A Borrowed Life

 Originally published on Wordpress 09.29.2019

I was in New York City last week. Some people might be surprised to learn that I had no particular business there, that I wasn't there for work or family obligations, that I was there simply to feel the city.  This was my fourth trip to NYC and each trip has been about exploring this iconic place.  I don't get tired of this city.  I do get annoyed and frustrated with it but I keep coming back.  I am captivated by it but it is also LOUD, fast, and expensive.

I've been back a week now and have been able to separate out the airplanes and airports (not fun) from the whirlwind collage that is NYC proper. We walked almost everywhere on this trip, putting nearly 60 miles on our (already over the five hundred mile maximum) athletic  shoes. My feet hurt every night but we found a way to soften the blow of so much walking. Every day we built in a mid afternoon break back at our AirBNB.  We made time in the middle of all our exploring to  put our feet up on the bed and rest with laptops or even 20 minutes of Forensic Files. That little break was our salvation.

The Guggenheim was my highlight of this trip.  We walked there on Sunday morning, traveling up 8th Av until we hit Central Park and then making our way through Central Park to Museum Mile.  We arrived just as they were opening so it was not yet mobbed.  I had been excited to see this museum.  The permanent site was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and opened in October of 1959, six months after Frank Lloyd Wright died.  This museum doesn't have the customary rabbit warren of rooms of art folding into rooms of art but rather has a lovely spiral design.  If you take the elevator to the top of the building , you it is as if you are gently floating down the spiral floor, filling your eyes and heart with art.

 

On our trip, we did four walking tours, each at least two hours long. I enjoyed these a lot because I like getting the history and the background of a place in story form.  Two of the walking tours were "ghost" tours.  This means they were at night and they focused on a combination of unusual ghostly moments and on true crime elements.  One was in Greenwich Village and one was along the High Line.  We also walked through SoHo, Chinatown, and Little Italy with a walking tour and, on another day, we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge and into DUMBO (a neighborhood - "Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass") with a tour. So interesting!

 

On our way back from the Guggenheim, we walked down 5th Ave and could feel the full energy that is NYC. Along the way, we stopped at  St Patrick's Cathedral.  It happened to be Sunday, mid day and there was a regular Sunday Mass being celebrated as we entered.  Honestly, because we were hot and needed a break from walking, we walked up the side aisle to where the congregation was gathered and took a seat in the pew. We happened to arrive at the relatively early part in the celebration - readings and homily.  The Gospel reading for the day happened to be the story of the Prodigal Son. The priest's homily focused on, of all things, the Stations of the Cross and the sacrament of "confession" (he even used the old school lingo).  I found this ironic because if there ever was an opportunity to engage lapsed Catholics , this was it and yet his homily stepped out of the 1960's.  There was a finger wagging feel to this homily.  The delivery was passionless and patriarchal. I could feel that ten year old in me who, once upon a time,  sat through hours of such admonishment. As soon as he finished, we moved out of the pew and on to Rockefeller Center.

 

 

As always, I am curious about what I learned from this trip. Once again I was reminded of the value of stepping out of my daily life and into a borrowed life.  At home I can and do operate on automatic pilot but, in a borrowed life, I have to be ever present to what is going on.  I have to have my eyes wide open.  I have new problems to solve, novel decisions to be made. Although that can be annoying or frustrating, it does constantly remind me that I am alive. In the same vein, when I step away from the normal, I can also better see the normal. I can't see the whole  of the hurricane when I am sitting in the center of it but when I am outside the hurricane borders, I can see the energy and the patterns. I can separate myself from the force and power of the hurricane.  When I am living my regular life, I am too close to see the whole but when I travel, I can look with perspective and a curious eye. And when I return to the center of the hurricane that is my daily life, I can remember what I saw from the outside.  I like that.

The day after I got back from this NYC trip, I found myself wondering if I had visited NYC for the last time.  On that day, I was feeling the tension of miles of walking.  I was remembering the irritation of an unfamiliar and less than impressive AirBNB accommodation and the discomfort and irritation of flying for hours in economy class (aka, a sardine can). I was recalling the LOUD days - the sirens, the helicopters, the sidewalk crowds, the piped in music everywhere (yes, even on the High Line).  I could still feel the speed at which that city and its inhabitants live.  I wondered if I wanted to ever go back again.  But then one of my Twitter pals told me about his upcoming December trip to NYC.  Hugh is an NYC champion and I gather that  he has spent and continues to spend a lot of time in NYC.  He tweeted about the magic of NYC at the holiday time.  From his perspective , there is no better place to spend Christmas. Now, I'm not sure I would agree with THAT but it got me to thinking about visiting there during the first half of December.  It could be fun to see holiday decorations, catch holiday music and art, and embrace whatever Christmas spirit the city wants to give me.  A few more days went by and I found myself looking at AirBNB rentals, just to see what might be available if you were reserving now for December, 2020.  The selection is large because it's a year away and some of the best places haven't been scooped up yet.  Then I found myself looking at what might be available in April/May 2021.  The key to a good visit in NYC is to have a comfortable and convenient place to call home while you are there, no matter what month that is.

December?  April?  I could go back to New York City in either month or, even, in both months. For some mysterious reason, NYC still calls to me.  There is so much to see and do there. I'm not at all interested in living there but a week here and there? Yes!  Maybe I lived there in some past life?  Maybe that's why it is so attractive to me? Perhaps I lost a life in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fire) or maybe I died when I was a small child and my family was detained at Ellis Island, awaiting immigration papers?  Or maybe the attraction lies in years of media exposure to NYC? Or in the fact that NYC is unlike any place I have ever lived IRL?  All this is to say, I don't think the recent trip to New York will be my last trip.  There's too much yet to absorb there.