Red Sails in the Twilight

I'm a frustrated Manhattanite.  Well,  maybe not frustrated exactly.  I have a constant wistful longing for Manhattan.

I grew up between divorced parents in Connecticut, where my family has deeply-set roots and New York, where my mother and stepfather lived.  I treasure my memories from childhood in the Greater Hartford area, don't get me wrong.

I recall nearly every moment of my childhood there: the screeching of my grandmother's storm door as it opened, the taste of horn rolls from Michael's Bakery, the smell of Sunset Ridge School, and the chill as I put my hands in the icy water of the Coke cooler at Stanley Roman's Grocery on a hot June day.  I would charge it to my grandmother's account along with some animal crackers and think I was a badass.

I lived in Manhattan as an adult and visited frequently as a child.  My grandparents would take me in to see the Christmas Show at Radio City.  I'd go into the City (as New Yorkers call it, for there is only ONE city that matters) to visit museums and go to Yankee games on the A Train.

Mostly I would walk for miles observing and experiencing the hot dog vendors, the store windows, historic architecture like the Chrysler and Flat Iron buildings and, once, the surrealist artist Salvador Dali who had only half a mustache at the time, walking an ocelot on a leash down Central Park South.

It looks like a regular ole kitty, but this is actually a "big cat" also known as the dwarf leopard. I think the cat's name was Babou.

I would also see the actress, Ruth Gordon, out walking nearly every day in my neighborhood.  It came to the point that she would put her cane over her arm and pat mine saying, "Hi Honey, how are ya, how are ya" with a big smile as we passed.  This was a lot better than her character in Rosemary's Baby who scared me witless.

Life took a different path for me and hasn't been too shabby since Bruce whisked me away to live in Hawaii, but that longing for New York continues.  God's Word says that He gives us the desires of our heart. I don't think this means that we get whatever we want, but rather that He puts the desires in there to begin with.

I have an idea of what He is going to do with all this and it is exciting.  However, in the meantime,I was cooking dinner last night and dreamily thinking, "What would I be doing if I lived in New York?"

I'd have gone to a little grocery store (no room for big, huge supermarkets in NYC) such as they have there, like a Fairway, and picked out what I needed for a couple of days.  I'd choose my fruits and vegetables out front.

I'd wheel everything home in one of those personal shopping carts New Yorkers use and then hang behind the apartment's front door in between trips.

And then, and then...I mused while I cut carrots for salad and checked on the baking chicken.  I seized on just the thing, "I'd go to Riverside Park and walk along the water in the twilight," getting a little teary at my lack of Manhattan.

Then it hit me.  I live along a beautiful river, The Elizabeth, and the only reason I don't walk along it in the twilight is lack of planning or lack of gumption or pure laziness or lack of habit...who knows.

I walked along the river last night.  And was treated to this beautiful sight:

It isn't the Hudson, but I think this quite possibly could have been even prettier.  Bloom where you are planted.  I'll take Manhattan, the Bronx, and Staten Island, too, when I vacation there soon.  And get ready for what God has next.