Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

Travel

Surprised by New York (part 1)

Last weekend (the third one in October), our family took an overnight/day trip to New York City. I ended up with so many thoughts and stories about our time that I broke it up into three parts so if you read this, you won’t feel overwhelmed by it all. If you want to read it all in one shot, come back in three days.

For now: the backstory.

It started months ago, when a comedy trio from Ireland that my husband follows online announced a U.S. tour with stops in Philadelphia and New York City. He had some money left from Christmas to spend, so he bought two tickets. For the show in Times Square.

When he told me this, I began to panic. Philadelphia is right there and Times Square is over there. How in the world were we going to see a show in Times Square on a Saturday night in October? I listed all the reasons it wasn’t going to work, and I freaked out numerous times trying to think through a plan for the kids. How much did hotels cost in New York? Would we hire a babysitter to stay overnight at our house? Try to find someone to keep our kids for a night at their house? Did I even want to do this?

Technically, it would be a date night but the logistics were overwhelming. Date nights take work no matter where they happen for us, and this one seemed especially hard to plan.

So I ignored it for months.

I waited until my surgery was on the calendar before even attempting to start thinking about how we could do this. I wanted to be sure that I wouldn’t be recovering from surgery when our trip was planned.

I should mention that our family has never been to New York City. Not to explore. I mean, we’ve been to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island (technically New Jersey?) when the kids were too young to remember. (FYI: I just re-read that post from 9 years ago and cringed. Grace for the people we used to be.)

Exhibit A: What our family looked like the first time we saw the Statue of Liberty.

We’ve picked up family at LaGuardia. And Phil and I went to a Mets-Cubs game one time. I don’t really count those as visiting New York, though. Having lived in Pennsylvania 11 years, not visiting New York City feels like a crime.

One night, as Phil and I were tossing around ideas about New York, he said something like, “It’s too bad we couldn’t take the kids and have a family day on Sunday in New York.” Take the kids! I latched onto that idea almost immediately. It seemed like the perfect solution to my worries. Surely we knew someone who could hang out with our kids for a couple of hours in New York while we were at the show. My husband was surprised that I was pursuing this idea. He hadn’t necessarily meant it seriously.

I, however, was certain it was possible.

So, I went to my online network and asked: 1. Am I crazy to think that this is possible? and 2. Did anyone know anyone who could help? Almost immediately, a name was recommended by several people and this friend was enthusiastic and willing to meet us in the city and hang out with my kids, even though none of us had met in person. (I’m going to pause here because yes, this sounds weird. Bu this friend and I are connected through a group of women who have been sharing, supporting and encouraging each other online for something like four years. I would trust any of these ladies with my kids and my life, so this was not at all weird to me.)

I breathed a sigh of relief. We had the beginnings of a plan! With the first piece of the puzzle in place, more plans came together. We booked a hotel. We made a list of things we wanted to see. (It was too long.) Our friend helped us plan our sightseeing day, even figuring out what trains we might need to ride from one place to the next.

In the midst of this planning, my husband and I had an argument. Maybe it was more of a disagreement, and I’ll admit that it was primarily my anxiety and stress that caused it. I wanted to put a whole bunch of activities on our to-see list. He wanted us to walk around and take in the city. At the root of the disagreement was this feeling that maybe I wouldn’t like New York. I know tons of people who LOVE it, and I worried that I wouldn’t “get it.” I’m used to trips where we do things, like visit museums or historical sites or national parks. None of that was on our plan. (Actually, some of that was but we quickly realized we couldn’t accomplish all of it in one week, much less one day.)

As we took a realistic look at our time in the city, we whittled the list down to just a couple of sights to see, and as our trip approached, my excitement grew. Some of the stress transferred to Phil as he planned our food stops because the other thing we like to do when we visit a new place is eat local.

In my mind, it was all coming together beautifully.

Photo by Elena Koycheva on Unsplash

A few days before our trip, the friend who was going to meet us messaged me and said she hadn’t been feeling well. She wanted to let me know that it was possible she couldn’t meet us but that she was going to work to find us a backup among her friends. I still trusted that this was going to work out but my anxiety was increasing. The night before our trip, she was still not feeling well and still looking for a backup. I didn’t sleep much that night as I tried to work a solution. I had one more option, and as soon as I woke and it was a reasonable hour, I set to work finding a backup companion for our kids when I should have been packing and doing laundry.

Early in our planning, when I was trying to figure out what our kids would do in Times Square while we were at the show, I messaged my brother who travels a lot and has good recommendations for things to do/see/eat. Also, his wife’s family lives in New York City. During these discussions, his wife’s parents made an offer to help show us around New York while we were there. We weren’t sure we were ready to take it at that time, but when the Saturday morning of our trip arrived and we had a snag in our childcare plan, I knew exactly who to contact. My brother put me in touch with his mother-in-law and what ensued was a flurry of text messages over the next several hours.

I did not ask her directly to watch my kids on short notice. I only wondered if they would know of anyone who could.

So my first surprise of New York was an enthusiastic offer to hang out with my kids for a couple of hours from a woman I have only met once at a wedding celebration years ago but who loves my brother and considers us all family.

