NY

I just got back from a day in New York. Yes it was only a day and yes it was rushed and yes the majority of it was spent watching "Better Off Dead" and hanging out in a friends apartment with babies, but what a good trip.

My roommate asked the other day why I travel. Well, she mentioned, at least, that she'd been thinking about so I started to think about it. I travel (or love travelling) because it makes me feel anonymous. Makayla (see comment from Furrowed) hit it right on the nose. She said that she feels awe in big cities, where you realize how many people there are and that God knows and loves all of them. Suddenly my decisions and choices are minute and manageable because billions of people make choices every day and God is in all of their lives and loves all of them.

I rode the bus from the airport and felt a deep sense of connection to the people I was riding with. It was a really reassuring moment. And too, finding my way around the city and finding kindness everywhere (and people were mean and I got whistled at a little but still...) and being anonymous. It was the best way I could've spent this weekend.

I met a woman on the plane named Helen who was flying to Green Bay to say goodbye to her little sister who was dying of MS. Helen teaches elementary school in Wyoming. She raised 5 incredible kids and had lived this full and interesting life--working in Germany, building her own house, teaching in inner-city New York coincidentally, adopting, she hatched baby chicks with her students this last week, loveslovesloves her family--and she told me to teach what I loved. She drank a vodka and Mountain Dew which smelled incredible and had just made this flight and cried in gratitude when she found out she didn't have to switch planes to make the next.

And I ate dinner (two thumbs up for the Wok and Roll in Minneapolis--miso soup is the most perfect travel food I've ever found) with Greg, a consultant who was living in Montana. He drilled me on being Mormon, which I loved: we talked about the Texas polygamy deal and about my mission and about family. He told me about his relationship with his wife. He's on the road 5 days a week and often travels for fun even when he's off. She likes her space. Over the weekend they work on their house together. She paints because she loves it, he does whatever else until she can come and help. He talked about the way they've grown together, how their relationship has evolved and is still evolving. It was really reassuring.

I got to explore another section of New York: I was around Union Square where they had a market--flowers and apples and bread. Lovely down there, with the trees and the old buildings. Last trip I spent an inordinate amount of time around Rockefeller Center and Time Square and it was good to get out a little (very little I know). There was a street fair selling street fair kitsch, funnel cakes, kettle corn, corn-on-the-cob. Just people and stuff and food.

Anyway. Lovely trip. Good sense of centering.