nyc with nana: a middle

Gone – flitted away,
Taken the stars from the night and the sun
From the day!
Gone, and a cloud in my heart.
~Alfred Tennyson

It’s hard to believe this week is already over, and Nana is packed up and on her way back to Colorado. We spent months looking forward to this week, and already it’s been snatched from our greedy fingers. But we did our best to make the most of it, I think!

Yesterday we ventured out early to a nearby diner for breakfast. We scored a window seat, and sipped our coffee while the workforce of New York passed us by. It was a true NYC experience–especially the part where one waitress backed into another, causing her to spill a cup of hot coffee on a woman’s head. The waitress who’d done the spilling managed to simultaneously yell at the first waitress for backing into her while anxiously taking care of the poor woman with caffeinated hair. Luckily for the waitresses, the victimized woman was a tourist, and seemed to take the experience in stride as a quirky punchline to her vacation. All was well.

After breakfast, I joined the leagues of the New York workforce and headed to the main offices of the publishing company I work for to attend a training. I got to meet some colleagues face to face for the first time, and enjoyed lunch with a colleague whom I’ve spent more time with on gmail-chat than in real life. I go back to the office for a full day tomorrow, and am weirdly looking forward to it.

Last night, Nana and I ended our NYC experience with the musical Matilda. It was So. Much. Fun. I can’t believe how talented those kids are! (The cast is 75% prepubescent. Ugh…that’s a horrible word. Sorry.) It was colorful and magical and phenomenally well-sung and acted. We had a blast, and were so glad we chose to end our trip with Roald Dahl and Company!

So, this morning I’m sitting for the last time at my favorite window, watching the city rub the sleep from its eyes. Nana is at the airport (she braved a lone taxi ride, and texted me that she’d arrived without any trouble). I have to get myself packed and moved out of our apartment by 11:00 today. I’m sad to go! This place very easily became home to us this week. (Though, as Nana put it, we began to feel like we were “living in squalor” after a week of not having a hotel maid to clean our floors. Life is sure rough sometimes. 🙂 )

As my laundry dries on the fan (oh, NYC), and the sun rises over the Empire State Building, I’m already feeling a little nostalgic for the adventures I’ve shared with my Nana this week. I’ve said it before–I’m the lucky one. This isn’t an ending, but merely a middle…one I’ll always cherish.

In honor of Nana, I’ll end with a little more poetry….

You’re searching…
For things that don’t exist; I mean beginnings.
Ends and beginnings – there are no such things.
There are only middles.
~Robert Frost, Mountain Interval, “In the Home Stretch”