This is your life

“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view … until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”

Atticus Finch had it right, I think, when he provided daughter Scout with the above words of wisdom in Harper Lee’s famous novel To Kill a Mockingbird.  For lack of a better analogy, this is a big reason why we blog our life here in NYC - to give you all an opportunity to consider things from our point of view and, perhaps, to climb into our skin and walk around in it.

At least that’s the hope.

My goal is to help you take in the sunny Manhattan skyline as seen from Ellis Island.  To hear the roar of the crowd during the closing stretch of the New York City Marathon. To feel the booming bongo drum while eating dinner at Tao.

But, of course, life in New York is not all fun and games.  For every “first time experience”, there are myriad examples of inconveniences, crowds, and big city hurdles that are never deemed blogworthy.

It’d be a bit disingenuous of me to shower you with a blog full of NYC Greatest Hits without letting you in on the dirty little secrets of the day to day grind.  So whether you’re in North Carolina, California, or a state in between, close your eyes and take a walk around our weekend…

Imagine you wake up on Saturday morning, and the best kind of Saturday morning, you think, with no pressing demands for your time.  Only before your feet can make their way from the warm bed to the cold hardwood floors you hear the familiar pitter-patter on the window air unit.  It’s raining.  So much for your plan to start the day productively with a run in the park.

But there’s nothing wrong with a lazy Saturday, so you pour a bowl of Honey Nut O’s and figure that this weekend you’ll have to just take it slow.  Only when you pour the O’s you realize there’s only about two bowls left.  Which means grocery time.  Which means crowds.  And subways.  And rain.

Begrudgingly, you begin to clean up for the trip downtown to Trader Joe’s.  Perhaps this will be a productive day after all.  And wouldn’t you know it, the sky has cleared to a dreary gray by the time you step outside – your fortune is changing!

You make your way the short distance to the subway to catch a downtown train.  After a short wait the 6 train approaches – it’s packed with tourists and locals alike, all of whom seem to have taken the opportunity afforded by the respite from rain to make it into the city.  You cram yourself into a car before the doors close (after all, it’s only a 15 minute ride, right?)  Besides, you’re a pro at this now.  A pro at contorting and twisting all the while holding your balance with a single finger against a handrail.

And you make it.  As you walk up the stairs at Union Square the sky is suddenly blue and the city is buzzing.  It’s one of those times you wish you could bottle up, when the city seems alive, an organism capable of providing energy to everyone around.  You walk contemplatively the two blocks to Trader Joe’s and then you realize that apparently every single other person in the city is using the same energy to do their grocery shopping too.

Frustrated, but not broken, you grab a cart and dodge the back of the “Any Number of Items Line” (yes, the line really is wrapped all the way around the store to the entrance!)  You make your way through produce and attempt to turn the corner by the trail mix when you’re berated by “confused-65 year old-lifelong-Manhattanite lady” who thinks you’re trying to cut in line.  “I’m just trying to zip through,” you try to say, before quickly realizing that with this unfortunate soul there’s her way or the highway.  So you take a few extra breaths, and take a moment to reflect on how patience is a virtue and someday you’ll be lecturing your kids on this “teachable moment”.

Somehow you make it through the rest of the store without incident and grab a spot at the back of the line, knowing you’ll be able to grab the milk and cereal from the queue before reaching the register.  That is, you would have been able to grab some cereal if they had any left.  It seems that the multitudes have ravished the cereal section, and there will be no Honey O’s (or Regular O’s for that matter) on this trip.  You decide to skip the super-organic grain mix stuff and cut your losses while you can.  Fifteen minutes later you’re finally through checkout with four heavy paper bags filled with a week’s worth of groceries and ready for a trip back on the subway.

Just another trip to the grocery.

You need a break, so you sit down to watch your beloved Heels as they participate in an uncommon, yet quite enjoyable event – a meaningful late season football game.  After leading for the great majority of the game, your Heels figure out a way to lose.  And that’s when you hear it again.

