Wisco Girls Take Manhattan

New York City is not for owning, it is for sharing.  When friends visit it is okay to pass on joining them to the see the Statue of Liberty (but only if you have gone in the last 5 years) but to miss out on the joy of a visit and the joy of their joy of being here is a shame.

 

Many friends will say "I am here to see YOU, I do not need to do any touristy stuff."  This I will not allow.  You can see me, but you must see me while we are walking through Central Park or while we are strolling through the Frick or while we are strolling along the Hudson or taking a coffee a Joe.  I insist.  Think "Woody Allen Movie" before they got creepy.




You walk and talk, but New York City must be a backdrop for the conversation.

My friends Lisa and Carri came here to celebrate the "20th Anniversary of their 30th birthday" this week and it was so good to have them.  I was going through "a thing" and they kept me buoyant and laughing and eating good food.





I had never goofily played in front of the jumbo screen in Times Square.  (we are on the bottom left second row)



and we got to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge which is never not a thrill and meander through Central Park. 



We also had one of the small town experiences that I love here:  I wanted to show them my old beloved block on the Upper West Side where I used to live and we crashed into old neighbors and dogs and it was just a delight. 

New York is for lovers and friends and is not to be hogged like Halloween candy when you were a kid.

Cold and Magic.

Though we often think of magic as FIRE and SPARKLE and wands that ZAP things into frogs or bunnies, magic occurs in the cold for me.  A sunset on a beach is stunning and pretty, but walking in the snow in a large city with Christmas lights everywhere and hearing the silence all around, that is magic.  Being under loads of covers with a lover while the temps outside are in the 20's, that is magic.  Skiing down a hillside and knowing that you are forced to be in the present and one with the mountain, that is magic.  There is no time to create TO-DO list whilst careening! 

Noticing people scurrying and kids throwing snowballs and Currier and Ives-style sleading in Central Park. That is SO magic.  I have seen it and I wept.  I feel alive in the cold. I feel exhilarated with the chill and the promise of warmth and home and hearth and soup.  SOUP is magic. It just is!  Lovers are magic.  A tree with lights to me is simple joy.  I feel so blessed to have experinced all of this.  And being alive is magic in itself. 



Bundle up.  Put on gloves and a hat and a scarf and notice things.  Really notice. Celebrate the magic.  Take a lover. Get some soup!  Marvel at lights.  Wonder.  Ski.  Sled.  Watch the snow outside the window of the Met. 

Central Park

I went to visit my friend Mary in hospital and passed through the northeast part of Central Park.  This is the part I am in the least.  What a beautiful day out and what a great feeling it was to be part of it. And the icing was seeing Mary recovering so nicely.  All is well today in my New York.

Central Park and Me. Holding onto Winter

My Park

I had to go from the Upper West Side to the Upper East Side. I found myself walking to the crosstown busstop and then thought "You have two legs, you have time, you LOVE this park, why are you not walking through it to get to the other side?!"

Wow, what was I thinking?

It really takes no time to walk across Central Park, and though it is beautiful in every season, I think it is most beautiful in Autumn. It seems designed for this time of year. The different colors of the leaves offset by beautiful lampposts and rock formations and bodies of water and bridges.

I cannot fully explain the feeling of walking through this park alone at this time of year.

It is LIFE. That is all I know to say about it.

It is a dip, a wading into LIFE.

Sublime & Lovely

This is not a good photo, but I was walking through Central Park today on my way to the Upper East Side when I came upon this water fountain with birdbath sidecar. There was a plaque of dedication and there were loads of birds frolicking in this bath on such a lovely day. (They scurried when I took the photo.) This fountain is rather old looking and I am sure the person is long gone, but they live on in such a wonderful, functional way. Humans and birds both get water from this well!

This is a park of so many wonderful, hidden gems. I have only scratched.

Funemployment

My friend Amy Robinson writes for a blog called "Fierce and Nerdy" where she wrote a piece about "funemployment." She and her husband are both out of work in Venice, CA so understandably they like to do free things and here she talks about working out/exercising for free since they have dropped their gym memberships.

I love the term "funemployment" not because it is a way to be in denial and keep myself "out there," but because it is a way to remember that even if you are not working, you have to take time to enjoy life away from the dread and rejection and tumbleweed lack of response from the powers that be.

Sue and I took a little funemployed, staycation today and had a picnic in Central Park. It was a beautiful day and she had a picnic backpack and I had a picnic blanket and we both had time so it was a no-brainer.

Of course the wolf is never far from the door or the picnic so we had to bring our list of topics as we often do. Here were today's:

Panic Timeline & Milestones

Avoidance

Time Management

Judgment of Others

Meditation

US Open

TBD

Fear and rigidity

Moving

Diet

Boys

Getting old

Fooling yourself

Job hunting updates

Travel


All in all a great and affordable feast with some joy and some action items! Thanks Sue for such a great funemployed, staycation banquet and chat!!

The Boy in the Plastic Bauble

I took a walk in the park today. Being out right now "in my condition" is difficult and odd, but pushing myself a bit I find is necessary for recovery and mental health. Pushing too much, I also discovered, is not.

I wrote before how walking in the city with headphones on somehow makes me feel invisible in that cool "I am an international bon vivant/spy wearing a cloaking device and I am all powerful because there is a cool song in my head and you can't see me" way. Walking with Bell's palsy and vertigo ALSO ads that invisibility, but NOT in a cool way. I feel removed from society, and so withdrawn that carriages might kick up mud in my face as I stand there looking out my one good eye. And dogs might lift their legs on my legs and children may wipe chocolate off their hands onto me as if I were wet grass.

I thought the roads were clear of snow, and they were, but there was some ice on the path which is kryptonite to a vertigo-infested boy. In Rainman fashion I figure out how to get past it. My brain struggles to reboot itself. When other people are on the path I cannot breeze right by them as I have in my New Yorker way in the past. I must defer and plod slowly behind as passing is too difficult. I feel I may fall off the edge of the world. Hard to explain.

Even though I am invisible, there is life out there all around and it still brings me joy though I feel I cannot touch it or taste it as I want. But I can feel the cold on my face and hear the joy in the air. There was a guy playing sax in the tundra of the park and people on a bridge and ducks on a frozen pond. Such LIFE!! I cannot believe people hide in their apartments when there is magic all around for the price of a muddy trouser hem.