Getting established in NYC
Guess where this is!
Last week, standing in Fort Tryon Park overlooking the Hudson River in Manhattan at sunset. This is home.
Many people think of New York City and specifically Manhattan as a bustling, noisy, busy, scary, crowded place full of pushy people and expensive apartments and have no desire to live there. I have a completely different experience. This northern part of the island - Washington Heights and Inwood - is especially quiet and peaceful. Four wonderful parks are up here including The Cloisters at Ft. Tryon Park, Inwood Hill Park, Isham Park and yet to be explored by me, Highbridge Park.
During my first week at my new digs I was so busy exploring my neighborhood that I only rode the subway once to mid-town. I found everything I needed just outside my door. The block below my 4-floor walkup apartment has a laundromat, hardware store, pharmacy, bar, Cuban restaurant specializing in fishy dishes, nail salon, flower shop, liquor store, phone store, and headshop. One block away is a fabulous grocery store mixing regular comestibles, sundries and organic health foods. I did discover that “Mini Mart and Organic” does not mean what I expected, lol. There is an amazing Saturday farmers market, wine store, Asian fusion restaurant (the “fusion” show up as Thai empanadas), coffee, juice bars, breakfast nooks, and of course discount stores carrying items made in Mexico and South America rather than China. I feel like a real New Yorker with my cart, and carrying a newly purchased chair home from 99¢ USA.
And the weekends! The sidewalks are filled with laughter and music and folks selling stuff in a flea market atmosphere and strawberries. The aromas from street vendors is intoxicating. Card tables are set up for board games and conversation. What to do on Saturday night? Go to the discount stores with the families and join the kids sitting in aisles reading books and the adults reading each other the Valentine’s Day cards. Again laughter and conversation fill the air.
There is a Caribbean flavor to the neighborhood, Dominican, Haitian, Cuban. Young men hang around waiting to deliver food orders on their motor scooters. Some people have warned me to avoid certain areas, certain streets, certain people behaving certain ways, fearing for my safety. But they forget - it’s me! People are absolutely lovely to me everywhere I go. This was my experience traveling, this is my experience in New York City. Young men get up off the stairs and open doors for me. They hold subway doors for me. They carry my bags up steps. They make sure I don’t slip on the ice. People I have not met and who ask nothing from me, not even conversation, pay for my drinks at restaurants. I live a charmed life. I am charmed by it and I smile. My theory is that it’s the joy expressed in my smile that people respond to, but I have no scientific data to support that. I only know that when I walk down the street, I feel like I am surrounded by friends seen and unseen. My guides and angels flock around me and uplift me and those I encounter. I could not be more grateful. Los Angeles may call itself the City of Angels. I find that city everywhere.
More to come.
