Speeding into February

Greetings to all my readers--I know you're famished for news.

Here it is:

Just a whirlwind of things the last couple of weeks: four days in Puerto Rico for a big fifteenth-birthday party for the darling niece of my niece and nephew (too long to explain--suffice it to say we're all close). I traveled with my niece and nephew and my sister and we stayed at a hotel on the beach, where our rooms had balconies overlooking the ocean. We walked through the colonial streets of Old San Juan and took lots of pictures. We sauntered from the pool to the beach and back. We read mysteries. (Actually my book was a stunningly beautiful novel of slavery called The Known World--I felt odd lounging by the pool and reading about atrocities but these, I guess, are the contradictions of life. And the novel wasn't only about atrocities but about love and family and survival.) We caught up on all the Puerto Rican gossip, old (what happened to that guy who used to be married to, you know, so-and-so's sister?) and new (on Sunday, post-party, the talk was all about which fifteen-year-olds had been seen carrying on with each other in the elevator at the hotel. This discussion, carried on by the other fifteen-year-olds, took place in the pool, with the sun shining brilliantly down on us. It was all in Spanish, but I could pretty much catch on from the illustrative gestures that went with it.)

The trip was nostalgic, especially for my sister and my niece and nephew, since my sister lived in San Juan for ten years and my niece and nephew were born there, but also for me, since I visited many times in those years, which coincided with my teens and early twenties. I think this was probably the first time all four of us were there together since the late seventies, when they still lived there. I felt a little bit of the weight of time passing, but mostly I was just very happy to be there celebrating a most festive occasion. And of course, getting away to the tropics at the end of January was replenishing, to say the least. Looking at the pictures with my sister after we got back, I said, "I can't believe we were actually there." She said, "Yeah, it's like we went through a portal into this happy, sundrenched world."

My return to reality started at the airport Sunday night, where the flight that I was on that was supposed to leave at nine, getting me in at midnight, was delayed for several hours, so that I got in to JFK after 3 in the morning. It was a little surreal, but I had no trouble getting a cab to zip me home. Fortunately I wasn't scheduled to work at my office job on Monday, but I did have to teach my first class of the semester that night! In fact, the whole time in Puerto Rico I had been vaguely worried about being ready for the first class. Nevertheless, I slept until noon (I guess I wasn't that worried) and then somehow got ready, made it to class on time. Class was great and continues to be great. I taught Monday and Wednesday evenings, also went back to to work Tuesday, and Thursday night I babysat for a friend's seven- and eleven-year-old kids. So it was a busy, busy week, topped off by the great pleasure of hanging out with jo(e) at the big conference for creative writers over the weekend. It was strange to be in another hotel so soon; I kept forgetting that I lived in New York and that I wasn't staying in the hotel. I can confirm that jo(e) enjoyed the vegan burrito at the little Mexican place I took her to; in fact, at dinner, every time I tried to say something, she would interrupt me to say, with reverence and a kind of wonder, "This is so good." One of the other high points of our conversations was when she told me she had gone to the Famous Museum in Midtown with Lots of Modern Art. I said vaguely, "Oh, yeah, I think they did it over not that long ago. I haven't been there since they did that." Jo(e) did a kind of quick doubletake; she seemed momentarily surprised as she said, "You haven't been there? I think I've been there three times since they reopened."

What can I say? It's that old thing, when you live in a place you forget to take advantage of its world-class museums. Maybe I should move to Snowstorm City.