The original idea was that this would be a "Part 1" and "Part 2" series. Each part written in the airports bookending the trip. Reflection before and realization after. Instead life happened, flights were narrowly caught and the flow of time brought me sitting here on my living carpet, surrounded by the rubble of life - trying to piece together weeks of scattered thoughts into something coherent.  



Shelby and I only have big dates. Well what I mean is the dates tend to last a few days, a week or a month. A quirk of long distance dating - months of phone calls, letters, emails, texts, and audio memos (you begin to see a face not shaped with skin and bones, but with letters and sounds) punctuated by intense bursts of presence. The coffee date, the dinner date, the theater date, the long walking date, the yoga date, the car ride date all live within the big date. Small talk, big talk, silly talk, no talk, sad talk, happy talk all happen within the space of the big date[0].

The whole week won't fit in this email. I will spare you all the slides and the projector. You are busy and less words are better. So here is one slice (hopefully perfectly) from my week, for you.

I assumed New York is warm at the end of April. Turns out it can be warm. Also turns out it can be freezing. Maybe freezing is too harsh. Perhaps miserable would be more appropriate (full disclosure: I only packed thin sweatshirts, the west coast would never treat me like this). 

The double date date[1] happened to fall on a day where the wind was bone chilling. I felt like one of those early 20th century Antarctic explorers (More Robert Falcon Scott than Earnest Shackleton - read the wikipedia entries for these fellows 20 minutes ago). Because Hans is Hans, he rejected our civilized and reasonable request to eat at 6:30 and instead pushed for the crude, medieval and savage time of 8.

Even the most creative of you cannot whittle away four hours at that taco shop. I dare you to try (as long as you invite me to try with you). 

So instead the only thing that could be done was to wander the beautiful streets of the West Village. And they are beautiful, full of cobbled alleyways lined with French bistros, ivy, cafes and bookshops. But at the same time every second outside I risked losing my fingers and toes to frostbite[2].

I dived into every building that looked quasi-open and quasi-insulated. We spent 1.5 hours at Starbucks. Was there anything ordered to eat or drink? No, but it was warm. ("DJ, how is 1.5 hours in a Starbucks doing nothing better than hanging out at a Taco Shop?" - I cannot hear you over my non-frostbitten fingers crammed in my ears).

We stopped by a little teensy tiny bookshop where suddenly every single book, every single page was fascinating. Because the books were warm.

Finally out of options we resorted to walking (trudging) laps around the block where the taco shop is located. On the corner stood Our Lady of Pompeii Church. It looked open so I asked Shelbs if we could go in.

"Here? This?"

"Yes. Here. This."

The church was beautiful. It reminded me of some of the chapels I saw in Europe, frescos on the ceiling and lit candles. I asked Shelby if we could sit. We slipped into one of the benches at the very back and joined a tiny group (maybe 10? only 10 in that big church...). My first catholic mass. 

It's strange to me that this is my highlight of the trip and how it sticks. Although I did not understand the songs or rituals (very foreign to my evangelical background) there was something about the body language of the other parishioners that drew me. While I am accustomed to the devout, I felt myself drawn to this small flock. Who goes to mass at 7 on a Wednesday? As the service ended and people melted away I saw a woman kneel in the aisle and cross herself. She wore the meaning of this action. There was no one else there, it could not have been performative. It meant something, what that is, I don't know. One more puzzle piece I guess. 

We wandered over to the bar, ordered too many margaritas and had the best talk to date. Dinner still should have been at 6:30 Hans.

Cowabunga Dude,

DJ

[0] I've always felt that I am looking for one conversation. A 40 year one...
[1] The first double date date of the trip. Geoff and Alice - it made my heart happy to see you. Looking forward to wandering the woods of San Francisco in just a few weeks…
[2] Ok technically looking back at the weather report 50 degrees Fahrenheit does not put you at risk of frostbite

PS: Gaël is doing great. We had the best day today.
PPS: Been thinking a lot about this lately:

"funny how many garden variety life pursuits (fulfillment, identity, relationships, etc) kinda figure themselves out when you just focus on finding your people and then being a really good friend to them"

Written listening to this