At lunch time the other day, I walked around Union Theological Seminary, where the trees in the center courtyard were just past their full bloom, carpeting the lawn with their petals. This seminary is a hidden jewel in New York City with its gorgeous arched passageways and quiet corridors.
The chapel is always a hub of colorful, creative worship with bright banners swooping down from the ceiling. The last time I was there, I was reporting on the Poverty Initiative, a movement that grew out of Martin Luther King Jr.’s Poor People’s Campaign.
As a writer, artist, worker, mother, wife of a chronically ill spouse and person of faith, I am often looking for quiet and sanctuary, hoping for hidden nooks to reflect upon my life in the big, busy city and recharge my soul. Union Seminary is just such an oasis.
The repaved main upper level from 97th to 116th – smooth sailing on my bike.
The Hudson River, a big shouldered companion, to the pretty, flowery park.
The rings at 106th. How awesome are they? The kids swing on them for hours. On some Saturdays and Sundays, someone sets up a balancing wire. Someone else brings Hula Hoops. And then there’s a boom box playing hip hop music.
The benches for just sitting and watching the kids in strollers and all the dogs — big dogs, little dogs — on leashes. I am not a dog lover, but I admit they can be cute in Riverside Park.
The empanada lady — I should learn her name. She is positioned right by the soccer fields at around 103rd and you’d think she was just selling ice cream bars and hot dogs, but ask for the empanadas or the arroz con pollo, and you won’t be disappointed.
Words really can’t describe how beautiful my bike trip to work is. So I will let my pictures show you. Every day I ride 45 blocks to work in New York City. I never stop. I ride through Riverside Park. I don’t pass any commercial establishments. I ride along the Hudson River. There is beauty all around.
Desperate to escape New York but can’t afford a beach vacation for the entire family? Consider a trip from March 3-4 to The New York Times travel show where for just $15 (kids enter free) you can go around the world at the Jacob Javits Center.
There is an amazing variety of people and places in store: You can go to Israel and eat tasty olives and chips; dig sand art in the Caribbean; watch penguins waddle at Sea World; dance on a stage with teenagers from South Africa, (which we did this last year, and, in exchange, received tee shirts and hugs).
You and your kids will love the experience. At least mine do. We’ve gone for two years and will go again this weekend.
Our route around the convention center is circuitous. I wish I could advise you on the best route to travel the convention hall, but we just wander to different regions, from Alabama to Zimbabwe.
We stumble upon good advice and useful information. We learn how Peace House in Tanzania builds schools; how the plays of George Bernard Shaw changed social justice attitudes in Ireland; and how easily you can obtain a tourist visa to Cuba.
There is a holiday atmosphere to the travel show, as if all of the vendors, performers and travelers are a big cruise ship, sailing through a winter weekend into spring.
Last year, when we entered, I bumped into my coworker, Dan Licardo, who was there with his two daughters. He was lugging a bag so full of giveaways he could hardly carry it.
“It’s like trick or treating,” Dan exclaimed. “Or real international travel – only you don’t have to declare anything when you go through customs!”
We grabbed our own booty bags, from the first booth in our eyesight, India, and began collecting booty.
At almost every booth, my 10-year old twin girls picked up free stuff – candy, mousepads, bags and pens. I drew the line at glossy brochures. I tried to impress my daughters with my knowledge that what we were collecting was called SWAG – stuff we all get. But they weren’t listening; they were collecting brochures.
At the Indonesia booth, a nice lady gave us magnets of a rice field. Occasionally, even today, I approach my refrigerator door with the thought, ‘We ought to travel to Indonesia. People are super nice there.’ I like nice.
My girls scaled a climbing wall so many times I got a neck ache, watching them ring the bell at the top of the wall. I even tried it and made it to the top to ding the bell.
It’s unclear to me which state or country paid for the climbing wall. I do know that nearby Ecuador gave away Frisbees, because we still use them. We should visit Ecuador.
Maine looks nice.
The climbing wall was near the best state in the union, which according to the people of Maine, is Maine. In Maine’s vast exhibit area, a watercolor artist painted a beach scene; a moose mascot roamed around; and a textile artist spun wool. Okay, I was convinced. Maine is the best state in the union.
The first year we attended, the highlight for my twin daughters was scuba diving in a warm (and small) pool. We donned the wet suits they provided in some makeshift tents, signed waivers, and learned to breathe underwater from two hot young scuba instructors. We dove for plastic fish and smiled at each other through our masks. Afterwards, we learned there are scuba schools in New York and we almost signed up, but instead, we took a brochure.
