showing Kysha some big cities, and also coping with some raw, seven-and-a-half-year-old emotions

The events recounted below occurred exactly a month ago. It has been heart-warming to relive the joy of them while finally finishing this post.

After all the New Year's Eve and New Year's Day excitement, we showed Kysha around New York and Philly during days 3, 4, and 5 of her visit. What I enjoyed most about our time together, aside from having Kysha practically all to myself for the duration of her visit (okay, technically, I had to share her with Bryce), was getting to re-live new experiences through her eyes as she experienced them for the first time.

Northwest Kansas, where Bryce was raised and where most of the N. family still resides, is worlds apart from even the suburban Los Angeles County barrio where I grew up. I underwent some major culture shock when experiencing big cities such as Paris and Philly for my first time, so I can only imagine how new and different everything here must seem when one is from a more rural background. Now, Kysha is no country bumpkin, at least not in spirit. ;-) She is a smart, savvy lady, bound for med school next year. But it was inevitable that every day was going to present her with many opportunities for wide-eyed wonder, through which I was able to experience wonder vicariously.

This is a sampling of some of the new sights, sounds, tastes, smells, etcetera that Kysha got to experience for the first time during her brief visit with us:
•taking a train from the airport to a station only three blocks from our apartment.
•riding two buses from downtown Philly to the outskirts of Philly, on the second of which a woman was ranting semi-incoherently about "who done her wrong" or something like that, an occurrence that never seems to phase me anymore.
•hailing a taxi and riding back home in it at 2:30 in the morning.
•realizing that, despite coming from a state where the average winter temperature is at least 10 degrees colder than it is here, the clothes you brought aren't going to be warm enough, because these city-dwellers spend a lot of time walking around outside.
•walking around to find a restaurant for dinner in our neighborhood, where there are probably more eating establishments located within a 3-block radius than within a 50-mile radius of the N. family farm.
•supping at a Steven Starr "diner" called Jones.
•taking a bus to Manhattan.
•entering the Lincoln tunnel in New Jersey, wondering at how long it is, and coming out of the tunnel in New York.
•using a public restroom in Manhattan.
•realizing how much of the city also extends many stories below ground-level.
•using the subway in Manhattan.
•being overwhelmed by the height of a skyscraper located next to Ground Zero, and having it explained to you that the Twin Towers made it look short.
•seeing the Statue of Liberty from the ferry landing, and thinking how small she looks from so far away.
•helping me search for a fabric in New York City's garment district, where the sheer number of fabric stores is overwhelming.
•checking out the goods at Spandex House, a garment district store that is a unique experience unto itself.
•lunching on Indian food.
•standing outside the Empire State building and deciding that you'd rather not pay $20 to wait in line for two hours.
•looking up at the Empire State building and marvelling at how tall it is, and at how tall everything is.
•managing to stay with your party as you fight your way through the crowded streets of Times Square on a Friday night.
•seeing a Broadway show for your very first time (we opted for Spring Awakening).
•walking around New York City late at night while trying to decide where to go for a drink and appetizers, and feeling perfectly safe.
•seeing a woman do her morning dance workout routine completely nude in the apartment across the street from our hotel (this was new even to us).
•enjoying a late-morning breakfast in a crowded New York diner.
•walking through Central Park.
•realizing that Central Park is ginormous.
•dining at a pay-by-the-pound Chinese take-out buffet.
•looking at Auguste Rodin's Burgher's of Calais and many of his other masterpieces while I blab, on the verge of tears, about why I adore his work so much.
•pretending to knock over a giant domino near City Hall.
•hearing about the Curse of William Penn.
•having every clothing store you could wish for within walking distance.
•walking into an H&M.
•seeing your nation's first hospital from the outside, and realizing that it's still in use.
•noticing, when the guy talking on his cell phone outside our restaurant window raises his jacket to scratch his back, that his underpants consist of a thong. A very stringy thong.
•standing in the room where the Declaration of Independence was signed.

Our culinary adventures alone, most of which I didn't bother to list here, could have made for a list almost as long as this one.

The experience that I remember most strongly, and perhaps which I needed the most, was our visit to Ground Zero on January 2nd - easy to remember because it's also my mama's birthday. The 9/11 attacks, in some ways, framed our transition from life on the West Coast to life here in Philly. We moved here near the end of August of 2001, and were still settling in and figuring out how to handle grad school when the attacks occurred. At the time, I was still getting my bearings on the geography of the East Coast (heck, I still am). I knew little about New York City. People around us had lost loved ones, and I mourned for them. This tragedy touched me more indirectly than directly. I was hurting for my country, and I was very scared about the future, about what would happen if the draft were reinstated and my husband were taken away, and about many other concerns that seem silly in retrospect, but I had not lost any friends or loved ones myself. And so I mourned at a respectful distance.

