UP IN THE 'HOOD

Someone just asked me if I would be glad to get back to where I have a car to get around in. I haven't even missed a car; everything I could possibly need is within a block of here. Hardware store, dollar stores, UPS center, two real grocery stores and the Gourmet Garage, wine shop, jewelry store, bakeries, several drug stores, banks, lots of restaurants, coffee shops, beauty / barber shops, a florist/ plant shop, shoe repair, keys made, clothing stores, a Catholic school and church, and (if you absolutely HAVE to have one) even a car rental place. That's literally within ONE BLOCK of our front door!

And everything else in Manhattan? A subway or bus or a combination of both can get you within just a few blocks of whatever you want. Most of the subways and buses are handicapped accessible, many with elevators or escalators (all the buses I've been on "kneel down" to let you on, and do accomodate wheelchairs).

And so many surprises! what looks like a tiny bookstore has an escalator leading to the upper floor which covers a whole block! Where else but in NYC could you find a tiny Ob-Gyn Clinic tucked away between a Dunkin' Donuts and an Irish Pub?

Kurt Vonnegut called NYC "Skyscraper National Park" and I do love the skyscrapers...but I think my favorite part of the city are the neighborhoods. A photographer, Todd Webb, said that NYC "is like a series of small towns," and it's true. Right off many busy main streets will be little tree-lined neighborhoods of lovely old apartment houses, with flowers in the window boxes, and their own unique characters. Then there is China Town, Korea Town, Little Italy, Greenwich Village, Chelsea--not to even mention Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, or Staten Island--all completely different species.

Wherever you go, just remember that "traffic signals in New York are just rough guidelines" (David Letterman) and you'll be OK.

ALL WORK AND NO PLAY?

Come on, you know me better than that! I came home early today so I could stop by Grand Central Market and get some fresh mint--yes, indeed, I am going to show these sisters what a DERBY PARTY is like. We're going to have a prize for the best hat, incentives for Win / Place / Show, and a booby prize for the last horse. I'm even passing up a last chance to go to the opera to put this on. (By the way, I saw Rigoletto the other night; there was only one free ticket and there was only one person willing to go by herself!)

On my last weekend in New York I want to visit Strawberry Fields in Central Park, where Yoko Ono put in a memorial garden for John Lennon (who was assassinated across the street at the Dakota Apartment Building). While I'm close I'll visit the Ramble, a good bird-watching place in the park, they say. And Riverside Park down on the Hudson River (just a couple of blocks from us) is also beckoning. It's been a tiring week, and New York has been a little tense after the death of Bin Laden. Lots of police and National Guard in the subway, armed with assault rifles. It will be good to have a little time with nature, such as it is in NYC. Even Central Park, as big as it is, is basically just a zoo for plants--not any real woods or meadows. You're always aware of the "corral" of buildings.

But this week had two high points; I literally almost ran into Sister JoAnn Mark, former Academic Dean at Brescia. She was attending a couple of days of the CSD. She says HI to all her friends. She told Catherine Ferguson that her time at Brescia were the best 14 years of her life. And the other high point? The Empire State Building was 80 years old last Sunday. Happy Birthday, ESB! and Happy Derby Day, all you Kentuckians...

SPRINGTIME IN NYC

Yes, indeed! even the subway is getting into the spirit. Every workday, I ride the shuttle subway between Times Square and Grand Central Station, and they are getting decked out for spring and summer. One car has a toad painted on the outside (painted to look like a frog--but I know the difference); the inside is decorated to make you think you are sitting beside a frog pond. The second car has a tree on the outside, with a forest inside (except that the trees are pines and the branches overhead are deciduous trees--don't they have any biologists on their staff?). The third is my favorite: butterflies on the outside, and on the inside you're sitting in a grassy field of daisies with blue skies overhead. Makes you more cheerful about being underground on a nice day.

