I made plans to visit New York when Shannah told me that she had an internship at Columbia University for the summer and that she was running a 10K race through Central Park. Also, I'd been hoping for a while to visit Ky, working hard at her M.D./Ph.D. program at Yale Medical School, and we could easily make a trip to New Haven.
Shannah shared her room at the International House with me. It was great! With the shared bathroom and milling students, we both felt as though we were back at The "A" at Western Reserve. I considered it a luxury accommodation, as Shannah had a room with a view.
I couldn't run the race with Shannah as I had planned. My knees were giving me trouble after a month commuting to work on a bike that was too short for me. I was still happy to be visiting New York City in what is probably one of the most hospitable months, weather-wise. The night of my arrival sported thunderstorms (an awe-inspiring spectacle I witnessed from the plane) but I enjoyed 4 gorgeous, balmy days. I'd say it was starting to get too hot the day I left.
I found my way to Shannah's apartment by Super-Shuttle from JFK, since I arrived late at night and Shannah forbade me to take the subway. The trip took only one-half hour - luckily I was the first stop on a van full of people who lived in all corners of Manhattan. The next day I wasn't quite so lucky in the transportation department. I took off from Shannah's apartment on 122nd Street headed for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, or "The Met" as it's called by the locals (right Shannah?), near 85th Street on the other side of Central Park. I thought my route through Morningside Park was a shortcut, directly east of the Columbia University campus, but in fact this took me on a sprawling tour of some of the seedier sections of the neighborhood. I furtively looked at my map while trying to look totally natural. My method of completely avoiding all eye-contact backfired when a man threw the epithet "Bitch!" at me as I passed him. I had sensed his penetrating stare even with my eyes fixed on the lamppost in front of me. I think he just wanted acknowledgment of his existence, since he had noticed mine. It might have been nicer if he'd said in an admiring tone, "Big China!" as some charming young fellow had said the last time I visited NYC.
I really enjoyed the Met. I spend the bulk of my time in the ancient Greek and Roman sculpture and art galleries, since I'd been exposed to some of this art in a class I'd taken recently. I found this type of art more engaging because of the class - the scenes painted on the Grecian wine vessels took on a whole new life as I tried to identify gods of Greek mythology by their totems (e.g., grapes = Dionysos) and scenes from The Odyssey and other Greek stories. A gallery of marble Roman heads caught my attention since my professor explained that the Romans were the earliest culture to sculpt an individual's actual facial features, rather than give statues a generic, stylized face. I recognized other pieces he'd shown us slides of in class and knowing the context of the piece really delighted me. I also had rented the audio tour of the museum, which was a companion to me. I experienced many atmospheres at the museum, since the museum recreates the rooms to reflect the style of the art displayed. One atmosphere in particular stays with me - a Chinese garden courtyard. The stones, fountains and types of wood all came together in a natural harmony that really convinced me that design can shape mood.
I visited Shannah at the Foundation for Child Development where she works. Shannah and I enjoyed a nice dinner that night. I introduced her to the Chinese bou-tzi, a steamed bun. We were halfway to a poetry slam at a "Nuyorican" cafe ( Nuyorkicans are Puerto Rican New Yorkers) with a group of people from the I-house when we realized that we just wanted to go to sleep. Our excuse was that Shannah had a race to run. Which was true.
It was a glorious race day for the NYC Roadrunner's 10k mini-marathon (women only). The trip down turned out to be a mini-adventure. Somehow I misled Shannah and even though we didn't go directly through Morningside Park, we ended up on the wrong side of it. We had given ourselves a lot of time to get to the race, which was good because what should have been a 20 minute trip took us closer to an hour. We asked advice from a nice woman getting into her car with her family. She told us the way to the nearest Metro and when we questioned her about just going back through the Park towards Columbia, she gave a strained smile and said, "Just be careful." So we didn't go through the park.
Shannah looked strong at the start of the race. She also came in strong at the finish. So we could extrapolate her activity as "strong" in the intervening 6.2 miles. But seriously, she did run a good race and I was happy to be there to witness it. On one hand I was bummed that I couldn't run, but on the other it was quite nice to be chilling out on a bench watching all the hard work being done by others. There was lots of international talent at the race. The woman who won beat the world record by 10 seconds with her time of 30:29. There was also a silver-medalist Olympian (the 5000m race in the 2000 Sidney games) competing. These were fast women.
We were fast women ourselves the next day when we went to visit Ky in New Haven. We were on the train before she was even awake. Ky, the poor thing, is in surgery rotation, so sleep is hard to come by. Man, her program sounds grueling. But we're proud of her. We learned a lot just hanging out with her. Ice helps heal by bringing blood to area. When the doctor is poking around your boobs with his/her stethoscope, he/she is actually listening to the four chambers of the heart. I think I should have won a prize because when Ky was on one of the chambers (I was listening, she was poking), I said, "That one sounds different." Turns out that position puts the heart closest to the stethoscope (or something). When the doctor's got the stethoscope on your back, that's not for your heart. That's for your lungs. But you probably already knew that. But did you know that the stethoscope was invented in the late 18th century by French doctor Rene Laennec? "In Laennec's time, doctors sounded the chest by percussion, but one day Laennec was trying to sound the chest of an obese young woman in her chemise and could hear nothing. . . . 'He was extremely upset and thought that I fhe put his ear up against the patient's chest, he might be able to discover what was wrong with her. But in those days, to put your ear against a lady's chest was quite unthinkable. . . .He picked up an exercise book which was on his desk, rolled it up, held it tightly and made a cylinder of it. He applied one end of this cylinder under the patient's left breast and put his ear to the other end. He was surprised to find that he could distinctly hear the sounds coming from the heart.'" This excerpt was taken from the book Heart: A Natural History of the Heart-Filled Life by Gail Godwin ( which I picked up on my last day in NYC for less than half the cover price from The Strand used-book store - 8 miles of books, they say.)
The heart certainly ruled my trip to NYC. Spending time with Shannah and Ky truly filled my heart and renewed me. You could call it a mutual-admiration society, or you could call it friendship. Either way, I'm glad I'm a part of it.
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Department of Geophysics Stanford University |
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