It was a relief in so many ways. We made a plan to meet later that night, and I set out to finish the packing and try to get the house in some sort of order.

Her generous offer would not be the only surprise New York had to offer.

To be continued …

O say, can you see?

One unique feature of my particular personality type is the ability to see both sides of most situations and conflicts. It is a blessing and a curse. 

I’ve been processing thoughts and feelings and words about the the American flag and the National Anthem for maybe a year or more. I don’t even know if the controversy is still as front and center as it once was, but I know it still stings and divides from time to time. Honestly, I haven’t thought about it for a while. That’s part of my privilege I guess. I don’t have to think about issues of race and bigotry if I don’t want to.

So I was surprised at a recent reaction I had about the flag and the national anthem. It happened at Fort McHenry in Baltimore, the place that inspired the writing of the Star-Spangled Banner.

—

A few dozen people milled around on the lawn inside of Fort McHenry waiting for the flag changing ceremony. As we had approached the fort minutes earlier, a small flag flew over the fort, and I kind of wondered what the big deal was about this ceremony. During the ranger’s presentation, I learned that Fort McHenry is the only shrine in the National Parks system, and that word holds meaning. It is a sacred site, then. It was as if we were standing on holy ground.

Let me be clear that I do not worship the flag nor our country. That shouldn’t feel like a shocking statement but I fear someone will take it as an offensive one. Worship, in my life, is reserved for a Higher Power and even then, the word often makes me uncomfortable.

But the word “shrine” helped me appreciate what was happening. The ranger vividly recounted the events that led to Fort McHenry being such an important landmark in our nation, and toward the end of his presentation, he said, “That is why we stand for the National Anthem.” I bristled because I know that this, too, is a point of controversy and contention. Some people do not stand for the flag, and I can understand why. I don’t believe in blind or forced allegiance to anyone or anything. But his words did not feel like propaganda or manipulation.

Then he asked us all to participate. We arranged ourselves in a loose rectangle and as he unfolded the flag, he asked us all to grab on as soon as we had a place to hold it because we didn’t want the flag touching the ground. It was a holy moment, akin to communion, as I stood shoulder to shoulder and across from strangers who no doubt had different life views, political affiliations and voting records from me. As we stretched the flag to its full size–I don’t remember the dimensions and this photo of it flying doesn’t do it justice–I gripped the blue material tighter, unwilling to be the one to drop the flag.

A couple of rangers and a couple of active-duty military helped with the raising of the flag. The ranger told us to hang on to the flag as long as we could but to let go when it pulled up and away. Because I was holding at the top of the flag, it yanked out of my hands pretty quickly, but as I watched this symbol rise to the top of the pole, I felt tears in the corners of my eyes. It was a moving moment to participate in the raising of a flag on the site where our national anthem was born.

The moment was made more powerful by the realization that it took all of us to raise that flag.

A larger group could have helped raised the site’s largest flag, but a smaller group would not have been sufficient for this one. We all had a hand in it, literally.

It was the second time this summer I cried at a national park site. Maybe this is just what I’m going to do now.

—

It takes all of us.

That is my takeaway from this visit. It takes all of us who call ourselves Americans to make this country rise to its potential. I know this is more complicated than it sounds. I know that it isn’t that easy when there is so much division. I know that my own heart can be divided and hardened by all the shouting and finger pointing and noise.

I was grateful, then, to visit the source of our national anthem’s and flag’s history. The closer to the source, the more truth can be found. For instance, when he wrote “and the home of the brave,” Francis Scott Key was thinking of the ordinary citizens of Baltimore who bravely defended their city from British attack, as well as the soldiers who fought from inside the fort.

When we sing the words today, I feel like we attribute them to the men and women in uniform, past and present, who have fought for our country in places around the world. Could “the home of the brave” also include those who fight for justice and equality on their home turf?

Some things can only be learned by going straight to the source.

This display within the fort also caught my attention.

During the Civil War, the American flag represented opposing ideals depending on your worldview. To the Southerners, it was a symbol of tyranny. To the slaves, it was symbol of freedom. Could not the same be said today, that the flag means different things to different people? When I think the problems we face today are new, I’m relieved in a way to be reminded that they are as old as the country itself.

—

I have complicated feelings about my country and its symbols, and with words like “traitor,” “patriot” and “nationalist” fired like cannonballs these days, I’m not sure I can adequately explain what I mean. But I’ll try.

I love my country like I love my children or my favorite sports team–with a full range of emotions and with understanding that some things are out of my control. To love my country unconditionally is not to love it blindly. I can be disappointed, sad and angry about the choices we make as a nation, just as I would a child who is choosing a destructive path, and hope for better days, just as I would a struggling sports team. (I’m a lifelong Cubs’ fan, for crying out loud. I never thought about not being one, even when watching a baseball game was painful and hopeless.)

Love shows itself in different ways. Sometimes it’s in the fight for justice. Sometimes it’s in the tears shed in remembrance. Sometimes it’s in the salute. Sometimes it’s in the kneeling.

Sometimes we have to look a little harder to find it.

Is it possible we can love our country in ways that feel foreign to others?

“O say, can you see …”