Growth

One of my favorite things to do is as follows. When I'm in Manhattan, I love to walk places. Particularly at night. I like to meet friends in the city for a drink on a less-than-crazy night and then put iPod on and walk back to my hotel...be it 5 blocks or 40. Tonight I did just that. Let me back up. I took a break from a mountain of work to have dinner with a good friend of mine. We met for sushi and as we're chatting I look up and across the restaurant see my friend from Burlington...a Vermont friend in the same restaurant at the same time on a random Thursday night in Manhattan. Anyways. I met them for drinks later and proceeded to walk back the mile and a half to my hotel, in a slight drizzle. Perfection. As I was walking, I passed a beautiful tree starting to bloom...really bloom. In an ideal world, time would have stopped, a bench would have appeared and I would have taken a seat, for at least a few minutes. It made me smile, smile and think. Think about how things grow...despite cold winds, despite global warming, despite being a tree amidst concrete. Growth and change is one of the few things that are certain in life.

I have been in the city for 2 days. Within the 2 days I have had dinner and 6 hours of amazing conversation with someone I was casual friends with in college. I was reminded of the fact that sometimes we meet people who genuinely are in our lives for a long time and sometimes we just meet them at a point in our life where we aren't well equipped to have them be a full timer. I have sat at dinner and, as stated above, seen a friend from my tiny little current hometown. I have seen the first true signs of spring. I am currently watching the Empire State Building spire disappear behind a curtain of mist as I work on my computer until the wee hours of morning. Is it this place physically or this place I'm in personally? Do you ever walk down the street and watch the lights, every light, magically change in your favor? Does it make you think that the world is walking with you?

Life sometimes just happens. Perhaps there really are signs all around us and we just don't have the right prescription eyewear to see them.