Sunday in NYC: huddled with the puddles

I'm not a quitter. I was determined to see more of the city than the subway and that was that. So I left with Caroline in the morning and caught the PATH to World Trade Center. It was raining and humid, but I had a colorful polka dotted umbrella and I was ready. Caroline walked me past the famous St. Peter's graveyard and church, down to the subway to catch the 4 train.

We parted and I rode to 51st street and walked to St. Patrick's Cathedral for mass. I decided that it was the quieter holy places that I would love in New York. Mass was a great way to start the day and I ate strawberries as I walked back to the subway to head to the Frick. It was full of obnoxious tourists who just stood in the middle of the rooms blocking the natural flow of traffic through the collection. The magazine I read told me the Frick was great for romantics. I'm one of those, I thought. I enjoyed it. I spent three hours there at least gazing into art that I had only seen in my art history books. I was most excited to see Bellini's St. Francis in the Desert. I love that painting and there it was right in front of my eyes. I mean, I can't explain it, being in the same room with that painting. My other favorites were the Turners and The Lake by Corot.

Exiting the Frick I planned to walk down to the Met and I noticed across 5th Avenue a bunch of trees, not realizing that it was Central Park and also that Central Park was that big. I meandered through the Park, saw the water reserve and the Alice in Wonderland statue. Walked under the bridge and then out to the Met. I felt like I had walked into a remake of Alfred Hitchcock's Birds, but instead of Birds the title could have been People. There were as many people inside the Met as sitting outside on the steps, and the museum was closing in an hour so I left to meet Caroline, downtown near her job.

I boarded the 6 train. Sitting across from me was a man, obviously high out of his mind. He didn't seem to have control over his body at all, his head whenever the train jerked forward would slam against the wall of the car. One stop away from my destination he started masturbating.

When we got home Caroline fed me homemade chocolates and champagne.


"Sing, if you can sing, and if not still be musical inside yourself."
--Mary Oliver, More Evidence