15 million people = 1 emotion

new york. and of course it's "new"- silly question. everything is new...even things that are old, because in the city "old" is the new "new". sort of how brown is the new black (but i didn't get that memo). and with this in mind the exploration of manhattan continues:

as grand central station awaited the arrival of many a commutor, i was reminded of how frantic travelling can be. i think a lot of the anxiety train is conducted by what is at the end of the line. in my case, lauren. 3,000 miles and a microclimate away, my beautiful girlfriend waited all by herself in the 'gonq after a week of meetings for work. normally i would consider this a major sacrifice for just me, but i'm sure she was filled with glee finding the algonquin cat was accepting copious amounts of petting upon her check-in.

i was very flattered to find her attention upon me and my film of cab dust (a flesh eating bacteria in some cabs) rather than the cat. certainly if the trip had ended at that moment, i would have been a very happy person. however, we pressed on...

we found our route to the subway much less congested and much less frustrating than that which i was prepared. actually on the subway car i was confident enough after eating a pretzel on the street, i had built enough immune defense and courage to grab the bar en route to city hall. this was necessitated after i nearly fell on my ass trying NOT to use the bar.

after making lauren pose for more pictures than she liked in strategic "law and order" scenes, we strolled past the majestic brooklyn bridge to the world trade center site. the one thing i finally understood when looking out over the carnage is that i have absolutely no idea the magnitude of the horrors on September 11, 2001. i watched with much of the world as the Towers crashed down and felt shallow and empty, scared and sadness just like many others- but i could not realize how large and how significant the atrocities still loom. i don't think i ever will fully grasp the event because i will never see the Towers slink their way into the clouds. but i will remember the names on the fence- the thousands of names, each with a soul, each with mourners. and i will remember the eternal flame and the huge torn decorative globe that once called the Towers home, just inside battery park within site of the statue of liberty, a small reminder to do just that: remind.

still, new york remains new. the city tells all with a unifying voice: "you will not break us". and then life evolves and heals. this feeling hangs on we watched wall street s-l-i-d-e through the day and humored at accented men pushing rolexes and handbags a few blocks away. we breathed it in, then left for the village.