An old photo of me in NY
I’ve been spending a lot of time in New York City lately. I was there Saturday, Monday, and now I’m going again tomorrow to meet with some people about some pictures… God willing, I won’t get another ticket like I did on Monday. So much for not blocking the box ($100!! ouch!).
All this backing and forthing from my once-beloved home has made me wistful, and it brings me back to 1998, when I left my home in San Diego and traveled across the country to a city I’d never seen, for a job I didn’t have.
Why is this relevant to The Faithful Traveler, you ask? Well, for one, it’s interesting (if I don’t say so myself!). Two, it has to do with travel. Three, it oozes with Catholicity. And four, it is part of the path that got me here, to Philadelphia, where more than ten years later I find myself producing a Catholic travel show with my husband. And so, I thought I’d share this memory with you. Part of it is just me, blogging. Part of it is from a letter I wrote to my friends and family once I got situated in New York.
So, yes. Moving across country. Well, for those of you who haven’t scanned the About page, I have a law degree from the University of Notre Dame. Sadly, a hot topic of late. Aside from a spectacular education and some pretty interesting memories, the main take-away for me from the experience is the assurance that I need never worry about passing through an eye of a needle to get to Heaven. Yes, thanks to my student loans, I’m taking the poor way to Heaven, and I am sure it is a blessing.
I practiced law in my hometown of San Diego for not even a year before I knew that I just wasn’t cut out to be a lawyer. I didn’t have the requisite zeal, and I felt that I was doing my clients a disservice without it. So, my little sister and I decided to pray a 54-day rosary novena with the intention of asking God for clarification on our vocations. On the 54th day, I was on a bus from Oxford, Mississippi (home of Ole Miss and Faulkner’s grave) to New York City. (Long story short: I was too chicken to go straight to NYC, so I made a pit stop with a friend in Oxford.)
After the two-day bus trip, I arrived in New York, got situated, and wrote the following (edited) letter to my friends and family:
Well, here I am. In New York City. It’s been a long and hilarious road here. So many fun and wacky adventures, I don’t know where to begin. I guess the beginning’s as good a place as any.
I left Oxford, MS on March 27th, almost exactly a month from the day I got there. To be perfectly honest, I was truly happy to leave Oxford. Not because it is a small and lonely town, but because I was, and have been for a long time, READY. I was ready for the world. For my life to “start,” to start out on my own and be an adult again, to be responsible, to be free, to be me.
Everyone warned me about this trip before I left, and offered me advice. After mentioning to them that I was leaving my job as an attorney for a city that I’d never seen, an apartment I didn’t yet have, and a job that was yet to be found, I basically heard the same “advice” from everyone, which could be summed up as: “Don’t go there! It’s dangerous/dirty/ugly/not cool/scary!” “You are stupid for moving to NY without a job/a place to live/any friends to meet you there.” “WHAT YOU ARE DOING IS STUPID.” Needless to say, I had had about enough of everyone else’s advice. This is not to say that I didn’t appreciate the concern, it’s just that I had built myself up for so long to be able to endure the hardships that I knew would accompany this trip, and all everyone seemed to want to do was tear me down, while offering no alternatives to keep my morale high. It was just a bunch of “no, you can’t do this” and “gee, you shouldn’t be doing that.” So let me, now, dispense my own word of advice. Take it or leave it: When you want to do something really badly, do it. Ignore what everyone else has to say. Do it.
I arrived at Newark, Penn Station at around 12:30 p.m. on the 28th. A friend from ND met me at the bus stop and took me to an available apartment I found online in Elizabeth, NJ. We got there, and it was mine. Day One: I found a nice, inexpensive home.
March 30th, was the first day I ever spent in New York City.
I had an interview at a temp agency, so I got in kind of early, to avoid getting lost. Luckily, the PATH trains exited at 33rd street, and my interview was on 33rd, so I wasn’t too worried. Still, at 8:30 am, the city was still asleep. Grumpy and afraid, I mumbled to myself over and over that this ‘city that never sleeps’ sure looked pretty sleepy to me just then. Looking for something familiar, I searched the sky for the one landmark I knew: the Empire State Building. But it was no where to be found. If only the building I was under hadn’t had scaffolding around it, I could have looked up to see where it was. I gave up, looked to my left and read on the glass door “Empire State Building.” I had to chuckle at that, and after realizing that I couldn’t ascend that glorious building’s heights until 9:30, I once again began to wander.
It was about this time that I began to feel overwhelmed by the immensity of what I had just done. I knew it would take a while to set in, but I really felt it there, as I stood under that giant monument to mankind. I was little. I was lost. I was the new kid. So I started to pray. As I walked the empty streets, I sang the “Ave Maria” to myself, and begged my Guardian Angel to huddle close. And it was just then that I saw it: right in the middle of Fifth Avenue. A Franciscan monastery. A heaven-sent retreat. I went inside and lit just about every candle in the place. One to St Anthony, the patron saint of finding things. “For a job,” I prayed. Inside the church, I found serenity. Of course. Amidst the enormous buildings of this city, I still find these small monuments to faith. And every time I visit them, there are candles to be lit.
