Winter Sun

I think it may be very possible that there is nothing simultaneously better and worse than winter sun. Right now, as I sit in my grey office cubicle, there is glorious, tremendous sun glinting down atop the Chrysler building, sparkling off of the East River. It looks magnificent and delicious and all I want to do is go downstairs and lay down on a cement slab and soak it up (as I used to do on our main campus walkway with a dear library coworker and friend as an undergrad). Except this sun is a tease. Because it is cold outside. Not as cold as its been throughout these past few weeks. It is in the 40's out there, not the 20's, and certainly not the single digits. But it is still not put on a tank top and shorts and go soak up the rays weather. So for that, winter sun is a tease. But it still makes my heart happy to sit here, and pretend it's hot outside. Somehow the fact that I know it's really not hot, makes it easier to bear the fact that I have to sit inside, and can't be outside relishing the heat.

New York, there will be innumerable things I will miss about you. Dare I say I will even miss this. [And that's saying a lot because I remember how disheartened I became, my first winter here in 2010, with the tease of winter sun. It literally threw me into a funk that first winter. And now, my third winter in, I thank the city for it.]

But still, I'm very excited to explore the land of Oz and, with any luck, get a taste of some good summer weather. I didn't get a summer this year, due to weekends spent working indoors as a waitress trying to save up for my Australia vacation and also build up some savings, and I am aching for a make-up season.

Change is a-coming...

I'll tell you about that later.

I took a lunchtime walk today and mused on the fact that winter really hasn't hit. Again, for the 2nd year in a row.

I mused on the fact that two nights ago I'd been cursing how frigid the air felt, craving to no-end warm nights, an end of winter, an end to seasons, an end to being permanently cold and pale. And then today, on my walking lunch, when I was almost too warm with my coat on after a morning of fog and rain and grey had burned away to sun, blue skies and temperatures in the 40's, I thought how annoying it was that cold winters appeared to have gone. Just ended. When I'd only been here for two years, three winters in total.

I had a cold winter my first one here - 2010. When all the storms kept hitting New York, when the city was shut down because the biggest blizzard in decades hit on Christmas, before the plows were all prepared, and people residing outside of Manhattan were trapped in their neighborhoods, unable to drive down the streets. I lived in the Gramercy Park area of Manhattan and so - despite being trapped in California from my Christmas travels for longer than anticipated - I suffered little besides some slippery commutes into work.

Then in 2011 was the earliest snowstorm in memory, snowing out Halloween and catching yours truly in her gym clothes and tennis shoes attempting to find the housing that would replace her Upper East Side studio. This was after Tropical Storm Irene had been threatening to rip through New York - a neck of the states that has never suffered hurricanes or tropical storms of any sort - and I was held over night in the Chicago O'Hare Airport trying desperately to return home from a cousin's wedding down south.

This year, 2012, I am happily residing in my Brooklyn apartment, when Hurricane Sandy hits. Destroying Halloween and cancelling all festivities yes, but moreso destroying more of New York than any storm ever before. On par - if not worse - devastation than that caused by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, there are parts of New York (Long Island, Staten Island, outlaying areas of Brooklyn and Queens) that are still not running back to "normal" yet - almost 2 months after the fact.

Tell me climate change is a lie. Sheesh.

But I can say, as used to cold winters as I apparently have become since moving here - now that the 40's are apparently too hot to zip up my coat, and this after having been born and raised in a land that rarely falls below the 50's during the height of wintertime festivities - it will take more getting used to than I can imagine to no longer have my Christmas season be a chilly one.

About two months from now, I will be moving abroad. I will be spending the next year living (and hopefully working and traveling) in Australia. From there, we will see what the future holds.

But I can tell you one thing, with absolute certainty, I am not looking forward to having such basic understandings of life be turned on their heads. I'm a summertime baby - born in July. I fully associate myself with beaches, bathing suits, barbecues, and I have always attributed that to the fact that I am a summertime baby. In Australia, my birthday will fall in the winter. It will be cold. I know it's just another day of the yaer, but to me it will feel wrong.

