the baker's daughter

I am back from New York now. Walking through the airport, I realized that I hadn't been on a trip by myself since I went to France in 2006. So much has changed since then. Even though my trip to New York was only 10 days and not in a foreign country, all of the ingredients that made France so special were there. I did it all on my own. I saw things I had never seen before that took me outside of my own reality. New York is a world unto itself. Everything that I know and am comfortable with suddenly disseminated. New York is dark and grungy and at the same time fast-paced and glamorous. It is rich in history and culture. Yet, it is somehow mundane and 'every-day.' I don't quite know why we romanticize it so much.

Mostly, I am grateful that I stayed with friends. I love my friends.


Here's a Rilke sonnet, just because I'm in that mood.

29

Silent friend of many distances,
feel how your breath is still expanding space.
Let yourself peal among the beams
of dark belfries. Whatever preys

on you will grow strong from this nourishment.
Know transformation through and through.
What experience has been most painful to you?
If the drinking's bitter, turn to wine.

In this vast night, be the magic power
at your senses' intersection,
the meaning of their strange encounter.

And if the earthly has forgotten
you, say to the still earth: I flow.
To the rushing water speak: I am.