New York

December 13, 2011

On two New York days–yesterday, Monday, was one of them– I sat in the lobby of the Paramount Hotel and wrote poetry, big slabs of happy poetry, with all that din around me. Yesterday when I wandered away from the Paramount I found myself at Bryant Park, all greeny-silvery sylvan with its middle-aged sycamore, all Christmas card-y with its skating rink and little temporary shops. One of the shops was a café, and I perched there with my cappuccino under a radiant heater (which grazed my right ear only, but that seemed to be enough) and wrote still more. I’d wondered what I could do to fill the morning before I met Owen for lunch, but in the end I barely got to Columbus Circle on time. Lunch with Owen was delightful, and full of revelations about the future he has planned for himself, a future at once exiting and, giving his potential, modest. Luxuriated in my room for a while, then made my way to 64th street to JoJo’s for dinner with Philip Cheah and Jon David, and Sue, and Shirley the president of the Central City Chorus-- the fancy dinner I had asked for my fee. I am not a “foodie,” but was awestruck by my tender sweet duck and the clouds of dessert which floated out following our meals. I took the wrong train from 59th street, and ended up in Queens Plaza, with the intercom blaring that there was no service back to Manhattan from that station that night. I had no idea what to do, at midnight in a part of the world I didn’t know at all. Two random guys coming home from work appeared in the vast emptiness, and I asked them for help, and they not only helped me but walked me to the stop to make sure I got the right train (the 7, as it turns out). Today at Newark airport this little Indian guy chased me through terminal A to return a credit card I’d dropped when I was checking my bags. The guy at the museum shop gave me his employee’s discount out of thin air. It was the Weekend of Being Helped.