Remembering: Eleven Years

It was a Tuesday so very much like today.

Breathtakingly blue skies, crisp air, and just a hint of fall.

Even more than two hundred miles away in Boston, where I was a freshman in college, the weather was the same. I heard the news in the student center as I stopped there after my early class. It was 9:15am. People were crowded around the big TV, and no one spoke a word as the reports rolled in from New York City. There was a girl next to me furiously trying to make a call on her cell phone. Over and over she dialed, but the call would not go through. I was fixed in place, unable to move. Unable to leave to walk back to my dorm. Unable to do anything except watch the events unfold. I was still standing there when the towers fell. When one collective gasp rose up from the room, from the campus, from the country. When for, perhaps the first time, we understood panic, fear, struggle and loss.

I have made my home in the city I watched on TV eleven Septembers ago. And while I sometimes have complex feelings about Manhattan, I don't today. Never on this day. On this day, I am proud to live here, and to work here. To create memories, and to build a life here. To experience the grit, the boundless energy and the ceaseless exuberance that make this city unlike any other.

This is my city now.

That day eleven years ago is an indelible part of our story, but it's not the whole story. So today. Today, I look back. I look back and I remember a day filled with darkness, and ending, and heartbreaking loss. And I look forward. I look forward towards hopeful beginnings, and happy days, and a bright future for me, for all of us, and for this city.

Words From a Stranger

I heard the words at the end of mile twelve as I struggled to keep on running.

"I'm proud of you, you're almost there."

I had never seen the woman before in my life, but she spoke those words directly to me as if we had been friends forever. The last four miles had been a slow plodding mess and I was giving serious thought to pulling over to the curb and quitting right then and there, but when I heard those words, I kicked up the pace.

It was just after mile eight of my first half-marathon that I decided I would rather be in hell than run five more miles, which was incredibly unfortunate for me, because I really wanted a medal. Which they were giving out at the finish line. Exactly five miles away.

Bands were stationed every half a mile, playing music. Spectators covered every available inch of sidewalk. For eight miles I relished the encouragement. I smiled, waved, and high-fived my way along that glorious distance. After mile eight I hated every last person lining the streets and the chairs they were relaxing in as they shouted at me to "go girl" and "keep running."

"YOU keep running," sneered the petulant toddler who had suddenly taken up residence inside my head.

With no choice but to keep moving, I slogged my way down streets softening in the blazing heat that was so unseasonable for Pittsburgh in May.

Four miles to go.

My running shorts, so perfectly arranged during the first half of the race, had started to bunch up between my legs, causing an excruciating heat rash that no amount of Vaseline from the medical tent would fix. My beloved running hat felt like a sponge that had reached its capacity. The faithful running shoes that had carried me though endless training miles were giving me a blister on my toe. The cups at the water stations were filled with boiling hot liquid from hours in the sun.

My internal dialogue was an endless string of jerky thoughts.

I really hate this song. I definitely have heat stroke. Why would this band play such a stupid song? I hate running. I think I have a cramp. And shin splints. And probably a stress fracture. I. Hate. Running.

Three miles to go.

I very nearly laid right down on the street and forgot about the rest of the race, but I figured that if I did I would probably just end up trampled by the rest of the runners and with a third degree burn from the heat radiating up from the pavement. Not exactly an improvement to my current situation.

Two miles to go. Might as well be two hundred.

Other runners were passing me by the dozens, and I was moving so slowly it was a wonder I was making any forward progress at all. I was mentally cursing myself, and ruing the day I pressed "submit" on the registration form for this god-forsaken race.

Never again. No way in hell.

I saw the woman as I made the turn onto the bridge that signaled the start of the final mile. She was sitting in a lounge chair right on the corner. Her white hair was ablaze in the sunlight; rivulets of sweat trickled down the maze of wrinkles lining her face. Her gnarled hands gripped the arms of her chair, and her bottomless blue eyes looked straight into mine.

"I'm proud of you, you're almost there."

A wave of affection swept through me for this elderly stranger who sat all morning in the sun, cheering so fervently for runners she didn't even know, and I stood up a little straighter. I could do this. I could finish.

Gritting my teeth, I started to fly. Over the bridge. Up the final hill to the top, where I could see the finish in the distance. The crowds were roaring, and my brain played the woman's words over and over, pushing me down the final stretch.

Finished.

I don't know who she was, and I don't know her story, which seems strange considering how big a role she played in mine. I hope I see her next year at the start of the final mile, but if I don't, I'll certainly hear her words in my head as I make the final turn towards home.

I'm proud of you, you're almost there.
 

 

Joining some amazing writers who blog and bloggers who write over at Yeah Write.

