There have been multiple times in the last couple of days where my jumbled inner monologue has startled awake into a clear moment of "holy shit how luckyhappygrateful am I?"
I don't say this to brag; rather to note it in a permanent forum which I can go back and read at any time. I often have a difficult time keeping perspective and realizing that my issues are often small, manageable, and mildly insignificant. This week has reminded me that there are very few things out there that should shake me from the strength and confidence I should take from such happiness and stability in my life.
Back to the recap of the week: Tuesday was a powerful and poignant day on all fronts. We woke early planning to walk from our hotel, the Marriott Marquis on 45th, to the 9/11 Memorial in the Financial District. The bellhop scoffed at us and put us in a cab for the three-mile ride (which Brenna would later say she walks all the time and maybe the bellhop gets a kickback from the cabbie?). We arrived at 180 Greenwich Street at 7:30, 20 minutes before our tour opened. We walked along the pools, and then over to Church St and to Trinity Church in search of Duane Reed for some Zicam. We bought a smoothie at a cart and walked back to the memorial for our tour.
For anyone who hasn't toured the memorial, do it right now. At your next possible opportunity. And take the 8:15 am guided tour, with Patrick if you can. It allows you entrance to the museum 45 minutes before it's open to the public, and the quiet and stillness of your time there adds a lot to the poignance of the experience. The huge blue wall is overpowering, with 2,700 water color tiles, each a square block and all a different shade of blue to signify the individual lives lost in the coordinated attacks of 9/11 and the six who died in the WTC attack in 1993. And you hear about the footprints of the towers, but you don't realize what that means until you're standing underground between them. Holding space with the original slurry wall, the final piece to be removed from debris pile, an elevator motor and piece of the north tower's antenna, and the fire truck from ladder 3, the crew of which were the first on scene and none of whom survived. The tour is overwhelming, sadness- and anger-inciting, and somehow it still breeds hope.
We took a much-needed walk through a Battery Park and east along the water, and even considered a helicopter ride. Somehow $1200 for a 15-minute experience didn't seem worth it. After making it to the Brooklyn Bridge and nearly walking underneath it, we decided to grab a cab up to Rockefeller Center. Introducing Kofi the Ghanaian cab driver! I knew within seconds he was from Ghana, and the fortune of my international travel experience is never lost on me. Kofi grew up in Cape Coast, and though I said I'd been there, he insisted on showing me photos on his phone while we ripped through the Lower East Side. He seemed happy to meet someone who knew of his home, and I was so grateful for the excuse to remember a big time in my life. He asked if I ate fufuo and red-red and groundnuts and the whole thing. It was perfect---and made even better by his distaste for Trump's administration. "If you are my neighbor, and we share a three-foot fence, and I don't like the way you look from your kitchen window through my kitchen window, and I want a bigger fence, that is up to me to pay for!" At the suggestion that maybe fences aren't necessary at all, he looked at me like only a Ghanaian could, and said, "well, you and I know that, but clearly he doesn't understand it at all."
Together we talked/vilified Trump as we passed the UN and eventually made it to Rockefeller Center.
After a quick lunch of lobster rolls and chowder, we took a quick nap at the hotel and then headed on a 45-minute cab ride to travel the five miles to Nev and Bre's place in Greenpoint. I can't discuss every detail of the visit here because I simply can't do it justice. The important bits I want to take away are: the apartment is lovely, the neighborhood is fabulous, Paulie Gee's pizza was delicious and he skis at Alpine/N Star, we had a drink on the fabulous Barge Bar, and we enjoyed wine on the rooftop terrace that overlooks the Manhattan skyline. All of these things are incredible, but most incredible is the relationship I am so lucky to have with these two beautiful people. Even more lucky is the fact that J and Brenna seem to be kindred spirits and have a natural ease of talking about how they view the world and the people in it. Brenna is a true role model to me, and I'm amazed each time we visit at how easy our connection is. Nevada is honestly my oldest friend, and a true one at that. I used to wonder if we were only connected through our shared history and families, but with each visit I become more confident that we have formed a true friendship separate of those ideas. I truly feel comfortable and open with them, for which I am grateful as we all know that it's not the way I often move through the world. Maybe it's an indicator that my closest friends live far away---perhaps I'm intolerable in close proximity, but I am beyond happy and grateful for these two in my life, however I can get them.
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