home again

I continue to test negative for Covid, but, I also continue to be sick. Fever, exhaustion, weird relationship to food (yuk!). That kind of thing. But, hey! All crappy things eventually pass and I have plenty of hours to sleep. Ed and I avoid each other, just in case, though I am by now convinced that the mussels caused my woes. No one else is sick and I took precautions. I'm going to place my bets on the mussels.

As I slept (basically all the hours since I got home were spent in a reclining position with eyes closed), I couldn't believe how quiet it is here, at the farmette. It really is true: New York is nasty in terms of noise levels. My hotel room looked out on 6th avenue and there must have been some pot hole or rough surface on the road because every few minutes, a loud rattle would come from a truck passing over the imperfection. It wasn't an awful noise, but it was constant. Here, the only sound is the occasional cat complaining that I'm not petting her enough.

And here's something else: I am happy to say that I am no longer surrounded by what you might call the beautiful people. Because fashion week starts today, models (I'm guessing they were models -- they were stick thin and they wore clothes without wrinkles. Not a single wrinkle!) were checking into the hotel and as I sat waiting for my cab for La Guardia, I had a chance to give them all a good stare.

When did we decide that we will judge people based on their physical attributes? And that these should include creaseless clothes, silky hair and stick thin figures? What a weird way to judge ourselves! No, I have no problem with trying to appear attractive, but I do object to this constant fixation, especially when it comes to women, with age, with skinny forms, and with perfect grooming. 

This morning I slept. And slept. And slept. Still no appetite, but feeling okay enough to pick up the girl at school. She so begged for it and I cannot say no. Just for an hour or two. I tell Ed that I am like Queen Elizabeth in that I cannot call in with a sick day. Still, I mask up solidly and we spent time outside, and inside with open windows. She is low maintenance and in the end, I turn on the TV for her. 

And the day ends with Ed fixing chicken noodle soup for me. Unfortunately, what we have is the awful organic nonsense. It's no Campbells, that's for sure. Or, maybe it's that my tastebuds escaped and were replaced by some phantom ones that decided to hate all foods?  

Waiting for PCR results, but still feeling confident that all this will pass soon enough.

With love...

Reunion Four, well, maybe not

And immediately after I posted my Ocean account yesterday, I felt really ill. Burning hot.

Wait, how could that be? I am just about the only person in New York still wearing a mask indoors or when in a crowd. The Ferry, Times Square -- I'm masked. Meals? I sit by the window, with good air flow. Airplane? Airport? Taxi? Elevator? Masked, with my super duper KN95, from reliably reviewed companies! Moreover, my friends feel great! So how is it that I am feverish and feeling like a truck rolled over me, back and forth, several times?

Of course, you think Covid. But honestly, I'm thinking that it's equally likely, indeed more likely that the mussels yesterday at lunch time were not fresh.

Still, I'm not going to risk it. Even with an early in the game negative Covid test, I don't want to feel terrible about passing on anything to these people who still have a chunk of traveling to do. So I do what I must do: I switch my return flight to today and I leave them to their last day in New York alone. Well traveled that they are, they can certainly manage a museum and Central Park and cousins without me. Let's not give ourselves too much credit for helping them on this trip. I mean, it's not like they're freshly 21!

I sleep a long time. Like ten hours. And I pack and I double mask, just in case, and take a last walk in New York, alone.

When I am in a place that's not home, I look at the people around me, trying to fit them into their place. But in this city, can you really tell what defines a New Yorker? Maybe you can. I snap this picture of five people crossing at 59th and sixth. The only ones not looking at a phone are the bicyclists. This isn't the New York I knew of course. We didn't have phones back then. Still, everyone walked briskly. Seemingly everyone.

What's with the skinny tall towers here? Ed and I watched a documentary on how these are built. Crazy enough to suspend yourself that high to add another floor to real estate. But who exactly wants to live there? You couldn't pay me!

The park is so large, the girl is so small... I've never loved Central Park. Maybe it reminds me of gym class: we would walk over sometimes and play field hokey. I was a pretty sporty kid, but I did not like field hokey.

Your classic CP photo...

And here's a shock! I come across an ice cream cart with these:

Good Humor eclairs, Good Humor strawberry shortcake. I liked them both when I was maybe 11 or 12. The same guy came out almost everyday and positioned himself in front of Korvettes, a couple of blocks from my home. Tony. His name was Tony. I wanted to believe that he liked me. He didn't speak great English and he was older and I have to think I was a pretty lonely kid to go out and seek him out so often. The last time I went I knew we would be leaving, return to Poland. I told him this piece of news. H smiled, nodded and continued selling.

At noon I test myself. Negative. I am leave my lovely hotel (my credit card thanks me for this early departure), and get a cab to La Guardia. And I'm thinking, if I do turn Covid positive, I want that to happen at the farmette, not in New York during fashion week where prices are mind boggling.