And Christmas, Christmas will feel very strange. It will be hot. It will be summer. So I'm trying to soak up everything I can about the chilliness of the season while I have it. In spite of my grumbling the other night. ;)

So the chorale singing I dawdled around to hear after my walk, dressed in their sweaters and tights and cozy-chic wear, that made me smile. Christmas carols, bare tree branches blowing in a winter wind, and sweaters. I'm absorbing what I can, while I can.

Before I embark on a very, very new set of experiences.

BACK

Wowee. I really took a hiatus. I actually at one point debated deleting this blog altogether for the amount of time I had been away from it. Yet, here I am, back again, having survived both Hurricane Sandy of October 2012 and one random snowfall of a Nor'Easter about a week after that. Upon skimming through some of the blogs I used to frequent so often back when I was a somewhat-active particpant in the world, it would seem that Summer is still hanging around parts of my old stomping ground of San Diego. FB tells me - thanks to friends who still live there - that there has been a bit of a heatwave, and so it feels like all of a sudden, in spite of the weather, and the snow, and the grey in skies here in New York, that summer may just be slipping away for those on the west coast. Strangely enough, on this Monday morning, I am incredibly, insanely jealous of them. Just a few weeks ago I was thinking how relieved I was that Fall was on its way in, a departure from the sticky days and the busy summer I had - I took on a weekend job waitressing and later weekend job bartending and working 7 days a week does not bode well for me in the long run, it would seem, although in the moment it did not feel painful in the least bit.

Image via

Perhaps the most harsh reality was the fact that we really did not get much Fall. A few weeks, yes, where the leaves began to turn glorious golds and reds, but then we suffered a Hurricane, everyone is still fundraising and without homes and without heat, electricity, water, food, and then the snow came, and it's still sticking around parts of the city (which goes to show just how little sun filters down through those insanely tall skyscrapers) and everything just feels sort of grey and heavy and cold and bad at the moment. And all of this comes together to make me jealous of my friend and family in San Diego who are dealing with the onset of SoCal winter, and I am suddenly so very excited to get home for Christmas, and a break from being cold, that I can hardly express it.

But really, this post was just because I got an itch to get back into the world from which I have been apart for so very many months. It would appear the rest of you were much less slacking in your dedication to your blogging duties, so I am rather excited for the chance to catch up on what you all have been doing since last Spring.

Summer Storms!

I know, I'm the worst blogger ever. I just sort of fell off the face of the earth for awhile, but I wanted to pop back in and at least say 'hi' to anyone who may be left. I also wanted to wax poetic for a moment on the amazingness of summer storms. I'm sure we had some of these same storms last year, but I really don't remember them. This week we had a handful of thunder storms though, and I just wanted to take a minute to make note of how much I love them. I love rain and storms anyhow - but I hate snow - but having a storm in the summer is incredible not only because of the warmth of being in rain like that, but also because it almost guarantees lightning and thunder. I can't imagine how it must be in Texas when these sorts of storms are apparently more commonplace. Although I will also say that just having thunder and no lightning is not nearly as fun, so - this week at least - New York totally wins the summer storms war.

And no, that picture above was not from any of the storms this week. I think it may have been an actual picture from a storm back in 2009 but for all I know it's a still from a movie or something. Still, the lighting really does look that bright - it looks like a camera flash except all over Manhattan at once. It's truly amazing, I just love the torrential rain, the thunder, the flashes, and how incredibly dark the skies get all at once. Thanks New York, for nights that stay warm until 3 am, and for truly fantastic storms.

i love new york

And, as I walked down through Greenwich Village on my lunchbreak to an errand today, I don't know how I could ever leave this city. I love its busy-ness. I love the way there is seemingly no rhyme or reason to streets in the village, I love the storefronts, the employees, the cobblestones, the trees. I love the cold air whipping my hair as I turn a corner, I love people not even noticing me as I literally turn circles in the middle of the street trying to figure out what corner houses my subway stop. I love that there is maddening construction going on in a subway station but that that indescribable feeling success as I pass through the turnstile right as the train pulls up makes any noises, glaring orange construction signs, and seemingly endless netting to keep pedestrians out, is worth all of it and more. I chose to make this city my home less than two years ago. And I have been thrown a lot in the time I've been here. And I thank my lucky stars for that. In its ever-changing nature, this city never changes. Which allows me to continue to grow and explore and be. Thanks for being you, New York.

driving ruins everything...