My real spring celebration was yesterday at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden, where the cherry blossoms were at their peak. They are supposed to have one of the largest collection of Japanese cherry trees anywhere outside of Japan. There was a celebration of Japanese culture going on, with dancing, music, and crafts (they tried unsuccessfully to lure me into making Origami peace cranes). Oh, and the LILACS were all blooming, but I finally gave up on trying to smell every one of them. I allowed myself a little nostalgic visit to the desert conservatory, and sweated my way through a nice tropical collection...and even found a couple of dirt paths to walk on. They had the best Bonsai collection I have ever seen, with artistic little trees of many varieties, one a couple of feet tall and documented as over 300 years old.

Not to speak of "old" but definitely speaking of blossoms, the other spring beauty in the picture with me is my "New York" cousin Sharon (from my Dad's side of the family)...we are the same age but she has always been the more glamorous of the two of us. We had a great visit in a little cafe in Bryant Park, next to the big Public Library downtown.

The only thing that makes me think it's not spring here is that we're not having tornados; it sounds like the rest of the country is making up for that...what a year! An increase in the frequency and severity of violent storms is a predicted outcome of climate change--so here at the UN we are doing what we can about those storms. It will take a long time though, even if we start right now. So we have to start right now. Here at number 204 we are praying for all who lost their lives or lost loved ones... You all be safe, and enjoy every blossom that comes your way.

OLD FRIENDS, NEW FRIENDS

Many of you will recognize these old friends: that's Sisters Clara, Michele, and CJ in front of Macy's, near Herald Square ("Tell all the gang at 42nd Street that we will soon be there...") CJ and Clara were on their way to the Holy Land, with a couple of days off in NYC for good behavior. We got together on Sunday for Mass at St. Patricks Cathedral and brunch in the food court of Grand Central Station. Such a warm fuzzy, to see some Kentucky Ursulines on the sidewalks of New York!

And today (April 5) I met one more "old" friend and one new one. We NGOs have a special meeting once a month of all the Religious at the UN (RUN), for support and mutual inspiration. There are usually about 30 of us there, all from different religious communities of men and women. When we introduced ourselves I saw a ripple of interest down the table when I introduced myself as Ursuline--to find that the interested parties later introduced themselves as Ursulines. We met for lunch in the UNICEF cafeteria later to compare notes. The "old" friend was Sister Jane Quinlan, known to several sisters in our community from Ursuline leadership gatherings, and the new friend was Soeur Deodata Bunzigiye from Goma, the DRCongo. Both are Tildonk Ursulines (with motherhouse in Belgium). Daodata works in the education of street children, refugees, and child soldiers, as well as with trafficked women; she was invited by the UN to come and present information to several groups. Jane is still teaching part-time here in this area, but also represents their community as a UN NGO. I didn't know there was an Ursuline presence here at the UN, or I would have connected before now.

And on a personal note, this coming Sunday I'm connecting with Sharon, one of just two cousins on my father's side of the family. She lives in New Jersey, and this will be only the third time we have met as adults. The other time I remember seeing her was when we were 10 years old, when my mother and I came by train from New Mexico to NYC for Christmas. BIG Christmas: I met my grandma and grandpa, and we kids all got bicycles.

All this goes to show that you always have to behave, because you never know when you're going to run into someone you know. "Make new friends, but keep the old: one is silver and the other's gold."

SSSSNAKE AND THE CITY

Another charming thing about New York City is how much fun New Yorkers can have over the strangest things. The week-long absence of an adolescent (20 inches, 3 ounces) Egyptian Cobra from its cage in the Bronx Zoo occasioned more merriment than terror. A twitter account was set up in the snake's name, and it reported back from the Art Museum (10 a.m.), the Empire State Building (3 p.m.), Ray's Pizza (5 p.m.) and Wall Street (8 p.m.). It was tweeted by the Mayor, and Ellen Degeneres welcomed it to NYC, but told it to stay away from Times Square "which" she said, "is a zoo!" Finally it was found in a dark corner of the reptile house, not 100 feet from its cage. Our heroine is now going from back-room obscurity to Special Attraction, and a naming contest is going on. I'm going to submit "Slyther Lynn" and "Cleo" (one of her famous ancestors killed Cleopatra).