Used Books on Broadway

One of my favorite parts of the Upper West Side of Manhattan is the used book sellers that populate the stretch of Broadway between 72nd and 75th Streets. On Thursday evenings they are out in force, and tables stand nearly end-to-end for the entire three blocks. 

Before my weekly grocery store trip, I always stop for awhile. I love hunting through the stacks of books - sometimes buying, sometimes browsing - somehow seeing the order in the haphazard piles.

Imagine my surprise last Thursday night when I noticed this. Four of my favorite Noras, all piled up. I wished for a second that I didn't already own all four, so I could buy one.

Yesterday I went back to that table to browse, and while three of the Noras remained, Northern Lights had disappeared.

As I write this I am thinking about the anonymous buyer, settling in to the couch, absorbing the love story of Meg and Nate, and the devastating beauty of Lunacy, Alaska.

I hope they enjoy it.

Unwavering Hope

"If farmers and blacksmiths could win independence from an empire...if immigrants could leave behind everything they knew for a better life on our shores...if women could be dragged to jail for seeking the vote...if a generation could defeat a depression, and define greatness for all time...if a young preacher could lift us to the mountaintop with his righteous dream...and if proud Americans can be who they are and boldly stand at the altar with who they love...then surely, surely we can give everyone in this country a fair chance at that great American dream. Because in the end, more than anything else, that is the story of this country - the story of unwavering hope grounded in unyielding struggle."

                                       Michelle Obama

                                       2012 Democratic National Convention

This City, My City

The New York City skyline loomed menacingly in the distance as I approached the Holland Tunnel.

It looked angry. Certainly unwelcoming. All cold steel and grey and big. The urge to turn around and head straight back to the warm embrace of my college campus was overwhelming.

I wasn't ready. I needed another week. Two at the most. Maybe three to be safe. Three weeks would give me time to buy all the things I probably forgot. Because no way would a skyline as scary as that have places to buy something as ordinary as toothpaste.

But soon I was in the tunnel, and there was no turning back.

Then I was staring up at the building that housed my apartment. My first post-college apartment. The apartment where I was to spend my first year of law school. My first city apartment. I looked up and down the dusty Manhattan street, taking in my surroundings.

"I live here. On this street. In New York City" The thought made me vaguely sick to my stomach. I didn't belong here. I was no city girl. And anyway, I wasn't quite sure where "here" was.

"Three years and out," was the mantra playing over and over in my head. Framed in a finite period of time, my move to the city didn't seem quite as overwhelming.

For weeks after the move, I carried a subway map wherever I went. I bought it on my first day in the city from a tacky souvenir shop in the East Village. It was big, and laminated, and it lived in the front pocket of the bag I carried to and from school. Except most of the time, it actually lived in my hands. Nary a subway ride went by where I didn't unfold and consult my map before descending the concrete stairs. That map was my security blanket in those early days. I might not have known exactly where I was, but at least the map could tell me where I was going.

Each day during those first weeks when I came home after doing battle with Manhattan, subway map in hand, I would close my eyes and pretend, for a moment, that I was not where I was. Then a siren would break my reverie, and I was plunged once more into the frenetic pace of city life.

But then. I can't quite remember how it happened, but one day I stopped carrying my subway map. I became one of the commuters instead of someone just trying to keep up. I had a corner deli where the cashier knew my name and how I took my coffee. I found a place to buy toothpaste. The sounds of sirens and cars rushing by stopped waking me up in the middle of the night.

But most of all, I stopped hearing the voice in my head. The one that whispered "three years and out."

Three years passed. And then four more. Seven years, four apartments, one law degree, countless friendships and one marriage later, I am still here, in this city. This city where I lived, and loved, and lost. Where I learned, and laughed, and cried. Where I grew up, where I became this person. This person I am, dare I say, proud to be.

I am forever grateful to this city.

And soon it will be time to say good-bye. I will still be close by, but I won't live here. This city won't be mine anymore.

As I drive north in a few weeks towards my new house, towards my new life, I know that at just the right time, I will glance in the rear-view mirror.

And I know that there, framed in that tiny space, will be the New York City skyline.

Summer Nights

It started with a convertible ride into the night. 

We headed out on our Labor Day weekend getaway with the top down, the starry sky soaring above, and a best of the 90s playlist on the iPad. For two hours our hair blew in the sultry evening breeze, as we chatted about everything and nothing, and laughed as we relived the soundtrack of our high school days. 

As we flew down the open road, it occurred to me that I would remember this night forever. Being young, wild, free, and together. Reveling in the journey, giving little thought to the destination.

It was the kind of perfect summer night that country songs are made of.

And for those few hours, as summer drew to a close, it was our night. 

Our endless summer.