New York State of Mind

One year ago today I boarded an airplane at La Guardia International and headed home from a much-needed long weekend away.  I was exhausted but reluctant to return to Jacksonville, Florida and to a job I no longer wanted.  My thoughts were filled with frustration at the delay in my promotion to another department despite what my contract said.  The peace that I’d come to the City to find was still there, but it was tarnished by shadow falling over my professional life.

Somewhere, several rows behind me, a baby was crying.  A little closer, in the seat behind me someone coughed.

I’d seen the news reports of a novel coronavirus breaking out in China and cases popping up in Europe.  Over the five days I’d spent in Manhattan, I’d seen a few people wearing surgical masks and most of those were in Chinatown.  Despite this being my weekend getaway, I’d managed to squeeze in a visit with a Chinese client at her New York office.  Working for a technology company, most of my client interactions are made using video conferencing applications.  Sometimes, though, the in-person touch is necessary to move the ball a little further towards the end zone. 

I don’t know if it was the cold or the virus updates which became more concerning with each passing day, but that vibrant spark that I remembered from my last visit to Chinatown was missing. 

Uptown it was a different story.  

Everywhere I went, from MOMA to the Met to MSG, the City gave me what I’d so badly needed – millions of people I didn’t know in an environment teaming with energy.  And heat.  Good god, the heat!  I didn’t make it through all of the Museum of Modern Art because I couldn’t take the insufferable interior temperatures.  I’d shed my coat and cardigan and was stripped down to a tank top before I’d decided I’d had enough.  We rarely turn on the heat here in Florida (that’s the furnace for my northern readers).  Instead, we add another blanket for the night because we know by midday we’ll be dropping the air conditioning a few degrees anyway.

A silent battle waged between my hotel’s housekeeping staff and I kept me amused.  I’d turn on the A/C before leaving my room only to return to the heat once again set in the upper 70’s. 

The temperature battle wasn’t my only source of entertainment during the weekend.  During my daily outings, I managed to get turned around twice: once in Grand Central Station and again at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

Saturday, I decided to get up before the sun and head down to the Brooklyn Bridge Pedestrian Walkway to walk the span despite the wind and the cold. 

I’ve spent a good deal of numerous trips to NYC at Grand Central. I love grabbing a bagel or chocolate croissant and finding a spot to people watch at the station. It’s where my journey south to Brooklyn began. I took advantage of the early hour and mostly empty terminal to snap a few photos of the ceiling.  It’s probably one of the most touristy things I did throughout my trip.  As I was heading to my first subway line, I managed to take a wrong turn somewhere only to find myself in an empty service corridor.  Instead of doubling back the way I’d come, I trudged forward to wherever the hallway would lead.  Fortunately, no one saw me and eventually I found my train and connecting line that would take me to the walkway. (We won’t talk about the pair of suitcases that had been ripped open and strewn about the subway car.  Nope, not going there.)

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My second adventure in being directionally-challenged happened as I was finishing my exploration of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Though I’ve been to the Met numerous times, I still haven’t seen it all and I was determined to see as much of it as I could – even if that meant spending all day leisurely working my way from room to room, from collection to collection.  As the day wore on, I found myself in need of sustenance and discovered what I believed to be a museum café.  It wasn’t until I’d placed an order and attempted to pay for my lunch that I realized I was in the employee cafeteria.  They graciously allowed me to take my meal there, but this didn’t hold the same sense of adventure Grand Central did.

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I don’t embarrass easily, but this one?  This one got to me.  I felt like everyone was looking at me.  I downed my lunch as quickly as I was able and high-tailed it outta there. 

Despite this brief awkwardness, there were some truly great moments for me in those daily excursions out into the city and all her wonders.  As an artist, seeing Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” was a high point but it couldn’t compare to how seeing Pollock’s work made me feel. 

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Attending my first professional basketball game was a disappointment.  Watching the Knicks play basketball is like watching the Jaguars play football – and like most Jags games I’ve attended, I found myself leaving at halftime. 

My last-minute decision to catch a Rangers game the following evening turned everything around.  It was without doubt the most fun I’ve had in a very long time.  You can’t help but get caught up in the back-slapping comradery of the crowd whenever the puck slams into a goal net.  The cheering was almost deafening and by the game’s end, my throat hurt from joining them while my face hurt from smiling so much.

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(Side note: Madison Square Garden is every bit as awesome a venue as I’ve heard and read.  Kinda wish I’d spent the extra cash to take a tour.  Maybe next time.)

My Sunday in the City included a trip to the Museum of Natural History (what can I say, museums were kind of a theme for me).  Twenty years had passed between visits to see the dioramas and dinosaurs.  Parts of the museum seem to be suspended in time, looking exactly the way I remembered from decades before.  Still, there were newer exhibits to be explored.  The science nerd in me was begging me to drop in for a planetarium show. 

Alas, I had other plans.

Sunday also included a pop-up swap meet with vintage clothing and wares for sale.  Ever the sucker for antique costume jewelry, I picked up a snake bracelet, the kind that curl around your wrist. I found a bright, Kelly green leather motorcycle jacket I knew my nephew would love but ultimately had to pass because the sleeves were much to short to fit his 6’9″ frame.  (It was really freaking cool though.)

I took the subway and a cab or two but made a point of walking wherever I needed to go as much as possible to be a part of the thrum of the city.  After all, I’d come to New York to get lost and find some much-needed peace and I couldn’t achieve that goal hiding in my hotel room, in a subway tunnel, or backseat of hired car.

It may sound weird but when I need to be alone, I go to New York.  It’s not the beach or some wilderness hike that calm my spirit.  No, for me it’s Manhattan and the rhythm of the noise, the traffic, the pulse that soothes my soul like the tick-tick-tick of a metronome.

All too soon it was time to return home, back to the daily grind counting the days until I would finally be able to move into my new role at work.  Back to the gym and the nutrition plan Dexter had crafted for me.

Two weeks later, everything changed. 

COVID-19 brought the world to a near standstill.

I took a tumble in the squat rack at the gym near my office, aggravating my right knee.

Most of the country went into a two-week lockdown to “flatten the curve”.

My employer moved to a temporary “work from home” policy.

One year later, we’re living a “new normal”.

COVID-19 is still here and it’s mutating into variant strains. 

That tumble in the gym resulted in two tears in my meniscus and surgery to repair the damage.

The curve hasn’t really been flattened.  It’s gotten a bit curvier – kind of like my body with cardio having been taken off the table last summer as my knee worsened.  Vaccines are slowly rolling out while we continue to practice social distancing and wear masks whenever we’re outside our homes.  (It sucks but when I want to complain, I think of my colleague in the UK who hasn’t seen his mum in person since April of last year.)

My employer continues to stress working from home.  Eventually, we’ll have the option of working from the office, our homes, or a hybrid of the two.  They discovered we’re far more productive now and even went so far as to reduce the floor space in our Jacksonville office.  I won’t say it hasn’t been challenging but there’s just something incredibly relaxing about being able to reach down and scratch my dog’s ears when I’m having a tough day.

I long to travel again but it’s not in the cards just yet.  I’ll have to find my peace somewhere else this year.

Wish me luck.

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