a daring adventure

 

“Life is either a

daring adventure

or nothing.”

– Helen Keller

Our dear neighbor Joyce hadn’t been to NYC since the 50’s, so for her birthday Heidi and I gave her a trip to NYC.  It’s something we’ve wanted to do for a while and we finally pulled it off.  I think it’s up there with one of my favorite days ever.  I didn’t realize how nervous Joyce would be.  She told us that she was shaking in the car as we drove down.  She nearly died when I sent Heidi out into Times Square to see if we could get some show tickets.  And I had to beg her to get out of the car so I could take some pictures.  She seemed to be instantly won over though once she got out and stood in the middle of Times Square.  She started posing and some tour bus drivers (the guys in the red shirts) started whistling and yelling out “I like it!”  That got her going and suddenly she was Ms. New York. 

  There was something intensely beautiful about seeing her face her fears and seeing what joy came out of her when she did. 

I had also promised her a photo shoot for a while, so we took plenty of pictures.  I’m so glad we did.  I think she is radiant.

“Beauty appears when something is completely

and absolutely and openly itself.”

- Deena Metzger

“A day dawns, quite like other days; in it, a

single hour comes quite like other hours;

but in that day and in that hour the

chance of a lifetime faces us.”

- Maltbie Babcock

“One belongs to New York instantly, one belongs to it as

much in five minutes as in five years”

- Thomas Wolfe

We gain strength, and courage, and confidence by each experience

in which we really stop to look fear in the face... we must do that

which we think we cannot.

- Eleanor Roosevelt

Our day was simple.  We drove.  We went to Times Square.  We ate pizza and caprese salad at Patsy’s.  We stopped for enormous cookies at Levain’s.  We walked through the Met.  We rested in the park.  We ate at a deli on the way home. By the end Joyce was pretty exhausted, but also so proud of herself and happy with life. 

The day made me realize how I’m still deeply in love with that city and what it can do to people.

“The present in New York is so powerful that

the past is lost.”

- John Jay Chapman

There is no place like it, no place with an atom of its glory, pride, and exultancy. It lays its hand upon a man's bowels; he grows drunk with ecstasy; he grows young and full of glory, he feels that he can never die.

-walt witman (on NYC)

"Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born."
- Anais Nin

RECALL AS OFTEN AS YOU WISH; A HAPPY

MEMORY NEVER WEARS OUT.

-Libby Fudim

  

It was pretty spectacular to be in that city with those inspiring women.  

Thanks for taking care of things at home, Jeff.