The Everywhereist

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The English Garden (or Englischer Garten, for those of you who insist on showing off the B you earned in high school German class) is a massive public park located near downtown Munich.

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“We’re taking you to the Keeper of the Plains,” I was told, and there was little elaboration after that.

“Okay,” I said. “And the Keeper of the Plains is …?”

“You’ll see.” I must hand it to my friends. They know how to create suspense.

It turned out to be a 44-foot-tall statue of a Native American man standing at the crux of the Big and Little Arkansas (pronounced “Our Kansas”, for the record) Rivers in downtown Wichita.  A raised hatchet in one arm, its headdress and fringed pants seeming to blow in the wind, the statue looms tall over the nearby bridges and park that offer views of it and the river. It is a tranquil place, but as a white American woman from a devoutly-PC part of the country, I found myself looking around and thinking, “This is cool, right? We aren’t offending anyone?”

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I love New York. I’ve visited enough times that the magic, really, should have worn off by now. I’ve gotten horribly lost on the subway (I once ended up in Queens), watched someone rip off my cab after I ran half a block to hail it, and had the girl at Zabar’s Cafe let my order grow cold even though she was staring right at me. Even with the dirt and grime, the streets crowded with tourists (of which, I realize, I am one), even with the prevailing smell of sewage mixed with gyro meat that will not escape my nostrils, I find myself smitten. I’ve seen it, I smelled it, I’ve had it shove me on the subway- and I still love it.

So much so, that at the close of every trip we take to New York, as Rand is packing up his bag, I usually say the following …

“Why are you bothering to do that, when we’re never leaving here?”

He smiles and reminds me that our home and friends and his work are back in Seattle, as is the rest of my wardrobe. And if we lived in New York, it would be in an apartment the size of a shoe closet.

With a sigh, I pack up my bags, and grumble something about rent control.

Of course, this scenario changes radically if we happen to be in the city any time between May and August. I do not fare well in hot weather. And by “hot”, I mean anything above 73 degrees. After my third shower of the day (brought on by a Lady-MacBeth-like desire to be clean) I will squeeze Rand’s hand, and gently whisper that if we do not get out of the sweltering concrete dungeon that is New York, there will casualties.

“You’re cutting off circulation to my fingers,” he replies sweetly (his is absolutely adorable when he winces in pain).

“I know,” I say, mere centimeters from his face. “And that will be the least of your troubles if you do not return me to the 70-degree bliss that is a Seattle summer.”

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