Back to My Roots

Dinner in a crazy place.

View from my hotel room.

A trip to New York City puts it all in perspective. It's noisy, crowded. Piles of garbage bags line the sidewalks. Traffic clogs the streets. Restaurants are full, with TV sets blaring from all corners, and music videos playing on huge screens, making conversation impossible. Yet they attract hordes of young people who desperately want to be "out" instead of home alone with their own thoughts. The cafe we squeezed into served unrecognizable foods, some too spicy to actually eat, others too scary-looking.

We just arrived here yesterday so it's too soon to pass judgement, but it seems to me that the city of my birth has gotten even fuller over the years, quite a feat for such a tiny island. It blocks out more sky with newer, higher buildings, obliterates empty space with more shops and restaurants and cafes and bistros and street vendors, and there's noticeably more garbage, everywhere.

There is still sky somewhere.

We are staying in a "4-star" hotel, which is the least number of stars my travel-savvy husband finds acceptable, yet it is still what Bette Davis must have meant when she famously uttered the line, "What a dump!" I won't name names, but let's just say that the still-warm chocolate-chip cookie you are handed at check-in is the high point. (The low point was the shower this morning that felt more like being spat upon by a giant.)

I know: here she goes again, complain, complain. But we are seeing a "smash" Broadway show later today and I have high hopes for a good time. And the weather is perfect. And best of all, the whole place makes me miss Maine.