 I was catching up on Kate's fabulous blog and it put me in SUCH a nostalgic mood to return to California. Yet I just can't imagine having to cope with the driving and the distance between everything again....and I can't really imagine returning to San Diego. Even San Francisco, as much as I love the walkability, the culture, it is the sun that I miss from California....and SF is not known for its weather so much. Maybe if I could be in an awesome part of L.A....I may have to take LA-based friends up on all their insistances and give LA another chance one day to really explore the ins and outs of the city and the different neighborhoods therein. But still there's the driving....so much time needed to be in a car....although there are bus lines...at least for the daily commuting....but still, the price of a car, of insurance, of gas, even if it is just sitting along a curb 5 days out of the week....it's a California necessity.

Yet I miss the California sun - it has it's own light, somehow, and the air has its own thickness and its own quality. The ocean exists differently than these east coast oceans do. Even as springtime sun lights up New York, even as sporadic friends from back home are slowly migrating east, I do so miss those beaches, that salty air, the calmness of the sea. It's the ease with which one can reach the ocean that is different - yet this is because I live in Brooklyn. I live close enough to an ocean - I can take a train and be there within an hour, even on my side of the island there is a body of water which I can walk alongside, but it is not the same thing as going to the beach, plunking down on the sand, and napping in that glorious sun for hours. No, it is not the same thing at all, and even while it is an attainable place to visit on the weekends, it is not a place I can dash off to for an hour here or there. How spoiled I was in my last beachside neighborhood in California!

Anyway, this post really has nothing to do with anything at all except it hit me as being weird that I wonder if I remember the girl I was for 26 years accurately anymore. New York has been so transformative it's crazy....both good and bad I suppose, but pushing me to grow and so I suppose that can only be good, in the grand scheme of things. I guess maybe this post is forcing me, once again, to rectify the fact that you can't go home again...there are always going to be things I'm going to miss from either place. I guess that's the whole point of things, as you grow and make new homes for yourself, there is no longer one single place that exists for you as "home." There will be pieces from any of the homes you've chosen that you will miss whenever you are not there. It's the sort of thing you have to just let wash over you, I suppose. Not the sort of thing you can think about too heavily.

I suppose, if I look at what I'm craving, I'm wishing I could go spend two weeks back in California. I wish I could be on a vacation at the beach, with friends with whom to play, with money to spend ad nauseum, to see California as the vacation destination so many people treat it as. Yet, this is impossible. There are not two weeks to be spent on a vacation trip to California, there is not money to be spent frivolously, there are no friends who could take two weeks off to laze around the beach with me, and there is no way I could get to all the places I would want to see without having to drive. And it is the thought of having to drive my way around the state that makes the whole idea of a trip there go from "relaxing" to "stressful" in one dominant thought. I-would-have-to-drive.

No dice.

Summer is coming to New York. I will have time to relish the heat that remains, hanging in the air, late into the night. I will have time to take myself to the beach, and bake in the sun, even if I have to top off my relaxing seaside day with an hour-long train ride back to the city. I went to the beach here in a car once, and that was sort of wonderful feeling of frivolity - being driven, enjoying the sea air coming in through the window, blowing hair around, drying salt on skin. It felt like I was a little kid again, sun-crisped, sun-drowsy, and utterly relaxed and happy. That day feels quite long ago now, but I guess it's just that little reminder that even in a city that has some of the best public transportation in the country - if not, perhaps, the world - the ability to drive yourself is still a luxury. California or New York, cars are just a part of our entire culture. I just wish I didn't dislike driving oh-so much.

And with that, I end this having-nothing-to-do-with-anything post.

I can't wait for summer....

The beach I frequent most often is Far Rockaway. So this year I may have the following to look forward to on a weekend trip out:

Man #1: I hate Far Rockaway, man. It's crazy there!
Man #2: Yeah, man.
Man #1: Yeah! This one time I was walking down the street in Far Rockaway and I saw a man clinging to the back of a truck, just throwing apples at people!

--A Train

Thanks Overheard In New York, for reminding me how much I love this city. Also, thanks O'Ridge for the Apple Incident over Halloween of 2008. Who would have thought our well-crafted apartments could have been so pummeled by fruit??