new york, new york

an epic day in nyc....
waking to take the Q train in, a walk around chinatown and little italy, meeting jocelyn in union square to discover the amazing nyc farmer's market, apple cider, cookies, spinach, squash, apples, gourds, cacti, mint tea sweetened with fresh maple syrup, raspberries from new jersey, such abundance and color and freshness for the middle of the city....went to lombardi's (upon our friend tony's recommendation, we sat next to him on the way to nashville on the airplane)....lombardi's on the corner of mott and spring, the oldest pizza place inthe country, original italian recipe in the family for generations, fresh mozzarella, a dough recipe perfect, a 100 year old oven to cook it in....i think the best pizza we've all ever had, amazing.....we found a volunteer-run book store and bought holy cow, a book about traveling in india recommended by nishkama and nicole....we said goodbye to jocelyn and wandered around bleecker street into greenwich village, went to bakeries and cheese shops and walked by little cafes....met carson's cousin juniper and walked down to tribeca (the TRIangle BElow CAnal, i learned) and had a drink at her boyfriend's bar, where i met joe, a very wonderful man originally from italy (all these italy connections...) who is going to go back there in november to buy the house he was born in....he spoke of returning to his roots and listening to one's inner voice and how he wants to go back to the place that god originally placed him...it felt so perfect to hear him speak of his home in that way, i am very excited to go to italy.

we all walked down to the world trade center site after that, such a big place of open space in the middle of tight packed manhattan, i felt the heaviness of the event and the intensity, connected so much more with the impact of that experience on that land, for this city, for the people there then, all the names on the wall, the plans for the new building and the monument they will erect, the sadness, the loss. we took a train up to chelsea and ate at the oldest spanish restaurant in nyc on 23rd with carson's cousin, in the charming back room, walls decorated, my salad was so cute, it came with big bowls of three different dressings to choose from. we ordered the 45 minute chicken and had so much fun just talking and listening to the music and the ambiance, watching whole lobsters go by to other tables. juniper lives in the chelsea hotel, a classic ny place that was at one time the tallest buidling in ny, even though it's only 10 stories! it has housed many famous writers and artists and musicians in it's days...we walked up the 9 flights of stairs which are packed with art from various tenants throughout the years, i assume...many of the pieces are somewhat chilling and penetrative painted pictures of figures gazing off of the canvas, beautiful and unsettling too....the whole place feels so full of history and energy and memories and is thick with that. we left and walked up 7th into times square which is a world in itself, reminding me of las vegas and burning man at night and just new york, in it's crazy tall advertising screens on every corner and mtv and the m&m's shop which we went into, all things m & m's memorabilia, you can buy them bulk by the pound in any color you want, and they have an M&M personalized reader to choose your m&m mood. it was truly a crazy store! we didn't buy anything but it was fun to experience. we took a long detoured subway home to sarah & devin's in brooklyn and are now are going to go to sleep....13 hours in the city! we love it. it's intense. it's full. it's beautiful and so overwhelming and inspiring and scary and amazing, everything rolled into one.