People smiled as we exited the pool area, not rushing us at all. There was a friendliness between fellow travelers that you don’t encounter at an airport or in a foreign country when you’re traveling with kids. Maybe it’s because there’s no need to rush in an exhibit hall. Or maybe it’s because you’re traveling the world, yet you know you can sleep in your own bed at night.
There are stages with world music performers, panels with international chefs and book signings with travel writers but, due to my kids’ restless pursuit of SWAG, I’ve never attended any of these. Maybe this year.
I did have a celebrity-sighting thrill when I met a favorite writer whom I read in the New Yorker and follow on Twitter, Susan Orlean, as she came up the escalator with me.
“I love your work,” I told her sheepishly. Damn, I thought, she’s talented AND pretty.
“Thanks. I’d like to chat. But I lost my boots somewhere.” She yelled down to her husband who was holding their son’s hand at the bottom of the escalator. “I can’t find my boots!” Ah great, I thought, talented, pretty AND disorganized. Just like me! NICE!
“You’re going to need them,” I said, looking out to the city street where the snow swirled around Manhattan, turning to slush as it hit.
I wasn’t quite ready to hit the dirty, snowy city streets yet.
Fortunately, at that moment, Dan spotted me. He called, “Mary Beth, they’re giving out shots of rum in the Caribbean.” I joined him back at the Bahamas.
We’ll head back to the travel show this weekend. I doubt I will visit many of the 500 countries, states, cities or communities that exhibit there but I’m grateful they still want us to visit. The girls are looking forward to more SWAG. New York Times Travel Show
I have updated one of my four blogs (about faith, creative writing, New York, or this one, fitness) at least every other day during 2011. When I began in January 2011, I posted every day for 66 days, because I’d heard that’s how long it takes to make a habit.
When I traveled or wrote my NaNoWriMo (November’s National Novel Writing month), I slacked a bit. But mostly I’ve been consistent with my blogging.
I need to retire a couple of my blogs and this one, Running Aground, is the lead candidate for retirement. This has been my least popular and least updated blog. Reading about my attempt to run a 5K may not have mass appeal. And I don’t write on this one because I think that if I haven’t exercised by swimming, running, or going to Pilates class, I haven’t worked out. (Although, yes, I’ve written about sleep and diet, as well.)
But wait — I clean a lot and, living in New York City, I walk a lot! So let’s remember — Cleaning is a good work out. In an hour, you burn:
Sweeping: 240
Packing/Unpacking: 220
Scrubbing floors on hands and knees: 325 (Who does this?)
Cleaning, light (dusting, wiping down counters, picking up clothes): 100
Cleaning, general (washing dishes, doing laundry): 200
This post is an attempt to encourage myself to believe in the power of the clean-up work out! Now, Mary Beth, get out there and clean! I have about an hour to unpack from our Chicago trip and pack for our Adirondacks trip, take down the Christmas tree, and generally tidy up this apartment where I’ve hosted four parties in one month!
There’s been a lot of stash and dash over the holidays. Now let’s burn some calories by cleaning. But wait, first, I have to update my Facebook status and check my friends’ news.
This wedding party was traipsing around Bethesda Fountain. Every time, I’ve chillaxed here with my kids or my friends, brides and grooms and wedding parties have been soaking in the magic of this Central Park spot too, guarded over by the Angel of the Waters.
I’ve written about The Angel Above Us a few months back. She is a part of it all, yet she is above it all too. She is about to take off, yet she’s firmly rooted in place. Oh, to be an angel and watch the whole passing parade.
I’d heard that this section of the park was supposed to be a quiet zone. Yet a few weeks ago, the break dancers had music blasting, the little dogs were yapping, and all of the world’s languages were coinciding, right here at the center of Central Park in New York City.
And now you know why I called this blog My Beautiful New York.
How did Washington Square Park get so pretty and manicured? It wasn’t like that when I went to college there in the mid ’80s.
At the front of the auditorium stage, President John Sexton sat on the floor and talked about his passion for NYU and New York City.
Here’s some of what he said:
“If you wanna lie on the grass and not smell pot, you should go to Columbia.”
Sexton said he was “good at noticing things, good at storytelling, good at inspiring people of high intelligence, good at coaching people to be a team.”
“We’ve got this wonderful locational endowment, structural endowment, and attidunal endowment.” By attidunal Sexton meant, “Forty percent of New Yorkers are immigrants, born in other countries. And we don’t believe in a Golden Age. We believe the best is yet to come… And these immigrants all identify themselves as New Yorkers. The city is a genuine community of communities.”