Often-seen subway rats are another cause for dark humor, and of course, rampant speculation. The subway news has it that there is going to be a massive population explosion this summer, which might be true, as 75% of the city exterminators were laid off. I took Jan's picture in front of a giant (20 foot?) rat on Wall Street -- not what you are thinking -- someone told me that unions put it in front of non-union businesses. Well, I guess that could apply to Wall Street, too.

Bedbugs are also back in the news; landlords are going to be required to spray ALL the apartments near an infested unit: up, down, right, and left. People are being careful about where they buy their clothes and "fleamarkets" are less popular right now. But New Yorkers seem to take a perverse pride in their wildlife, except for pigeons. It's the non-wild life I worry about. How can those BIG dogs live in such tiny apartments?

I was really mystified about what picture to choose for this; finally decided that the terror factor of an Egyptian Cobra was outweighed by the gross-you-out vision of a highly-magnified bedbug, or up-close Rattus rattus rattus. (At last: I knew someday I would get to use the official name of that rat!) Sweet dreams, everyone.

THE LUCK O' THE IRISH

I started writing this on my knee in St. Patrick's Cathedral--the Irish sisters in our house got us tickets. Yes, you have to have tickets, and you have to get there an hour before Mass! It certainly was worth it. The church was full of green, with plenty of city and church officials, and the liturgy was full of incense, Latin, bagpipes and mighty organ. We stayed downtown to watch the parade, which goes right by St. Pat's on Fifth Avenue. LOTS of bagpipes, marching policemen, and bands, interspersed with gaggles of important people just walking along. Not many horses, unfortunately! Mary Higgins Clark, the Irish storyteller, was the Grand Marshall, and rode in a "Central Park" carriage. The green bedecked teenagers / college students flowing by on the sidewalk, whooping and hoisting beer bottles, added the noise factor.

On the eve of St. Patrick's day, Tom Hanks ate supper under our community room window, and shot a scene for a new movie (with Sandra Bullock) right around the corner from our house. Watch for our little neighborhood jewelry shop in the movie (I forgot the exact name but it's something like Very Noisy and Extremely Close). They had posted signs several days in advance that cars left on the street would be towed, and came in with large trucks for the food and filming/ sound equipment. We had heard they would be filming at 11:00 p.m. and went out at 10:15, but learned that we had missed Tom Hanks by 15 minutes. So we had our pictures taken with Jesse, a sound director--the people in the picture are Jesse, Iris (a Korean student who lives with us), me, S. Liliane, and S. Jan. Turns out the sisters are not new to movie making; their back yard is going to be featured for 2 1/2 minutes of a movie coming out in January of 2012, called Premium Rush.

Such excitement...now back to work. Happy Feast of Saints Patrick and Joseph to all!

MISSION: 97TH STREET

At the end of the day, it's so good to get off the subway and head for my home away from home. Even though I can't see much from my window but a brick wall and a church steeple, maybe that's what Angela Merici saw when she lived next to a church in 16th Century Brescia, Italy. And I'm warm and well fed, unlike the homeless on this night when we are expecting subzero temperatures in New York City.

But today I was feeling a little like a stranger in a strange land; I miss being close to nature, even if it's only to look out at my back yard. They don't have any back yard here, no front yard either (you just walk into the buildings right off the street). There's no place to plant flowers or a tomato. The school next door doesn't have a playground--for recess, I'm told, they just close the street for play.

