13 years ago I left my job as a banking paralegal and wrote a farewell e-mail to my colleagues at one of the largest international law firms in the world, rode the subway from midtown-Manhattan to Penn Station, took a train up the Hudson to Albany-Rensselaer Station, met my father, rode up in the car through the Adirondacks to where I am now, and spent the night so we could attend my grandmother's funeral ceremony the next day. That is, we didn't come exactly where I am now, because it was in such a state of disrepair and abandoned renovation from another member of the family that it was uninhabitable (I'd been sleeping on the floor at least once a summer since I was 17, but my parents were a little old for that). We stayed at my aunt's guest camp instead. I was feeling so good then, with an idea that great things would happen on the horizon. I wasn't wrong, they just happened in very different ways than I'd suspected.
Since then we've repaired it and then some, I live here, and I woke up this morning to teach a new class of 23 students, which would be fun in a large room but is a bit much (for their sake) in an online meeting. Luckily, I met about 12 new people, because the others were returning students (and maybe half of them have been in the class since we started this whole online scene). It turned out two of them kind of knew each other from being involved in similar business on the other side of the world, but didn't realize it until I encouraged one of them to turn her camera on for a moment. About half my students have their cameras on, the other half opt not to, which is fine for them but strange for the rest of us. But when I get new students I encourage to overcome their shyness and show their glowing faces for just a couple minutes so we have a better idea of who we are talking with... although it's an interesting experiment when they opt not to. How often in life do you hear someone's voice for hours a day for weeks, but never know what they looked like? More often than I would have thought at this point.
Thanks to strange internet, I had to drive over the (small) mountain to a forest to find a better connection, which is interesting. The bonus is I get to walk in the forest when we have a break. On top of that, I have afternoons free the next two months, so I spent this one well, cooking and eating and reading and napping and reading and walking before reading and eating and writing experiences.
10 years ago I returned to the United States after a seven month journey abroad, flying from Dublin, Ireland to New York, New York that afternoon. I got on the subway and rode from the airport all the way to midtown, where I walked past my old building where I'd had my first job out of college, and finally rode the elevator up to the top of Rockefeller Center, for the best view of New York City I've ever had.
When I was young the first books I remember loving were the Where's Waldo? series. I enjoyed searching for him, but what I really liked were the imaginative humorous depictions of life around the world, and in the sequels, life throughout history or in imaginary fantasy worlds. I always tell people that when I returned to Manhattan, having lived in Brooklyn and Queens for three years before I spent 8 months at home in the countryside of upstate New York and then traveled the world, mostly Asia, for seven months, it was just like a Waldo book. You traveled all these separate worlds, and then, just like in the book, you saw everyone mixed together in the ultimate illustration.
I didn't need the city for that today. I'm enjoying the "wilderness," as pretty much everyone from the city refers to my life up here amidst the pines.
Thank you, journeys
Since then we've repaired it and then some, I live here, and I woke up this morning to teach a new class of 23 students, which would be fun in a large room but is a bit much (for their sake) in an online meeting. Luckily, I met about 12 new people, because the others were returning students (and maybe half of them have been in the class since we started this whole online scene). It turned out two of them kind of knew each other from being involved in similar business on the other side of the world, but didn't realize it until I encouraged one of them to turn her camera on for a moment. About half my students have their cameras on, the other half opt not to, which is fine for them but strange for the rest of us. But when I get new students I encourage to overcome their shyness and show their glowing faces for just a couple minutes so we have a better idea of who we are talking with... although it's an interesting experiment when they opt not to. How often in life do you hear someone's voice for hours a day for weeks, but never know what they looked like? More often than I would have thought at this point.
Thanks to strange internet, I had to drive over the (small) mountain to a forest to find a better connection, which is interesting. The bonus is I get to walk in the forest when we have a break. On top of that, I have afternoons free the next two months, so I spent this one well, cooking and eating and reading and napping and reading and walking before reading and eating and writing experiences.
10 years ago I returned to the United States after a seven month journey abroad, flying from Dublin, Ireland to New York, New York that afternoon. I got on the subway and rode from the airport all the way to midtown, where I walked past my old building where I'd had my first job out of college, and finally rode the elevator up to the top of Rockefeller Center, for the best view of New York City I've ever had.
When I was young the first books I remember loving were the Where's Waldo? series. I enjoyed searching for him, but what I really liked were the imaginative humorous depictions of life around the world, and in the sequels, life throughout history or in imaginary fantasy worlds. I always tell people that when I returned to Manhattan, having lived in Brooklyn and Queens for three years before I spent 8 months at home in the countryside of upstate New York and then traveled the world, mostly Asia, for seven months, it was just like a Waldo book. You traveled all these separate worlds, and then, just like in the book, you saw everyone mixed together in the ultimate illustration.
I didn't need the city for that today. I'm enjoying the "wilderness," as pretty much everyone from the city refers to my life up here amidst the pines.
Thank you, journeys
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