Another journey

The trip to New York - exhausting, delightful, thrilling, depressing, inspiring.

Michelle and I walked, ate, visited museums, gossiped, got allergic reactions (just me, actually), bought books, attended a reading by the author of this week's number-one bestseller on the New York Times, hung out in the Village, attended a baby shower, dressed up for brunch at an exclusive literary club, cried while saying goodbye for a long while to above-mentioned author (me again), took a cruise to nearby islands, walked round Times Square and reminisced, met up with agents, and baked in the sun.

At Friday's reading, the Barnes and Noble staff announced that Elizabeth's book would debut next week on NY Times' fiction bestseller list as number one. Her family, her friends, her ex-classmates from the MFA program whooped and clapped. She read, she answered questions, she signed many, many books. The rest of us caught up with friends who'd travelled from Boston, D.C., Ann Arbor, and the Village. Some now pregnant, some now married, some soon to be married. It was nice.

Living in the Village - Greenwich Village - is perfect for a writer. Our friends - a poet and a fiction writer married to each other (they met at Oberlin and went to Michigan's MFA program together) - seemed perfectly suited to the area. There's a lovely little bookstore just twenty feet from their home. When I heard what Beth's parents paid for the townhouse in the 70s - $80,000 - I kind of wished my parents had been living in New York instead of San Jose, and had thought of buying property in the city. It was the second baby shower for the couple; I've never seen so many presents. This is a very lucky peanut that's coming into the world August 1st.

Sunday morning at The Lotos Club, where Mark Twain was feted. Elizabeth was getting her turn now. Her father, mother, sisters, husband, old neighbors, friends all stood up to say several words about her. We celebrated her birthday, her success, her person. She was too moved to give a speech herself, so she sang. With her singing group from ten years ago, she sang two songs, one Macedonian, one Serbian. Beautiful a cappella singing. I was transported. The fields in Eastern Europe. Peasants working in the evening. Mountains. Joy, nostalgia, yearnings. She'd done it again, found some way to inspire us and bring some beauty into a quiet morning. Truly, we've all been blessed to have her in our lives. And I didn't realize how much I believed this until I said goodbye to her. I remembered that after that day, I wouldn't be seeing her for a long time (I have no idea when I'll see her again) and I promptly burst into tears. We held each other a long time; I didn't want her to see my wretched face. My tears surprised me; I'm not one for emotional displays. I couldn't stop, so I told her I'd better go. I bumped into Georgi, her husband, and started crying again.

Later, when we returned to our hotel room, I stared out the window for a long time. Times Square spread before me, and masses of glass and metal buildings rose like fingers touching the sky. Cars honking and whirring; blurred sounds of street conversations; flashy billboards, gold sculptures, green roofs, purples, blues, and pinks; a helicopter traversing the sky like an insect seeking lunch. In the afternoon, when we arrived at Liberty Island, I left Michelle to wander the base of the statue on her own. I sat by the water and faced the Manhattan coast. I picked out buildings I recognized, watched the boats go by, traced the lines of bridges.

I was saying goodbye to New York, but also to America. I've done a lot of growing up on this continent. From the age of 19 to 22, from 25 to 27. English major, camper in New Hampshire, driver of a Del Sol and later a Golf, very amateur chef of Italian and French dishes, student in an MFA program. I'm mostly Singaporean, but a significant part of me has been a temporary resident of the U.S. Whenever I go home, I'm never quite the same person I was before. I'm there in Singapore, but some part of me yearns for America, and even Italy. I'm restless even when I'm happy. Is it because Singapore is so small that I always look beyond her shores? Is it because I gained so much in America and Italy that I want to return? Is there more beauty elsewhere? Can I find it? Can I keep it? I hate to let go.

Posted by Monoceros at June 29, 2005 12:38 AM