While Waiting In New York

Do you know what the term “it’s in the waiting” means?

I first heard the phrase in the song, “Take Courage,” but the exact line is “He’s in the waiting.

The He refers to Christ.

The phrase means, to me, there’s value during the in-between time.

The in-between time is when one needs to have courage and hope.

That’s the positive take.

And I’m trying, desperately, to hang onto the positive.

For the past 100 days I’ve had an apartment under contract in NY. Closing was due weeks ago and postponed to June 1.

My daughter and I came up to NY from California on June 1 thinking we’d help my son, due in on June 4, to move in and get settled.

June 1st has come and gone and we’re not closing until I don’t know when.

What to do except call the agent who has no recourse; out of his control.

In the waiting, we’ve visited several sites and I decided to blog a travel log of our time here.

A favorite, so far, has been the Metropolitan Museum of Art, especially the Heavenly Bodies: Fashion in the Catholic Imagination,” exhibit. A stunner.

Several designers created gowns for the show:

Versace

Another favorite place was Central Park, a refuge from the heat and humidity of Sunday.

Walking through the perfumed roses and trees of Shakespeare’s Gardens took me away from the blaring horns of police cars, ambulances, and construction.

The lake had a rowboat traffic jam but was still enjoyable because the guitarist playing in the surrounding grassy area sounded so good.

We visited the 9/11 Memorial which is quite emotional both inside (museum) and the outside water features.

Along the way to these sights we took the subways ( yay we haven’t taken a wrong one yet) and had a chance to talk with other travelers and native NY’s.

An elderly woman with crooked lipstick (like my mom) and a voice like Katherine Hepburn offered us directions when we stopped to glance at google maps. We were looking for Strawberry Fields.

Her old dog had trouble trying to squat because his hind legs were shaking so. We chatted about her dog who she said was a good boy for a lonely woman.

She pointed us in the right direction, smiled, and told us to enjoy the music that was sure to be at the site.

A mob of selfie taking people were at the John Lennon Memorial, posing on the site, so unlike the first time I saw the place in 2001.

This is someone else’s photo:

A man wearing a hospital gown, scabbed sores on his arms, some cuts on his face, sat in the subway car while another man talked to him about giving up his drug use.

The man spoke to him in the most compassionate way, gently but realistically painting the picture of his future if he kept using drugs.

I caught the date of birth on the man’s hospital wristband, 49 years old, but he looked 75.

The man handed him a sandwich and a bottle of water, patted him on the shoulder.

“I tell you because I care about you,” he said as he got off on the next stop.

Tomorrow, we’ll travel some more and keep hope alive for a closing date.

Send me some prayer and good vibes 😉.

Thanks for reading.