(One last look: United Nations on the march, with flags unfurled...)

I have a change of planes in Detroit. I am cold. Fever's back. Still, I am negative, I have a mask. I buy a blanket and cover myself with it, spread out on the floor like someone who's been traveling from another continent and back. The sun comes through, I am warm again. 

Three hours later I board the flight to Madison. There isn't a person who needed to be home more than me right now.

Hi Ed....

Reunion Three

Good Morning from New York, where it is still threatening to rain, still a little cool, but who cares, it's the city and the pulse is dynamic, and leaping over puddles at street corners is an art you master early on if you live here.

I wake up thinking that you can actually enjoy New York if you moved away from it, so that you've forced a separation between it and you. It's no longer hellish to try to make it to appointments on time, because your appointments are not in this corked up place where "getting there" is definitely not part of the fun. So I'm relaxing my resistance to New York. I want to like it again, in the way that you like much in life when you are way older because you realize perfection is elusive and, as my granddaughter keeps telling me, everyone (and everything) has his or her genius.

Breakfast downstairs again. Am I the only one on the planet that loves eating breakfasts that have some formality to them? You will never catch me munching on a doughnut standing up in the kitchen and grabbing a coffee to go. I need to sit down and take in the world. To set the mood for the day. As they say in yoga-land, to set my intentions.

Today we are to recreate the key moment of our New York adventure of fifty years ago: call it The Ferry Ride. I'll come back to this in a bit. First, I walk over to the subway stop where we meet to ride over to the 9/11 Memorial.

(this sign stands just as you enter Times Square)

The twin towers of the World Trade Center were not completed until 1973 and so in 1972, when my Polish friends visited me in New York, we saw their silhouettes, but we did not visit them. Of course, they were destroyed in 2001. That span of time! So short, really. From 1973 until 2001. I wasn't in New York when they were taken down but of course, everyone of us on this side of the ocean lived and breathed that attack in a profound, life changing way. So we pause here. We must. We walk around both reflective pools. We touch the names unscripted on the stone. So many names...

And now we walk to the the ferry station. A photo was taken fifty years ago of this ferry crossing and of course, recreating that photo is an important element of this journey. There were five of us back in 1972, but only three are taking this ferry ride today. Still, we have someone take that photo, once of youthful zest, now of senior reflection. On the right, you'll see the photo taken then. One of my friends is holding it.

(Let's include the wives: after all, they traveled here for this as well...)

When I was here last time, I visited Ellis Island with Ed. That was moving and I suppose now, following the Trump years it would be really tough to walk through spaces that claimed to give immigrants are fair chance at entry. Back in the early decades of the twentieth century a great chunk of European immigrants traveled through Ellis Island several times. This was certainly true for my parents and grandparents (Like a Swallow describes their attempts to settle in America). Now of course, the place is a museum, nothing more, and we take care of the problems of immigrants by not agreeing on any solution at all. We just fight about it and the masses stay huddled, just not on Ellis Island. Will we someday put up a museum commemorating the next chapter of our country's immigration saga? Maybe at the southern border?

(In the words of Emma Lazarus -- Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free... Words chiseled onto a plaque afixed to the pedestal in 1903, after Lazarus had long died. What did they mean? Do we use them to inflate our image of American exceptionalism? Are we still reflecting on such ideals? Were they ever ideals? If you want to set yourself thinking about these issues, you might want to read the Atlantic article about the poem here. It, like all of history, is complicated!)

(brooding sky but at least there's no rain... do you see the Statue of Liberty?))

From the ferry we take that epic walk uptown. You start at the southern tip of Manhattan and you walk as far as your legs can carry you. Wall Street, Chinatown... 

(picking up some fruit on Canal Street)

Little Italy, of course. A perfect place to pause for a late lunch. It isn't outstanding food, but it's good enough...

Cannoli from a bakery that claims to be the "king of cannoli..."

SoHo, the Village, all of it.

We split up at Bleeker Street. I send them to Washington Square Park, while I walk a little further into the heart of the Village. I give them very detailed instruction on the subway connection back to their hotel. I hope they make it without issues.

Epic walk indeed. And we only cheated once and hopped on the subway for two stops in the financial district. I mean, all tall office buildings after a while look the same. We saved ourselves for the better stuff ahead.

So, given that we did the Ferry Ride, what else is left on our New York agenda? Well, there is one museum, but too, there are Polish relatives and friends. When someone comes from Poland all the way to New York, they look up people who were once close to them, even if substantial time has passed since that connection held strong. My friends went to grade school with a guy who moved to New Jersey. Too, there is a cousin and she has a husband and a daughter. Seeing these people, these essentially Polish people is on our schedule for tomorrow. But right now, I can only think about getting some rest. Delicious rest with maybe some of the cookies I picked up at the Italian bakery. Sounds good, doesn't it?

