City Mom in the city

Driving on the Van Wyck on our way to the Plaza, I got tears in my eyes.  The noise, the smell, the traffic and I was home.  After a crazy day of travel that started with a 5:25 am wake up call and ended with Didier and I eating sandwiches and other yummy snacks in an upgraded suite at the Plaza Hotel, we were all relieved to rest our heads on sheets so soft and comfy.  I said it felt like snoozing on a cupcake. 


Of course we did not experience New York like this when we were living here, but the good stuff we remember came flooding back immediately.  I love to see people walking and running and laughing and smiling in the streets at any time of day.  Eating breakfast at le Pain Quotidien, we watched a group of Asian store owners chat while smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee.  There were jogging mommies and daddies and young people and old; Hasidim running to synagogue; picnicking hipsters; people shopping, carrying fresh bread, flowers, fruit.  Tourists, tourists, tourists, a group to which we do not feel we belong even though we do not technically still live here, were all over the place waving American flags.  We walked.  For miles.  Popped into stores and window shopped and checked out sales.  Watched the horses at 59th Street along the southern edge of Central Park and I promised Lily a ride in a pedicab until I saw what they are now charging for this. 


I bought something from every aisle in Duane Reade and then went back again in the evening for more.  I shopped discount stores and modeled $10 dresses for Didier while the girls slept in a borrowed double stroller.  We checked out the Food Hall at the Plaza and the new and old retail shops as well.  Still lots on sale and not too many customers.  A gorgeous dolphin blue lambskin bag from MCM was turned down (yes, turned down by a bag whore like myself) when I realized that the humidity in Barbados would destroy it and I could not live with that.  We were greeted by doormen, the concierge, housekeeping staff, wait and kitchen staff, reception staff with respect and consideration.  Didier was humbled by the attention paid him.  I was grateful.  Barbados is so outside what we know and what knows us too, that the lives we led before our guest appearance there are rarely discussed.  I think it would be too painful anyway.  In Barbados, we are in exile.  In New York, we are home.

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