Leaving La Guardia, I stopped to ask how to get to Bay Ridge from there by train.
The fella at the help desk looked at me, "are you sure you want to take the train?"
- yeah, yeah, just tell me where to pick it up.
"to Bay Ridge?"
- yeah.
"well, here - let me give you this map, because it's pretty far, and you're going to need to take the bus over to the N train - the Nancy train."
- okay thanks, I appreciate your help. thanks for the map.
I looked hard at all the details he had just written on the map for me so I could burn it into memory. I walked out the door and debated for a brief moment whether to take a cab. Fifty bucks, though. Bah.
I was determined anyway to get to Bay Ridge by public transit. It was a Thursday night in Queens, and Bay Ridge was a couple hours away by public transit. I took the bus over to Astoria and found my way to the Nancy train. Walking dark city streets while my suitcase wheeled over broken concrete is a remarkable feeling of urban pulse and alert exhilaration. Fortunately there was a cohort of public transiters with me, all of us making the trek from the bus to the train. Several turns and a street staircase later, I was standing on the train platform and talking to my friend on my cell phone (oh hell the battery is low) letting her know I was on my way, I'd see her soon.
The N train goes through Manhattan before it gets to Brooklyn. I stepped out for a bright moment at Times Square, wistful for the company of a former boyfriend from whose apartment I could see Times Square from twenty blocks away, along Fashion Avenue. Bay Ridge is pretty far from Fashion Avenue, and this would in fact be the first time I had ever been to Brooklyn.
I bask in the light of the Square for a short while before deciding I'd better get going because I still needed to find my friend's apartment, and I really didn't know how long it might take.
A few more random strolls through the Square and I went back underground. Turns out it didn't take that long at all, it was the second to the last stop from Coney Island, and a few blocks later I was knocking on her door. It also turned out that one of the cheapest taxi cab services in New York was right down the block from her place. The irony is always thick with me. Regardless, it was convenient later when I left to fly out of JFK -- which was the first and only time thus far spending the night in an airport. My flight was canceled from icy snow flurries that bordered on blizzard conditions. Two hours on the tarmac before they canceled the flight because there was no longer enough fuel to go up, and the weather was so bad. I was relieved, though, more than I can ever accurately convey, because I really thought that we wouldn't survive that flight.
So I rebooked for the morning, and slept in JFK airport.
That was a little over four years ago.
There is a lot more that I could say about that trip and the one to Charleston shortly thereafter.
So much has happened in those four years. It is remarkable the existential deserts I have crossed since that flight was canceled. Four years is really not much time at all, even though it has felt like eternity.
There are three photographs that belong with this story, but I am not sure where all of them are. One is a fuzzy photo of Times Square I took with my phone camera. Another of my hotel room in Charleston. At the time I took the photo in Charleston, I didn't know why I felt compelled to take it, or why I felt such an enigmatic soul leap to Madison, but I would realize a few weeks later after getting home to Michigan. The third photo is one of me, wearing my friend's dark rim glasses and a fancy fluffy dress. I really love that photo. I look very happy in it, because I was.
Actually, four photos. The fourth photo is one of a tree that sits alongside the East River near the Verrazano Bridge. It is the same tree and bridge I now relate to a song of souls crossing.
It has taken me four years to write some of this story.
The fella at the help desk looked at me, "are you sure you want to take the train?"
- yeah, yeah, just tell me where to pick it up.
"to Bay Ridge?"
- yeah.
"well, here - let me give you this map, because it's pretty far, and you're going to need to take the bus over to the N train - the Nancy train."
- okay thanks, I appreciate your help. thanks for the map.
I looked hard at all the details he had just written on the map for me so I could burn it into memory. I walked out the door and debated for a brief moment whether to take a cab. Fifty bucks, though. Bah.
I was determined anyway to get to Bay Ridge by public transit. It was a Thursday night in Queens, and Bay Ridge was a couple hours away by public transit. I took the bus over to Astoria and found my way to the Nancy train. Walking dark city streets while my suitcase wheeled over broken concrete is a remarkable feeling of urban pulse and alert exhilaration. Fortunately there was a cohort of public transiters with me, all of us making the trek from the bus to the train. Several turns and a street staircase later, I was standing on the train platform and talking to my friend on my cell phone (oh hell the battery is low) letting her know I was on my way, I'd see her soon.
The N train goes through Manhattan before it gets to Brooklyn. I stepped out for a bright moment at Times Square, wistful for the company of a former boyfriend from whose apartment I could see Times Square from twenty blocks away, along Fashion Avenue. Bay Ridge is pretty far from Fashion Avenue, and this would in fact be the first time I had ever been to Brooklyn.
I bask in the light of the Square for a short while before deciding I'd better get going because I still needed to find my friend's apartment, and I really didn't know how long it might take.
A few more random strolls through the Square and I went back underground. Turns out it didn't take that long at all, it was the second to the last stop from Coney Island, and a few blocks later I was knocking on her door. It also turned out that one of the cheapest taxi cab services in New York was right down the block from her place. The irony is always thick with me. Regardless, it was convenient later when I left to fly out of JFK -- which was the first and only time thus far spending the night in an airport. My flight was canceled from icy snow flurries that bordered on blizzard conditions. Two hours on the tarmac before they canceled the flight because there was no longer enough fuel to go up, and the weather was so bad. I was relieved, though, more than I can ever accurately convey, because I really thought that we wouldn't survive that flight.
So I rebooked for the morning, and slept in JFK airport.
That was a little over four years ago.
There is a lot more that I could say about that trip and the one to Charleston shortly thereafter.
So much has happened in those four years. It is remarkable the existential deserts I have crossed since that flight was canceled. Four years is really not much time at all, even though it has felt like eternity.
There are three photographs that belong with this story, but I am not sure where all of them are. One is a fuzzy photo of Times Square I took with my phone camera. Another of my hotel room in Charleston. At the time I took the photo in Charleston, I didn't know why I felt compelled to take it, or why I felt such an enigmatic soul leap to Madison, but I would realize a few weeks later after getting home to Michigan. The third photo is one of me, wearing my friend's dark rim glasses and a fancy fluffy dress. I really love that photo. I look very happy in it, because I was.
Actually, four photos. The fourth photo is one of a tree that sits alongside the East River near the Verrazano Bridge. It is the same tree and bridge I now relate to a song of souls crossing.
It has taken me four years to write some of this story.
