If I could only express all that this photo means to me. The guest room at Oma & Opa’s. The bed that held us when were just two, and then three, and again four, but the fourth so small, and now, almost impossibly, when the smallest is so often the largest in our family, this bed that holds us all; in against the white falling winters, in below all the colors of fall four doors down from Frost’s house, in these summers when we all sweat through the night with the window fan pleasantly upon us, filling even the dreams with languor. The girls are bigger now, somehow profoundly bigger and more grown up. Bindi’s rummaging search into that special box closet, that intriguing door in the wall, is metaphorical of all the new awakening inquiries for our CHICKS. The world is getting bigger for them, even though they’ve been drug across several continents of it. It breaks my heart daily to see them grow. The light still breaks through the window, the “Awake Happy” still hangs on the wall, the room’s still too small. And those coltish legs just get longer and longer.

I’m swept by that comfortable feeling that I could take to fishbowl living here in Fun City. There is, and I’m sure will always be for me, an excursionary vibe about being in NYC. But doing it like this at The Alex – named after the Nazi intelligence detention prison? – that makes it feel very fine. A corner suite with floor to ceiling windows. Very tall buildings all around, but not crouching over us as this corner seems to have it’s own wide berth. Lovely sun in the morning, coming right away through the clefts and shining brightly on the chrome pegasus and eagle gargoyles of the Chrysler Building. That thrum below peppered with honks, the beastly incessant digestion of the City. A well appointed set of rooms, high above like this, peering out at it all but safely tucked away, the babes sleeping in thread count, the tiny kitchenette to my right, the small leather sofa that includes you in the view but does not disturb it. I could easily do time like this. We’ve lucked into the panache of this city. The selection of hotel gifted us by hard earned credit card redemption points. The selection of room further enhanced by the gracious concierge who found the girls so endearing at check in. The first thing this room reminded me of was the cell that welcomed us to Delhi,  a windowless square with a box spring and my cot on the oily lino floor, the stand-up-in-one bathroom, a dead sound in the air that hid us from the city gurgle outside. This is just like that experience, because it is the other side of it. We know all highs and lows, and they all get us high. Good to be back on the road with my brood.

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