Welcome Visit

I stepped off the bus and I couldn’t wait to get enthralled with city life. I was too anxious to get my pretzel, but I tried to behave like a resident. No pretzels for me, shucks! The cabs, all the yellow cabs, I wish we had same color cabs at home.

My next thought was to visit the park, I came to just sit in the park and read my book. If I finish it soon, I can go shopping. Not rich enough to hit the fancy places, at least not yet anyway. Shoes. . .oh how I love shoes, I can find shoes off the B line, or off the A line. Just as long as they’re shoes!

So much I want to do, only two days to do it. Will I ever come back? When can I be a resident? I have to get a pastrami sandwich, with mustard and six sours. Hester has my favorite restaurant and I have to have it. The richness of the marinara sauce, the taste of pasta, I’m so addicted to it. I need this place, I’m so taken in.

The place that hold so many souls, where destruction and evil lived for a short while; I stand and wonder why, just like so many before me. Just like the countless others that have asked that question, I receive no answer.

I get so amazed at the resiliency and the way the city still lives. The tastes, the sounds, and the laughter, brings me great joy. I stand in awe and respect, a city I never was born in, holds a place in me so close.

It’s time to get back on the bus, and to travel to my own home. I packed with me memories and extra sauce from my favorite place on Hester. I watch the skyline shrink in the distance, as another weekend comes to an end. Bittersweet ending to a wonderful visit, I was so welcomed like visiting my southern grandmother.

I’ll be back, you never turn me away. Billy said it so perfectly, “. . . I'm talking a Greyhound on the Hudson River Line. . .
I'm in a New York state of mind “