Summer, Autumn and Winter in New York

Giant snowflakes are floating down to Greenwich Street. J is in a taxi on the way to the airport for a Melbourne flight, and today marks the official end of our year of new country adventures.

We arrived in New York on 4 September.  The air was warm and clingy.  We went for a beer at a patio on the corner of Avenue A and E. 5th street, a couple of blocks from our East Village sublet. The waitress was super friendly. The beer was cold. Two small dogs on leashes scampered on the ground below us. The street was alive. We toasted our temporary home, so happy not only to be settled for a few months, but to be settled in New York.

During the time here we have gone to a wonderful wedding, walked up and down as many streets as our legs could carry us, felt the collective joy after the election of America’s new President, seen more art, theatre and music than one might see in a lifetime, eaten restaurant food right up to the last second,  and spent many a day with family and friends who have come for a visit.

Countless people have written about this amazing city. I won’t try to add much. But given my proclivity for “best” lists, I’ll just jot down a few highlights:

1. The Energy: you can walk on the streets of this city at any time of day or night, and feel real life around you everywhere. People dressed to the nines and to the grime, taxis, shops, restaurants of every kind, street vendors, galleries, schoolyards,  musicians, dogs, flyer-passers, deliverymen, movers, workmen, policemen, artists with their supplies, people carrying Christmas trees…The collective energy here makes you feel alive and wanting to be part of it all.
Favourite energetic place: The Shala where you can go for a break and be part of yourself. This yoga studio, with big windows and beautiful hardwood floors, has wonderful teachers – we particularly loved Jeremy, who has a magical way of making yoga and meditation (almost) easy.

2. The public spaces and architecture: From the brownstones to the cobblestones, the one-stories to the 100-stories, the baroque to the broke, the garish to the parish, art deco and art modern, the neoclassical and the Greek revival, late Modern to postmodern- New York has truly got it all.
Favourite - it’s not an original thought, but the Empire State Building is an architectural marvel, and you can rely on a sighting from almost anywhere in the city. You also have to love a building which lights up red for World AIDS Day, and from red and blue, to blue alone when Barack Obama was elected.

something’s gone terribly wrong

When we boarded the plane for Koh Samui, a guy in the front row had a t-shirt we both noticed. It was the classic human evolution drawing you would have seen many times, with the first drawing of an ape, walking with hunched shoulders, knuckles dragging on the ground, the next neandrathal man, with stooped shoulders, followed by homo erectus, who had a slightly better posture. And finally homo sapien, shoulders back, neck long, walking tall. The last image was different – the artists view of our current state of evolution. It was a guy hunched over in front of the computer, shoulders collapsed, an uncanny resemblance to the ape in the first image.

The tagline was “something’s gone terribly wrong.”

We were on the way to a yoga retreat on Koh Samui. Yoga Thailand - run by a fellow who is a certified teacher in “mysore style” Ashtanga yoga. I am late on the yoga train – I could count the number of times I’ve done sun salutes on two hands. Julia is much more experienced, and I have always appreciated her approach to the practice as one dedicated to strengthening the inner spirit, along with your muscles.

I did know that my neck and shoulders were feeling far too much like the guy on the t-shirt. Pain and tightness driving. Pain and tightness sitting at the computer. Neck too tight to look over my own shoulder comfortably. My body was this way so long, it felt normal.

I am guessing that given the way we slave in front of the screen these days, many many of us experience this kind of tightness and pain. Something indeed has gone terribly wrong.

We have been at the yoga retreat for four days. We loved the food and wine in Italy, but didn’t really like the soft rings the pasta left around our middles. Here, we eat “clean” food – organic, vegetarian, not too spicy. We get up at 0630 to do breathing and meditation for an hour. And then onto the yoga itself.

It is hot and sweaty here all the time. I don’t really know what I’m doing. My so-called “poses” are miles behind everyone else. But after these four days of trying to stretch a little bit further, sit a little bit taller, and breathe, the tension in my neck and shoulders is almost gone. I am amazed.

In the afternoons, our teacher – a very knowledgeable and practiced guy called Clayton Horton – answers questions we might have, and then leads us through a few postures. We finish up about 615. Today, he looked outside as we were finishing, and said “bring your mats everybody, quick!” We did. “Sit somewhere where you can see the sun setting.”

So we all sat there on the beach, and watched the big red ball. It made me think of a warrior, now peaceful, steadily dropping his shield. As we sat, a small motorized fishing boat chugged across the rippling water. The boat crossed in front of the sun as it grazed the horizon, in splendid silhouette. The sound of its engine faded as the sun set.

And all the while I thought, something is terribly right here.