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All Aboard?

All Aboard?

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Boarding the train  back to Washington last Saturday, I found myself in the new Daniel Patrick Moynihan Train Hall. It’s an imposing place, artfully done with glass ceilings that frame original stone walls. 

The space created for this new building was at one point suggested by the former senator from New York, and as a New Yorker article about it points out, the new terminal seeks to atone for the travesty that was the teardown of the original Penn Station in 1963. 

The train hall is glossy and spit-polished and features huge screens with rotating displays, including photographs of 1940s travelers, women in frocks with sleeves down to their elbows, a generous if  not always flattering cut, I thought, as I waited for the train in my cap-sleeved dress. 

That I spent as much time as I did musing on those passengers and those dresses is proof that there was little else to look at. 

So, with apologies for acting the curmudgeon, let me grieve for a moment the loss of the Amtrak boarding area in the previous Penn Station, the one that replaced the”Beaux Arts beauty” of the original, the Penn Station of more recent yore, where the chaos of waiting for a train was the city’s final gift to the departing traveler. A reminder of the chaos you were leaving behind, the chaos that you would miss when you returned home.

Shank’s Mare

Shank’s Mare

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Today, my feet are in the suburbs but my soul is in the city. I’m missing New York City in many ways, especially in this one: walking there is purposeful. It’s about getting where you need to be, not taking 10,000 steps.

You don’t bother with the subway if you’re just hopping 20 blocks. Taxis are harder to come by than they used to be, and on Thursday night, Uber was asking $120 to take you from the Upper West Side to the Lower East Side. Yes, they are on opposite sides of the island, but come on!

Which brings us to shank’s mare, that most dependable mode of transportation. It might be hot and it might take a minute, but walking will get you where you need to be.

Yes, I rhapsodize about the practice of walking. It calms and inspires me on a daily basis. So much so that it’s easy to forget its original purpose, which is to get us from one place to another. In New York City, you don’t forget.

A Symphony

A Symphony

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If walking in the suburbs is a sonata, walking in the city is a symphony. It is the cued entrance of  countless well-tuned players, the trilling of a piccolo, the thrum of a timpani. It is pedestrians striding through the square and construction workers in hard hats taking a break. 

It’s a stroll on the High Line and a view of lower Manhattan from Little Island, the city’s newest park. 

It’s meandering through the West Village, down Bedford and Barrow, past the Cherry Lane Theater and on to Bleecker, where I’ll grab a Napoleon and watch ten white-habited monks who’ve come from Our Lady of Pompeii to buy some cannolis. 

It’s the plume of a fountain in Washington Square Park and the chess players and weed hawkers and pickup jazz bands that gather nearby.

It’s a trip to the Strand Bookstore (still there!) on the way uptown, then dinner at a hundred-plus-year-old bar and grill.

Four movements, none of them replicable. A city walk. A symphony. 

Exhaling…

Exhaling…

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During the depths of the shutdown, as I wondered if life would ever be back to normal, I thought often of New York City. I had seen photos of empty streets, unpeopled sidewalks. I wondered if the city would ever be bustling again. I could take emptiness elsewhere — but not here.

Yesterday, as we drove through the Lincoln Tunnel, I held my breath. Would the city be … the city? Or would it look like parts of Portland and Seattle — other metropolises I’ve visited recently that were still shadows of their former selves?

The answer, at least so far, is no. Pedestrians strode down 34th Street, idled at corners staring at their phones, scampered under the omnipresent scaffolding. Delivery women pulled huge handcarts piled high with boxes, the NYC version of the Amazon Prime van that careens down our street at all hours. 

And on the Lower East Side, our destination for the evening, the pierced and tattooed ones sallied forth into the night wearing every crazy outfit you could imagine. 

I could finally exhale. 

The City Itself

The City Itself

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Today my brother, sister and I head north to the city, not Baltimore or Philadelphia, which are north of here too, but the city, which to me will always be New York City, where three of the four of us once lived.

The occasion is a birthday celebration, but do you need a reason to visit New York? 

Or, is the reason … simply the city itself? 

Voice as Vehicle

Voice as Vehicle

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I’ve just finished Gail Caldwell’s Bright Precious Thing, her third or fourth memoir but only the second one I’ve read. I found it while browsing at the library last week and picked it up immediately, based on how much I liked Let’s Take the Long Way Home, which is about Caldwell’s friendship with the late Caroline Knapp.

Bright Precious Thing is a slender book, and I didn’t bond with it at first. But 20 pages in I was hooked — not so much by what Caldwell was saying — the women’s movement and its effect on her life — but how she said it.

This has me thinking about voice, writerly voice, the tone and style a writer uses to communicate with her readers, and how personal it is. 

Voice is the vehicle, and when it’s humming along, I don’t much care where the reader is taking me. As long as we’re together, I’m content.

(The vehicle above is a Seattle-bound Amtrak train, this coach almost empty.)

From the Top

From the Top

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It’s been two weeks since we returned from our Northwest jaunt, and I often catch myself looking through photographs when I have a spare minute. Which means that I’ve noticed trends.

For instance, I was often pointing my phone camera at flowers: roses, rhododendrons, formal gardens, cottage gardens. You would think I have no blossoms whatsoever at home, which is not the case. 

But also, whenever possible, I snapped photos from ridges and hilltops. Luckily, both Portland and Seattle cooperated, providing expansive views where I least expected them, like the one above — which appeared out of nowhere on a walk — and others (like the one below) where I huffed and puffed to reach it.

Reliving these vistas now, I feel like chucking it all and buying a piece of land in the Shenandoah. It can be small, it can be humble — all it needs is a view. 

Japanese Garden

Japanese Garden

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As May gallops to a close, I’m immersing myself once again in the calm oasis of Portland’s Japanese garden. Yes, it’s 2,800 miles away now, but I have it right up here in my noggin, sloshing around with today’s to-do list and other trivia.

It wasn’t difficult to take decent photos at the garden. Everywhere I pointed my phone camera was a beautifully framed shot. From artfully raked gravel plots to gently cascading waterfalls. 

That’s because, in a Japanese garden, beauty is cultivated most of all. 

Big Again

Big Again

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I have a habit of not wanting to leave the places I’m visiting, and yesterday I almost didn’t. Confusion about departure times meant we missed our original return flight. Luckily, we were re-routed to another airport and finally made it home — though six hours later than planned. 

The first hours and days back after a trip are always a strange time. Life is mostly as it was but with subtle differences. The old house touches my heart with its creaky floors and familiarity. I don’t have to wonder when I wake up, where am I now? I can tell by the placement of lamp and beside table, by the feel of the covers under my chin. 

But the trip has altered the house and the gaze with which I see it. The roses in Portland are part of me now, the walk around Lake Union in Seattle, too. The Japanese Garden and the Japanese American Museum, Cherry Street and Alberta Street — they’re all in there. The crusty bread and the little dogs. 

It has been almost a year with no travel. The world of house and yard were closing in on me. But now … the world is big again. 

Sum of the Parts

Sum of the Parts

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Whenever I travel I face the same dilemma, and it’s a delightful one. There’s the exploratory part of the process — finding new trails to walk, new museums to explore, new food to eat. And then there’s the hanging out aspect of it all.  The dilemma is how to create a perfect blend of the two.

This trip has done it effortlessly due to the wonderful family we have in Seattle and Portland. We’ve had lovely at-home dinners, long mornings chatting over mugs of tea, and one big raucous birthday party. And that doesn’t include the boat ride and trips to favorite local watering holes. 

The sum of these parts is even greater than its whole — respite for body, mind and soul. And then … there are the roses!