Autumn in New York
HEART & MIND Paulynn P. Sicam
It was my first visit to New York City since before 9/11, which means I was last there at least 16 years ago. NYC did not disappoint. It is still the same maddeningly frenetic city I’ve always loved to visit. It is autumn in New York and the ground is littered with dry leaves. I was all bundled up in three layers of clothing and a heavy spring coat, and still the chill froze my ears and pierced through my leather gloves.
My New York Adventure began on the flight from San Diego to JFK where I watched the HBO documentary on Nora Ephron by her son Jacob. What better introduction to NYC than a film on the life of a woman writer-director who celebrated the city in her life and work! I was an early fan. Reading her essays in Esquire, I thought I wanted to write just like her. But I realized her fiercely funny highly personal confessional approach would be too shocking for Filipino readers. Her essay on breasts was a classic that many women identified with. But what self-respecting Filipina in the early Seventies would dare write so frankly about something as intimate as breasts? Surely, the readers would miss the forest for the trees, focusing more on the gossip value than the honesty and style of the writing.
Nora outdid herself when she wrote Heartburn, the searingly bitter but hilarious telling of the break-up of her marriage. It was described as revenge by a woman scorned and it was a best seller, not only because it was written by Nora Ephron but because many women identified with it.
On my first day in NY, my college classmate took me to see Beautiful, the musical on the life of Carole King, which was actually the making of her album, “Tapestry,” a collection of songs that could only have been written by a woman, and that resonated with women all over the world. Like Heartburn, “Tapestry” was written by a woman grappling with the end of a marriage. But unlike Heartburn, “Tapestry’s” heartache produced songs of healing and celebratory ones of empowerment.
I watched another musical, The Great Comet, a take-off from War and Peace that stars Josh Groban. It is not much of a story — silly socialite engaged to a nobleman falls for a scoundrel — but the music is great fun and the staging unique. Spoiler alert: There is no stage.
It would have been great to watch Hamilton, the current toast of Broadway, but all shows are booked into 2017 and beyond.
I just had to visit the 9/11 Museum where I lined up in the rain with hordes of tourists speaking different languages, to pay my respects to the thousands who perished at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the airplane that crashed in Pennsylvania on that fateful day. Apparently, not many New Yorkers have been there and I can understand why. It is beautiful inside, quiet, solemn and respectful — and deeply, painfully sad. I couldn’t stay too long, as my heart began to ache and my tears began to wet my face. Outside the building are the footprints of the Twin Towers, two large square holes framed in granite where the names of the victims are engraved and water flows endlessly into a smaller hole at the center. It was, to me, a monument of tears and unfathomable grief.
I did the touristy things that make New York such an interesting destination — Times Square, Broadway, Central Park, old churches. But what I truly love about New York are the normal ordinary things that New Yorkers do, such as getting on the subway, that reliable iron horse that crisscrosses the NY underground, and magically allows me to emerge on the other side of town where I joined the crowd walking briskly, purposefully on the sidewalks, taking in the incredible rhythm and energy of the city. I love the small restaurants on the side streets that serve every flavor of food from all over the world. I love seeing the leaves turn to shades of red and brown in the early fall. But mostly, I love seeing my friends who are true denizens of New York.
This trip, I had an emotional reunion with an old Jesuit friend in Fordham University, met up with former classmates, caught up with a pre-martial law officemate, reminisced and giggled with cousins over lunch, touched base with a nephew at his posh law office and at a French restaurant over lunch, enjoyed an excellent meal at Purple Yam with an old college pal and his wife where we were personally attended to by the great chef Romy Dorotan. A surprise treat and definitely a high point was a take-out dinner with an interesting group of Filipino intellectuals — academics, writers, journalists who shared experiences and insights about the state of the homeland under Rodrigo Duterte, with a particular focus on Mocha Unson.
As in all my visits since my first in 1978, I left New York with some regret. Although was satiated in heart and mind and craved for more, I had promises to keep. My brother, a bird photographer, was waiting for me in Florida where I basked in the wonders of nature and the warmth of his family in the land of perpetual sunshine.