Reunion Two

I wake up to a wet New York. 

Cities have their own weather personalities. Warsaw, for example, feels prickly and broody when winter precipitation comes down on its people. Paris does okay in the rain, so long as you stay away from narrow streets where it's hard to navigate. New York? You're forever avoiding the weather. You cut through Grand Central to stay out of the heat. Or get on a subway to avoid a downpour. It takes incredible skill to walk through a busy street with an umbrella. There's just no room for everyone's rain gear.

My skills will be put to a test today.

I go down for a quick breakfast. Croissant, fruit. Plants. Remember? My hotel has lots and lots of plants.

My friends aren't up as early, so I take a stroll. To Central Park, around Columbus Circle. And I think -- when you live here, you rarely look up at the sky scrapers. You look at what's at eye level. And maybe that's a good thing. Some of the lower buildings are as attractive, or perhaps even more attractive than the tall ones.

And then we set out together. Via Rockefeller Center.

(protection against the rain!)

These guys will be your focal points for my photos today. Obviously you dont know them (unless you read Like a Swallow!), but they'll help you place the human element into the city vignettes.

We have tickets for a skyscraper viewing. I know, it's not the weather for it. But there are no refunds! We'll view clouds or fog or rain pelting against windows. We'll view something!

We walk through Grand Central Terminal: how many times have I caught the crosstown subway here? Or the subway from school when I was very young? Countless times. Really, in the hundreds.

One Vanderbilt Summit is our viewing station and it is right here, towering next to Grand Central. It's a new platform for seeing New York from up high. But that's just a tiny bit of it: what you sign onto is the experience of seeing the city in a crazy new way. Like, with helium balloons floating around you. Or with mirrors reflecting your world from all sides (they warn you: don't wear a skirt for this!). It really is sort of over the top. But in a strange way it works. Because, well, New York is over the top. Exaggeration is so common to it! The tallest this, the most of the other, the weirdest that. So  walking through the three levels of One Vanderbilt, starting at the 91st floor feels almost... normal. 

(in the elevator)

Let me post a few pics -- of the clouds, of the space, of the lifting clouds... You'll see what I mean!

(Getting off: to a dizzying amount of color. Too, there is eerie music throughout....)

(Everything is made of mirrors and glass. You wear shoe covers to keep it clean. The place is so well staffed! They make sure you're keeping things tidy and in order. Like in Disney World!)

(The initial disappointment: everything outside is under a thick cloud cover. With rain drops over the glass.)

(So we concentrate on having fun in other ways: here we are, lying down on the floor. You can look up, you can look down. There are a million reflections and viewings!)

(Standing up again and looking up...)

(Still, you want to see the city! Where is New York??)

(At the next level, you pass through a room with many many helium balloons. You think to yourself -- why? But you know, it works! And you linger longer than you would have thought possible...)

(And here's our good fortune: the clouds are lifting somewhat. Enough to see ... the city!)

(much better! and with the United Nations now in full view...)

(I know that building!)

(Yeah!)

(We are grateful.)

And now it's lunch time. 

(Walking up Lexington, you can see the Chrysler Building now at ground level.)

There's a food court on 51st and Lexington called Urbansapce and I figure they'll find something there they'll like. (All choose salads. Me -- well, I'm ready for another coffee and a scone.)

And now we need a quiet place where we can review what's next and rearrange our mindset. We walk along 57th street...

(looking up again)

... to my hotel. Green plants and quiet spaces. Cups of warm tea. Perfect for an exhale.  

And then they return to their place to rest and I keep the IT person company in my room for nearly two hours as he tries to determine why the access point is not working (meaning I cannot get internet in the room). Fun. I sit in my window seat and study the world below. (I'm on the 6th floor.) Umbrellas. Fire engines. And an urban Amazon delivery. To just one building. Ah, city life.

Toward evening, we have tickets for a performance at Birdland, the jazz club. Well, jazz theater. But with drinks and food. The Anderson brothers are playing Benny Goodman stuff and I'm happy to have a chance to listen to this. I don't go to concerts very often these days and indeed, the last jazz performance I attended was in New York some twenty years ago. I could tell the person I was with didn't like the music, nor the venue, not the whole evening. You never want to be at a jazz club with someone who is completely not with you on the music front. But, this time is different: my friends are enthusiastic. 

And the music is so beautiful, so exquisitely beautiful that it chokes me up with emotion.

We order some foods and drinks and the afternoon rolls into the evening and we don't care about the weather or the rain or the fact that life can get complicated. The hours spent at Birdland are all about the pleasure of listening to fabulous music while sipping cocktails and downing not a small amount of food (crab cakes!) with people who are your lifelong friends.

Broadway evening walk.

And a retreat. To rest up for tomorrow. 

With so much love...