After a while, it was time for my interview. I went in, took the required tests, and waited. Finally, the head honcho came in and told me that I was amazingly qualified and that he had just the position for me. The place? Penguin Putnam: the mega-publishing firm that had recently been reincarnated as Viking Penguin bought Putnam. Start me right away, I thought. Day Two: Penguin Putnam. Oh yeah. (St Anthony is good, isn’t he?)
I returned to the Empire State, bought a combo ticket for the observation deck and one for the “ride” at the end of the tour. And up, up, up I went. 125 stories. It was then that I saw it. Sure, I saw the city, laid out in all its grandeur. More beautiful than I had ever imagined. More ornate and intricate than any of the maps I had previously studied. There was Queens, the Bronx, Brooklyn. But it wasn’t until I saw HER, that the tears welled up in my eyes. It was from a great distance, but on March 30th, I saw the Statue of Liberty. She is beautiful. So much history, so much pain, so much promise lies in the shadow of that statue. And I felt it all, from the Empire State. I can’t explain to you all the beauty and majesty that is that statue, but from a distance, she is glorious.
After the Empire State, I had NYC fever. At the top of the Empire State, I had discovered other landmarks which I desired to visit, so after the ride, I decided to make my way to St Patrick’s Cathedral. I walked up Fifth Avenue about 20 blocks (in heels!), passing the NY Public library, with the two lions out in front by the stairs. For those of you who don’t know, St Pat’s is the big Catholic cathedral here in the city. And boy, is it gorgeous. As often happens to me in my travels, as I entered the cathedral, a boys choir was singing. They sounded like angels. Luckily, I walked in on an exhibit of St. Therese of the Little Flower, one of my favorite saints. Once again, I lit just about every candle in the place, this time in thanksgiving. God was good to me, and I was so grateful, I spent half the day in tears contemplating His power and goodness. The Blessed Sacrament was exposed, and so there I sat for half an hour with the God who had given me more strength than I could have ever imagined having, not to mention a job and a place to live, in two days!!
I love this city. It’s amazing, the wonderful things I see every day here. Yesterday, it rained cats and dogs, and I was so happy to be in the city, in the rain, on a warm day, that I refused to buy an umbrella and got completely soaked on the way home. I laughed the entire way, though, but ended up getting a cheap $3 one at Penn Station once it started getting cold. I saw a cab splash someone with a puddle yesterday for the first time. I saw a pedestrian get frustrated with the dense drivers, get out into the middle of the street and begin directing traffic. That was great! Classic city stuff.
Today, since it is Good Friday, I spent the day hearing Mass with John Cardinal O’Connor in a beautiful and thought-provoking ceremony. The cathedral was packed, but I managed, after changing my seat four times, to get within ten pews of the front. I didn’t get to receive Communion from the Cardinal, but I sat by a bunch of nuns, which was nice.
Oh, and another wonderful thing about this city. It’s about being alone. I don’t know about you, but in my life, when I have found myself alone, I tend to feel horribly and paralyzingly (and that is no exaggeration!) self-conscious. I do not like being out in public alone. Ever since my first day in NYC, I haven’t felt one bit of self-consciousness. Not about sight-seeing or walking. I love it here. There are so many people, and they all have their own goals and plans for the day, they have no concern over you, and you can just blend in and be a stranger with them all. In a way, it is an odd sort of camaraderie—all of us not knowing any of us. It’s like we’re all alone together. So it’s not at all lonely….
It’s so fun to read that letter again. You know how you look at your life and try to figure out what God is doing with it? I can honestly say that, despite some hurdles and very rough times, I have prayed during most of my adult life that God do with me what He wanted. Looking back at it all—the unused law degree, the move to New York, the struggle to find my vocation—I think I can see God’s hand much more clearly now, and I truly feel that I am doing the “something great” for which I believe I was born.
Once, in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, after daily Mass, I looked around and saw nothing but couples. Naturally, I was single at the time. I had been praying another 54-day rosary novena to find a mate. The novena would be ending soon, and there was no hope in sight. So, grouchy as can be, I said to God, “Alright, fine. If I’m going to be single for the rest of my life, then put me on Your front lines, God. I want to be in the thick of it, fighting for You, devoting every little bit of my heart to You.” David and I started dating about a week later. God sure is funny. Now, I see that He took me up on my offer, but He was so kind as to give me a helpmate, and for that I love Him so.
And that, I believe, is the early bit of my path to The Faithful Traveler. If I hadn’t, if I hadn’t, if I hadn’t so many things, I would never be here. And I really like the here where I am. So, thank you, God. You know I love You. Help me stay on those front lines, doing what You want me to do, in the way You want me to do it. Because it’s all for You.