New York, Entry

We take a red-eye flight from LAX and suddenly we're in New York, and I can't quite get my brain around it. A surprisingly pleasant taxi driver deposits us in front of the 7th Avenue apartment building where an old friend of mine has said we could leave our bags until our own rental is available for check-in. I knew this friend back in the Syracuse days –– thirty years ago –– and have seldom seen her since. She’s at work now, and it’s touching to me how readily she has left us her key and entrusted us to enter her private space in her absence. There’s something humbling about having someone else’s key in hand.

Ten flights above the busy street, her place is very still, except for a little dog who yelps until we crouch down to her level and reassure her. My friend is recently widowed, but there are two toothbrushes in the glass at the bathroom sink, and two robes on a hook, and everywhere the sense that both of them still live here, and it seems sad, but that’s only because I know the back-story.

My friend gets up at 5 each morning to swim at the Y a few blocks away, and her wet swimsuit and cap are hanging in the shower, and somehow that feels poignant to me also. There is an intimacy about being here, and the impulse to walk carefully and speak in whispers. Our plan is to leave our bags and be on our way, but I have that punchy, disoriented red eye feeling and decide to lean back on the couch for a few minutes and before you know it I am soundly asleep with a pair of cats who have leapt up to join me, while Monte sits in a chair reading and planning with his iPhone.

It’s nearly ten when we set out to take the subway to Brooklyn to meet up with Miranda. We stop for coffee and tea, and there's a bowl of bananas on the counter, but in a classic case of ‘yes, we have no bananas’, the counter guy says we cannot buy one, no how, no way; they are all he has and simply not for sale. We order the oatmeal, which sounds very good, but alas, there is no more. A bagel suffices. It's New York, after all.

We enter the subway, where a series of hand-lettered signs announce that we are about to come upon a poet: N.Y. PUBLISHED POET SHARES HIS POEMS. YOUR CHANCE TO HEAR PUBLISHED POET READ HIS WORK.

The poet, as it turns, out is a thin black man sitting on the ground with sheets of paper all around him, not an audience in sight. We, too, hurry by; chance missed. (And this Published Essay-Writer wishes she had at least left a dollar and a nod of respect.)

We emerge into the sunlight of Park Slope on a winter morning, red brick buildings with decorative cornices, stately old brownstones, hints of holiday here and there.

Miranda and Xander have also had the humbling experience of being handed a key; they are staying in the new and nearly empty apartment of a generous friend. Two mattresses are lined up parallel on the floor, with two large suitcases nearby, open and spilling over; there are tweets being tweeted and blogs being blogged and cell phones ringing and plans in the air, and despite the echoing vacancy of the apartment it is filled with bustle and energy and optimism.

The kids accompany us back to Manhattan and we walk to the West Village to meet the woman with the key to the studio apartment Monte and I have rented. For this particular key, we hand over a big wad of cash, then check in and deem the apartment satisfactory. There's a curious assortment of kitchen things, a bleak attempt at decor, a view from the window of men in hard hats doing brick work from scaffolding attached to a building across an alley. But it has all the conveniences, home base for four nights.

We decide to go exploring afterwards. The wind has kicked up, but it's surprisingly mild and pleasant outside. We walk over to the elevated High Line Park in the old the meatpacking district, climb the steps, and wander. Native grasses are growing between the old freight train tracks and through artfully slotted concrete slabs and sidewalks. There are overlooks onto former warehouses and industrial structures and modern glassy buildings that glow in the light of the rapidly setting sun and the city beginning its nightly twinkle.

We descend onto cobblestone streets and pass shops lit up for Christmas; we walk through the Chelsea marketplace and enter the Wired store, oh brave new world, abuzz with glitzy goods and edgy-techy-digital electronic things, ultimately baffling.

In the evening, we meet up with Ben, the third member of the 20-something trio, and his parents, who have just flown in from London, and we sit at a long table in a noisy downtown restaurant, and we feel included and happy to be with our kids, and Ben’s mother says, “Aren’t we lucky to have this connection with their generation?” and we know we are obsolete, but for the moment, we feel pleased, we feel sated, we feel grateful.