My Bold Bonus Life
Have embarked on my 18-day life-within-a-life in New York, the one I promised myself as celebration of turning 60 a year and a half ago. I hadn't yet figured out how to work it out (pay for it) and then this marvelous house-sitting arrangement fell in my lap and suddenly I'm here.
And it's thrilling. I arrived yesterday on "the Chinatown bus" — an express overnight trip from Grand Asia Market at home in NC to Canal Street in Chinatown (a $30 trip, can you believe it?)
We rolled in at 10 am and then, sweat-drenched, I rolled and toted and subwayed my monstrous suitcase (housing computer et al)to a lefty church service where a former client of mine is minister. Got there just in time to hear her preach, and meet her afterwards. I'd never even met her; being several states apart, we'd communicated only by email. Her sermon was inspiring; about making important changes by shifting your weight in the desired direction, a little and then a little more and so on. Music was gorgeous: a piano and flute performance of one of Satie's Gymnopedies, and then a solo by a woman with a Broadway style voice (rather different from most of the church sopranos I've ever heard, no warble)
Then uptown to my home for this bonus lifetime. Wow! it's terrific. A sunny studio on the third floor with a glass atrium at the back that has been made into a sunlit office that then opens onto a large third floor terrace in a breezy canyon of trees within the center of the block. (see terrace view in photo)
Also, the owner, whom I've never met, (daughter of a friend of a friend, and oh, what nice people) is 28 years old with a glamorous career, Audrey Hepburn taste, and an excellent book collection. I am happy to be twenty-eight again for the coming weeks.
In the afternoon, I went first to the Manhattan Dominican Day parade.
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Continuous dance music and everybody dancing. (I had no idea that 90% of New York was Dominican.) Then to the E. 60th Street Fair, and more walking (my favorite thing in New York) and sudden exhaustion: back to the apt. Ate the owner's mother's homemade pumpkin bread and leftover white wine on the terrace at dusk. (I was asked to eat up all the leftover perishables or get rid of them)
How did I get such a miracle opportunity as this? By telling everyone I knew. And I didn't even do it to look for an opportunity, just out of excitement. But the results convince me more than ever: if you have a dream, start making it real by making it public.
Feel free to announce any dream(s) of your own here in the comments.
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Categories: bold, New York, travel