Sexton did harken back to the Good Old Days of his Brooklyn Catholic upbringing during the time of the Vatican Council and ecumenism. “There is much richness to be gained — not to look at the world through a single window, but to see the many facets in a diamond.”
When asked about the NYU Abu Dhabi and Shanghai campuses, Sexton got defensive. He bragged about the elite core of students in Abu Dhabi and defended their freedoms. He said the construction workers are housed as well as soldiers in US Army barracks (which actually doesn’t sound that good to me).
One older gent pushed Sexton on NYU’s choice of locating a school in the MidEast, asking Sexton to consider this: instead of making NYU so global, how about making it less expensive for the middle class? (The gent got applause.)
As part of his defense, Sexton said he sneaks away just about every weekend for a 14-hour flight to teach a class at the campus there. (That doesn’t sound that fun to me either.)
I drifted out of Sexton’s lecture to get to my next class, leaving NYU’s president and my fellow alumni to hash out the situation. Perfect. NYU, like NYC, is “a complex and cacophonous world,” as Sexton said.
Outside the lecture hall, these guys (and one woman) were playing pétanque. So cool. I felt like I was not in New York City at all, but in the South of France. Even though I love and live on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, life is much more exotic and European in the Village.
At the Yankee game the other night, I spotted this young woman with the sign. She was just standing there, a bow in her hair, hoping to help. I wished I needed help, but I didn’t need it then. It was pretty clear to me where the beer line was and that’s where I was headed. Nothing more needed.
Lately I have felt that I need a lot of help, but the kind of help I need is complicated. I need help getting motivated to work out. I need help with the kids’ homework. I need help with my husband’s care. I need help meeting work deadlines. I need help with my dwindling, mixed-up stock portfolio. I need help getting out of bed on cool mornings. I need help getting published.
I don’t know if this Yankee employee can help me with these things. It looks like she can help with directions. Heck, I can do that.
Fella, the beer line is this way! You’re right behind me.
“I am working all day, then I come home and I work all night.” I was trapped in the kitchen, lonely, scrubbing pots and pans, loading dishes into the dishwasher. Chris had used every cooking utensil we own to prepare a fancy dinner for a neighbor who’d just come home from surgery.
It was probably the most beautiful night in the history of beautiful nights and I was Cinderella. I’d have preferred eating a PB&J in the park, wiggling my toes in the long summer grass.
I have a Cinderella complex, love to feel martyr-ed and uninvited to the party. But remember Cinderella did get one free night. And on that night, she partied hard. That could be me.
I know I should insist that my kids help. A friend in a caregivers support group said that in looking back at her kids’ childhoods, she regretted doing everything for them — like me, she did so much for her kids because she felt sorry for them and for the fact that their dad had a chronic illness. I don’t want that regret.
Yes, in the school year, I do more for the kids because they have homework or they’re tired. But right now, they’re all out of school. “And kids, Mommy’s tired too.” It’s true I love my job, but it can be tiring. I wish I lived in the 1950s where the breadwinner comes home, puts his feet on the ottoman, reads the paper and drinks a high ball. Maybe I’ll do that when the kids go to camp. ‘Cause I want to be lazy too.
Until then, I will keep crossing off items from my summer bucket list.
Two of my Facebook friends also posted pictures of the rainbow over Manhattan last night.
I spotted it as I approached the Lincoln Tunnel with five teenagers in my van coming back from 6 Flags. We’d been stuck in traffic for what felt like days but was probably less than an hour.
It’s amazing what a rainbow over the Manhattan skyline will do to your spirits.
One of the teens slid open the minivan door to take a picture on his phone (remember: we weren’t traveling fast, because of the traffic jam). My son gave a cheery thumbs up to the neighboring drivers of slow-moving vehicles.
Highs and Lows.
On Thursday night, I celebrated Bloomsday at the Supreme Court building downtown. You know, it’s the pillared building featured in all TV’s court shows. You know, the big steps and the feeling of justice as your purse is scanned by friendly officers of the court.
One of the best parts of living in New York City is that you can be as high class or low class as you want to be. Or wanna be.
One night you’re partying at the Supreme Court looking up at the rotunda and the next day you’re hangin’ in New Jersey looking up at the parachute ride.
This wedding party was traipsing around Bethesda Fountain. Every time, I’ve chillaxed here with my kids or my friends, brides and grooms and wedding parties have been soaking in the magic of this Central Park spot too, guarded over by the Angel of the Waters.
100 Days of Poems and Pics 