I’m here in New York City, helping my two grown children move into new apartments.
It’s been 90 degrees outside consistently. I was caught in a torrential rain storm (complete with thunder and lightning) on Friday night. I’ve been schlepping boxes and bags up two flights of stairs, constructing furniture, vacuuming and mopping.
And I’m loving it.
I’m loving watching my daughter’s apartment come together. I loved meeting “Rabbit,” the sweet and quite sleepy man who keeps watch (and naps) on my daughter’s building’s stoop. I love how helpful and kind passersby can be when they see us struggling with the door while balancing a bag of clothes, a drying rack, and a table lamp. I loved the marching band that high-stepped it down my daughter’s street on Saturday morning. I love zipping around on Citibikes.
I loved watching my son play soccer in the heart of Chinatown, chatting with his teammates, many of them childhood friends who have migrated to NYC like him, some of them new. I loved checking out my son’s apartment and taking him out to lunch at Win Son, where I ate an OH MY GOD crazy delicious egg-and-cheese-on-a-scallion-pancake sandwich. And bought these for my husband:
I loved going out to dinner with my daughter, where the waitress and bartender were so kind to us. I loved eating deli wraps made by a curmudgeonly man (but a darned good cook), sitting on the grass overlooking the Harlem Meer in Central Park. And walking by one of the weekly summer dance parties, where women were moving to the music slowly but happily despite the heat.
I loved shopping for supplies at Target and trekking to HMart to purchase doenjang soybean paste (which, according to my husband, is “[f]unkily pungent and packed with savoriness,…a magical flavor booster that is sometimes compared to Japanese miso but has a saltier, more assertive kick.…[and] unparalleled brio”) and walking back to my apartment, smiling at people I passed and watching their faces soften as they smiled warmly back at me.
And I loved capping the whole weekend off with a delicious Indian dinner and a HONKIN’ martini at the East Side home of some of my favorite people in the world.
Sigh.
I love this City. I’ll be back.