It's easier to cope when I remind myself that this is a missionary experience. Our sisters who went to New Mexico in the early 1900s missed Kentucky in the same way I miss nature; the Ursulines who came in the early 1800s from a well-ordered Bavarian city must have had a shock when they got to Louisville, and Angela surely must have missed her rural home and vineyards when she moved to a typical medieval city! We go where we are called, because our true homes are in the heart of God. And of course there are other forms of beauty here: the architectural embellishments on buildings are remarkable, there are parks here and there, and trees planted in the median along Broadway. Oh, and did I mention that I went to Lincoln Center to the opera the other night? The sisters know someone who gives them free tickets--we saw a stunning performance of Simon Boccanegra. In the subway tunnels last week we were treated to a Peruvian folk ensemble, jazz, Cajun, a Chinese stringed instrument, breakdancing and mime...this is not a bad place to be "exiled." And there is beauty everywhere, if we just look.

'NEATH THE SIDEWALKS OF NEW YORK

After a pretty good night's sleep (remarkable considering the city sirens, a yowling alley cat, and a radiator that sounds like small yapping dogs at certain phases of its activity--not to mention the effort of digesting a huge and very festive birthday dinner we had for one of the resident sisters), Jan and I were out and about before 8:00 (that's 7:00 according to my Central Standard body time) to give ourselves time to get lost on the subway and/or to wait a long time for a train. Well, the subway maps are good, so neither happened, and we arrived at the UNANIMA offices half an hour early!




The orientation session with Catherine was interesting, and we met the three sisters "interning" with the International Presentation Sisters' Association, one of the three NGO entities who share the office. (the other group represented there are the Sisters of Notre Dame). All share a space on the 12th floor of an office building near the United Nations...the whole office space is no larger than your average one-car garage. But they explained that all religious community NGO's get along very well, since they know that in numbers there is strength, and all share information and resources.


Our orientation session soon gave us to know that we had better arrive on Monday morning ready to work! In fact, we have lots of homework to do before then--websites to visit, introductory materials to read, and even virtual tours to take. On the way home, Jan and I stopped for lunch in the food court beneath the restored Grand Central Station...what fun to see it again for the first time since I came through there on a train at age 10! The sign that said "Track #117" hints at the huge size of the complex, and the artistic carvings and lovely architectural frills on this grand old dame give us a glimpse of a time when people took time to make things beautiful. The subway still leaves from Grand Central so we took the shuttle train over to Times Square and from there went home (yes, 97th Street is beginning to feel like "home"). At the evening Mass in a nearby church an usher took out what he suspected was a bomb--typical of the calm paranoia of this city of surprises!

GLAD TO BE HERE (I THINK)

On January 14, after enjoying a clear flight over Lake Michigan (covered with ice floes) and the snow-covered mountains of Pennsylvania, my heart sank as we flew in over Queens (the New York City borough where LaGuardia Airport is located). As I saw the miles and miles of houses, houses, and more houses--and miles and miles of concrete, brick, and cement, I imagined all those people squashed down there in that little space. And as we rode through the congested streets of the city, noisy with honking horns and piled high with uncollected garbage--I reflected that this is what humans know how to do really well: generate waste and ugliness. Can I survive in a city for four months? This is a real "missionary" experience for me!

But then I allowed myself to be swept up into the cultural diversity of this most diverse of cities, and to feel underneath the ugliness and grime the throbbing heart of this place that is beloved home for so many. In the first two hours I was here I was driven home by a cab driver from Africa, saw a group of women crossing a street clad head to foot in burkas, met the sisters' Guatemalan cook and the sisters themselves: one from Lebanon, two from China, one from Spain, one from Ireland, and two from Brooklyn (and understand that I just missed one from the Philippines, one from Canada, plus three Japanese guests)!

As I met Sister Jan, my fellow intern from Australia, and Sister Catherine Ferguson, the director of the UNANIMA program, and all these warm, funny and hospitable Fransciscans I will be living with, I reflected that no matter the SIZE of the city or the number of people who live there, we still really meet each other one soul at a time, and it is on that level where you come to love each other. In Spanish there are two verbs for "know:" saber is the verb used about knowing things and facts, but conocer is the form used to describe how you know people or cities. "Conocer" has more of a feeling of "become acquainted with," the idea being that you can never fully know a person--or a city. I am looking forward to becoming acquainted with New York and its people...