Bittersweet Travel
NYC Hudson Yards
I love New York City, its intensity, its bustling people, and its never ending stream of things to see and do. I worked there in the 70's and lived just outside of it then. I know people there. I know the subway, the buses, the shops and the streets. Since 1980, when I moved down to D.C., I've returned to walk snow-filled Midtown streets in winter, the West Side High Line in summer, obscure Village streets in spring, and the Upper East Side and Central Park in fall. I've made my way there by driving, bus and train. The train and bus drops you right in the middle of the action at Penn Station, but the bus is confining but cheap. Driving takes longer, tires me out and is hellish for parking or maneuvering around the city.
It's always been a jolly good time whether I'm staying with friends, luxuriating in a boutique hotel or using Hilton points for a solid and free standardized stay. But this last week, it was a bittersweet trip. The annual "Friends of the Ground Hog" party normally scheduled for the first February by my dear friend Ed was rescheduled for June because of his health issues. It seems that after 50 years, his youthful wild living and later chronic conditions were catching up with him. We hoped for the best, but June too fell by the wayside. We, my husband John and I, came up to visit anyway. We wanted to give him some hugs and support Carol, his wife. And that we did. We visited Ed at his care facility Sunday morning for a couple of hours, but that was it. His condition was more serious than we had imagined. For Carol, we spent every evening for a few hours until fatigue overtook her.
During the day, with Carol's encouragement but not her companionship, we did what we love to do in NYC - experience the city beyond restaurants and street walking. With the weather bright, clear and cool for four out of our five days, we climbed the Vessel in the rebuilt Hudson Yards, took in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's CAMP fashion exhibit, joined an historic "New Amsterdam" walking tour of lower Manhattan, wove through overwhelming crowds at MOMA which was closing three days later for renovations, admired the art in three stations (96th, 86th, and 72nd streets) on the Q subway (2nd avenue), and stepped back into medieval times with a visit to the Cloisters and Ft. Tryon park.
Just four days after we returned, early before the sun rose on Sunday morning, Ed passed away. We are heart broken. We will miss his kindness, extraordinary wit, brilliant mind, voracious appetite for books and movies, and love for the life he and Carol built together. Their daughter Alison inherited the best of both of them -- his love of possibilities, ambition and creativity and her consistency and commitment in all she does, unending care for others, and a grounded approach taking each day as it comes.
How much did I love Ed? He let me into his world, knowing my brain could never comprehend half of what he talked about. I let him call me Nana from the day my daughter gave birth to my first grandson 25 years ago. Ed embraced my husband, the quiet listener in strong friendship where they entertained each other while railing against the current political regime. I let him tell me "dumb blonde" jokes every time we met in NYC and laughed despite myself. I just couldn't get mad at him. He brought joy, insight and warmth into our lives. God, I will miss him.