. (Leave the flaky butter pastry, s’il vous plaît, remove the duck.)
3. Première Passe packing
This first pass at the packing thing involves:
~ Drag sun dresses out from back of San Francisco closet.
~ Decide that packing for the French Riviera is fantastique. Love one-dress-wonder packing.
~ Try on bikini and determine that… good lord almighty. I clearly work indoors for entirely too many hours a day. Any tan gleaned from the 4th of July has disparaitre. Oh well. C’est la vie!
So, now I return to my preparations for spontaneity… South of France, here I come mon amour.
The morning of the 4th of July, I woke to the sounds of birds and *lovely* mountain quiet. Last week I had gone from NYC to SF to my small mountain hometown in Cali and, while I definitely enjoy zooming around the country, I was one oh-so-happy camper coming home to decompress and just BE for the weekend.
Well, I was enjoying the quiet until I went to an extended family BBQ on my new step-mother’s side… There were almost thirty people there, most of them children, and all of them related in one way or another. One immediate family alone was a solid thirteen. Thirteen! That’s eleven children and two adults. Then of course there were the uncles and nieces and nephews, etc., etc. Plus the grandparents…
The grandfather seemed to take a bit of a liking to me. And by *liking* I mean the way a child looks at a zoo animal or the way a mechanical man looks at a car on display at a car show.
Him: “You were in New York City??”
Me: I sure was!
Him: Wow… The high-rises and everything?
Me: Yep, the high-rises and all!
Him: Wow….
Then he’d leave to get seven-layer dip.
Then he’d come back.
Him: Wow… So you have an elevator where you live?
Me: I do have an elevator, yeah.
Him: Wow! (then he’d turn to his wife) She’s been in high-rises in New York City and has an elevator where she lives. An ELEVATOR.
Then he’d leave to get more seven-layer dip.
Then he’d come back.
This went on for a couple of hours. It was quite funny ~ it’s a great reminder to enjoy the adventure of life. And I must say, it also made me grateful that I have a family who celebrates my independence and has always encouraged me to have adventures.
As if I actually need encouraging…
So here’s to celebrating our country’s independence ~ and our own inner and outer freedom.
From NYC (elevators!) to the my lil’ mountain hometown in Cali… Cheers!
Miraculously sunny day here in NYC ~ hooray!~ so I celebrated by venturing to lower Manhattan’s South Street Seaport. Apparently this area has the highest concentration of historic buildings in Manhattan and seems to have done a great job of maintaining that old maritime feeling (I actually felt like I should cheers with an ice-cold beer and yell “argh!” in a loud gruffy voice…maybe throw a barstool, etc.) with contemporary additions (shops and such) that add a bit of a Disneyland sort of animated feeling to the area.
The more recent appearances of J.Crew and Abercrombie & Fitch aside, mercantile buildings from the 19th century that have been renovated, sailing ships such as the Peking from 1911, old wooden planks, and creeky docks, I’m happy to say, still take center stage.
Well, for me they did.
So here are my tips for visiting the South Street Seaport:
1. Take a moment to appreciate the history. The heydey of the seaport was from 1820 – 1860! (I never stop loving the feeling of historic roots in NYC… I’m a bit of a nerd that way.)
2. Investigate the view– the Brooklyn Bridge, the juxtaposition of old and new, etc.
3. Eat/drink something while sitting outside. Lots of fun little/big cafes and eateries.
4. Wear sunscreen. Oops!
5. Take pictures. : )
So while I’m decidedly a digital communicator, and while nothing beats in-person chats and conversations, I must say that I really enjoy receiving fun notes in the mail.
Snail mail. (I know. Antiquated concept. And no, I don’t know where the nearest post office is to my apartment…but to my defense I’m a digital nomad! I’m only in an executive apartment in NYC for another week!)
And I can’t say it happens all that often, receiving handwritten notes in the mail, but when it does… it’s delightful.
Adding another layer of delight are these “hello” envelope seals ~ great little greeting stickers.
Seal-the-deal stickers by KisForCaligraphy
Maybe these little deal-sealers will help inspire me to (locate a post office to purchase stamps and) mail a note!
Received a note that the folks at “Schmap!!” have selected one of my photos of the empire state building to include in their “beyond the map” travel guides (7th edition). Fun! I feel so official.
And here’s the actual photo. Nothing brilliant but it’s making me recall, with great fondness, what the sky looks like. Ah, Sunshine. *Sigh*
The High Line park debuted itself to the city of Manhattan last week — the perfect opportunity to investigate this long (1 1/2 mile) elevated park on the West Side of the city. This reprieve from the city streets below is surprisingly calm — one genuinely feels a bit smoother on the inside upon arrival. And I know this wasn’t just me — the pace of the people walking the length of the park (that spans through the Meatpacking District, West Chelsea, and Clinton’s/Hell’s Kitchen) on opening weekend was that of a meander. A rare pace in the (great!) madness that is Manhattan.
The original “High Line” was built in the 1930′s when the city decided that sending speeding trains through Manhattan was not an all-together safe idea — apparently, when the tracks were still at street level, their path was referred to as “Death Avenue” — men on horseback rode in front of the trains (West Side Cowboys!) to alert people that a train was coming. So cool! (And yet logistically frightening!)
(Image from the High Line Website– click through to see more or visit the High Line Blog for more info.)
Anyway, today they integrated the original train tracks into the design… mixing horticulture and history. A great addition to the city indeed!