And then I started hearing about how Ground Zero had become a popular spot for tourists. And this disgusted me. I couldn't stand the idea of people flocking to Lower Manhattan to gawk at the place where so many people had lost loved ones. I felt that it should be left sacred for a while, to be visited by those who had lost friends and loved ones and needed to be allowed to mourn without someone staring. It was just too soon for tourism for me. I sound judgemental, I know. But it just felt too soon.

My first trip to Manhattan was some months later, in the winter of that same school year. I was serving as the assistant to a second-year costume designer in my program, and so the visit was mostly business, as we had to make a whirlwind of stops to costume rental houses, vintage shops, specialty stores, and fabric stores, but I still remember seeing all the memorials, the "missing" posters, and the subway advertisements offering free counseling to anyone who needed it. I have made countless more visits up to Manhattan in the intervening years, some for business, some for pleasure, some for both - but I never went down to see Ground Zero.

When my mom visited and we took her to New York City for the first time, she wanted to go see it. I flatly refused to go along. I did not want to stand there and gawk, and take pictures. So I hung out at a pizza joint near the Stock Exchange, and Bryce accompanied her to go see it.

But now I was ready. The World Trade Center site was on Kysha's list of priorities for our two days in New York. I guess I felt like it had been long enough that it would be okay to go and take it all in for myself. I think I needed it, too. I think that everyone who goes there probably needs it. I cried a lot. The anger and hurt and frustration rose to the surface and felt very raw and real again. I imagine that it must look a lot different than it did when my mom and Bryce went to see it. There is a small and crowded, but lovingly-assembled temporary museum next to the site, recounting the history of the towers and the experience of those who survived the attacks, and honoring those who were lost. The big hole is now a huge construction site, and I think that when they are done, what will exist there will be beautiful.

We have been considering the possibility of a cross-country move that would get us closer to family but also take us away from this place and the friends that we have come to love so much. And so I think that it felt right to now go to the place where the Towers fell because this is one of those things that I needed to do before we leave. I needed to visit this place where an event occurred that so strongly shaped our thoughts and frame of reference when we first moved here.

On a side-note: Please, leave no comments on the possibility of us moving, if y'all don't mind. If we decide to go, it will be heart-wrenching to leave the friends who have become our family here. And it will also be heart-wrenching if we decide to remain here and continue to be far away from the family that we left when we were 22. Plus, there's the downright scary prospect of leaving our stable jobs. Don't get me started on that one. Whatever we decide, someone will hurt because of it, most of all us, I'd argue. And so we don't want any more opinions about it right now. When and if we make a decision to move away from Philly, it'll be announced. Thanks with love.

Now, on to the pictures. I tried not go to too nuts with the photo-taking during Kysha's visit, partially because she was taking plenty herself.

In the 9/11 museum, visitors could write a note sharing their own 9/11 stories. One wall of the museum was covered with notes that the curators had selected for display. This one really touched me.

I'm a sucker for any story, painting, sculpture, or other work that reflects on the immigrant experience. So I had to have my picture taken in front of this sculpture while it was snowing at the landing where people wait in line to take the ferry to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.
The estimated 1.5-hour wait in line determined that we were fine with only seeing the pretty lady from afar.

This was the bill for our breakfast at the diner in New York. Can you read it?

Up in Belvedere Castle in Central Park:

I totally made Kysha pose for that picture. But it's pretty, no?

Kysha and Bryce storm a hill in Central Park:

Topping off a visit that was largely dominated by wonderful food, we went to Bridget Foy's for Kysha's last dinner with us.The guy wearing the thong was right outside that window at another point in the evening.

The room where the Declaration of Independence was signed:

Our tour guide in Independence Hall said that these are the same stairs that were used by our nation's founding fathers.

I used them, too.

So did Kysha.

Kysha contemplates the Liberty Bell:

It's just a bell. And yet?

I make fun of that bell a lot, because it is just a bell. But living a few blocks from it in this neighborhood with such a rich history, and having walked by it so many times over the last few years, I have come to understand what it represents, and why it is so valuable as a symbol in our nation's past, present, and future. Took me long enough.