The Somewhat Unfriendly Skies and Thoughts of an Otherwise Lovely Vacation

"I'm Afraid to Fly; and I Don't Know Why. . ." goes the tune from "They're Playing Our Song" which has been running in my mind. It was running in, through and around my mind, yesterday, as I was flying home from Boston to Los Angeles around endless lightning storms illuminating cloud after cloud over pieces of the United States but not enough around the concomitant turbulence. Also were words of prayer and petition leaving my lips silently. I worried that other words would escape more loudly. I would have kissed the ground like the ersatz Pope John Paul II, upon arrival at LAX, except I was too tired from six hours of anxiety and just wanted my bags to go home. So, I guess I KNOW why I am afraid to fly. I am amazed by those, perhaps the majority, who are willing to get on planes all the time to go anywhere and everywhere. I'd like to feel like that, but for me, each such trip is an effort. But was it worth it, this typical sturm und drang that is my experience when I fly, to New York this time, and out of Logan?

You betcha! as someone in politics is wont to say.

It most definitely was. Five days in the heart of New York, meeting up with friends and family, re-establishing my life long identity as an adjacent child (the Bronx as you know) of the city, certainly one of those who rode the subway, and the buses, and walked the street of midtown, and lower Manhattan to work. I did a lot more of that walking during those five days, passing one of my first job locations, 60 East 42nd Street, just across from Grand Central, among many other places familiar to me, still, this 28 years after I escaped to a more temperate clime. I shall always be a New Yorker. This is not always appreciated by the more laid back with whom I now reside who find me a bit, well, abrasive. But I am as is the city, vibrant, but a bit intense perhaps for some never immersed in its identity. Fast in speech. Impatient. It is in my blood. And I am happy for this, perhaps only because I know it is an irrevocable reality.

I was staying with a friend of my late father's, now firmly my own friend, a surrogate East Coast "mom" on West 65th Street, the city at my feet. A definite pro on the list, New York v. California, the ability to hail cabs. If I was not walking, I was in a cab, going cross town, at a snail's pace admittedly, but giving me a chance to catch my breath between engagements with Aunt Teri, cousin Carol, cousin Maria, Bob and Ellen (yum, the Bar Americain) along with Len of Len Speaks (on one of his bicoastal work jaunts), Ginny (at the Prix Fixe dinner at 21! and a joyous two hours with the "Jersey Boys" at the August Wilson Theatre), Gary and Noreen at Planet Hollywood, Times Square (prior to their Broadway sojourn seeing "Come Fly Away"), and a special lunch at the Time Warner Center with my oostess Sophia. And there was even the Metro North experience as I road the rails to New Rochelle to see my aged aunt, my father's elder sister, no2 97, at a nursing home. That perhaps was the most bittersweet experience of the New York adventure. I saw her five years ago when she was in a more assisted living environment. She was just losing some of her memory, but there was enough, and still the recognition of family. But now, after some health issues, and the passage of time, she knows no one. My family here had me bring pictures and a cryptic childhood message that, if there was something still to access in her mind, would have surely triggered a memory of her brother, Steve. But it was not to be. She was not feeling well, with an abcess, but some laughter and appeal to the vestige of her former self, still residing within, brought a twinkle of the eye and a bit of her old expression. She had a comfort with the holding of her hand clearly becoming more physically affectionate than she or any other member of the family of seven siblings had ever demonstrated in my memory. It was hard to leave her, knowing that it is likely the last time I'll see her given her age and condition. I left feeling a sense of loss, but also a sense of pride at her well lived life. Not that she'd see it that way, having lived in the Bronx her whole life, a late in life wife, no children. But she is a testament to family loyalty, she who took care of her mother, and her younger (he never knew that, officially anyway) husband when he developed Alzheimer's disease, fighting the pain of a broken hip of her own. She was the family historian. She was the source of help for many of the cousins. I could still sense in her, even with the debilitation of her mind's erosion, a wistfulness she always seemed to exhibit.

Yes, nothing would have prevented me from this segment of my trip.

The next leg was really the raison d'etre for my having gotten on a plane in the first place and beginning my East Coast visit in New York. A high school graduation in Kingston, Massachusetts of a lovely young woman (who, like her brother, soon to follow her) I still see as a 7 year old nascent gymnast, all legs and litheness. doing the Macarena with her red haired then friend, Eva.
Arriving at the Fairview Inn in Marshfield (actually Brant Rock) well after my Estimate Time of Arrival due to holiday (Memorial Day) traffic and accidents, I was greeted by the meditative sight of the Atlantic outside my room's window, followed by a most agreeable dinner at the home of friends of the graduate's mother and fiance, right on the water. A new quiet vibe to replace the frenetic one of the prior several days. I think now of a con about the East, the persistent humidity of spring and summer. I was wet behind the neck most of my trip, except for the blessed breezes of the oceans and bays to relieve it. A small thing certainly, but a reminder of the love I have for the Southern California weather that primarily, keeps me here. For I cannot say I did not, do not, miss the East. But for the extremes in weather, I would be back more often and stay longer.

The graduation escaped predicted thunderstorms by minutes. The child-woman that is Cait radiated even more her natural beauty. Her brother was an usher, straining in his suit and tie (but looking most handsome) opining with amazing logic that suits really were not a meaningful necessity of life, even for special occasions. And then another gathering to celebrate at the waterside home in Hull.

I have seen her college, small, Catholic and on the most amazing ocean bluff in Newport, Rhode Island. Her dad, whose grave I visited briefly, with his wife and in-laws, during the weekend in Cudworth Cemetery in Scituate, would have been smiling broadly at his sweet child and saying "Life is Grand" which he so surely believed and cultivated the belief in us more guarded souls.

And so it was. And is. I guess it turns out that the skies were not even somewhat unfriendly, when you consider what I would have missed had I not boarded.