Sunday, August 13

city of words

I just got back from New York City. What a trip! And I mean that in all senses of the word... I loved the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Apple store, FAO Schwartz, Times Square, the hordes of people swarming in ebbs and flows all over the city... though I realized that I'm a country girl at heart. Gimme those wide open spaces! I ate at Serendipity (yummm, frozen hot chocolate) and went to see a Broadway show and walked and walked and walked...alarmingly unlike the pioneer children, however, I seemed to have no destination. I call it the City of Words because I heard so many from such a broad spectrum--words in different languages, dozens of them, words that were painful to hear, words of welcoming, words sprayed across buildings in effort to affect behavior, words carried by beautiful melodies into the lives of the listeners. Wherever I went, the words were everywhere. Today after church, I curled up in a chair for a while and just enjoyed the quiet. Though I did hear some of the most pleasant words today, and mostly from the mouths of the children in the Harlem Primary at church. Little Lily: "I so really sang loud!" Or Madeline and her cousin Janeesha: "Search-to look for the answer to something. Ponder-to get an idea. Pray-to make it happen." Sometimes the wisest words are those spoken by those who have spent less time speaking. I could learn a lot from that.