Pitter Patter.  The rain.

Only this time it’s more like PITTER PATTER, PITTER PATTER, PITTER PATTER.  Pouring rain, which doesn’t bode well for your evening, which was set to include dinner with a few friends at a tapas spot in the Lower East Side.

Armed with a rain jacket, you make your way out for the evening and have a lovely time sharing in good food with newfound friends.  Afterwards you head to a local watering hole and restaurant called Rodeo to meet up with a few more friends.  It’s your first time at Rodeo, and it immediately feels comforting.  Perhaps it’s the Southern ambiance, the peanut shells on the ground, or the conversation with friends.  Whatever it is, it feels good.

It’s then that you turn around looking for your jacket and notice that it’s gone.  Perhaps it’s fallen over the railing onto the floor below.  Nope.  You ask your friends to look around and it’s nowhere to be found.  You ask a waitress, a manager, the bouncer.  No luck.  After a quick walk through the bar, bathroom and outside, it’s now abundantly clear – you’ve been the victim of a coat capering.

Who steals a coat?  You’re able to almost laugh about it, but only after realizing that your wallet is in your jeans pocket, along with cell phone and keys.  Seriously, though, why in the world would someone steal your coat from right next to your arm?  It’s a question you ponder laughingly for the rest of the evening – laughingly, that is, until the four block walk back to the subway in the pouring rain.  Pitter Patter. PITTER PATTER!

It’s now Sunday, and instead of making your way to morning church you head to Anthropologie for an employee appreciation sale.  The rain is gone and the crowds are out.  But at least there’s the employee discount, and you’re able to find a few nice things for Christmas gifts for family and friends.  The trip back home takes you through crowds of foreigners and tourists and you notice you’re a little more irritable than usual.  Perhaps it’s simply leftover from the previous night’s coat fiasco; perhaps it’s simply the ever present hordes of people.  You can’t describe it – how do you describe “blah”?

So you head back to the apartment and crawl into bed.  Before you know it you’re fast asleep and don’t wake until mid-afternoon.  Feeling less blah, you realize you’re hungry.  But you don’t feel like making anything.  You want to hit up something totally un-New York, perhaps that staple of suburban life, the chain restaurant.  That’s when you realize there are two Olive Garden gift cards in your nightstand drawer.  You pull up Google Maps and figure out there is indeed an Olive Garden in the city.  Jackpot.

It is in Time Square, but it’s only four o’clock and there can’t possibly be that long of a wait at all times of day, can there?  You’re wrong.  After traversing the subway system across town and busting through the crowds on Broadway, you find yourself at the Times Square Olive Garden along with every tourist who just got out of a Broadway show or the Toys R Us store or didn’t want to wait in line at T.G.I.Friday’s.  Suddenly the chain restaurant doesn’t seem like such a good idea.

But at this point you’re pot-committed, so you wait in the crowded bar area for your buzzer to go off, and once it does you’re seated at a really great table with a fantastic view of the madness below.  For the first time all weekend, it seems, you can breathe.  So you sit back and enjoy the familiar taste of endless salad and breadsticks and think about how much your life has changed in just a few short months.  You wonder what the next three months will hold and the next three years for that matter, and yet at the same time you wonder what it will be like in three minutes when you try to brave the crowds lined up outside MTV Studios pining for a glimpse of Beyonce (who’s performing at the very last TRL ever).

You continue thinking about all of this as you finally make it home before leaving just as quickly to make it to the 7:15 West Side Redeemer service.  Church proves to be refreshing, as usual, and as you ride the bus back you realize that for the first time all weekend you’re not irritated by the weather or crowds or circumstances which seemed to have had their way with you.  Even when you make it back to the apartment and find the laundry still waiting for you by the door you are fine with it.  You just grab the quarters and head for the basement.

You’re suddenly thoughtful.  Balanced.  Content.

And that’s when you realize:

This was your weekend.  This is your life.