While on vacation, my wife and I traveled to New York City. We love New York City for all its hustle and bustle, great restaurants, museums, and sites. For those who know me, I’m pretty predictable, organized, and risk-averse. For those who know my wife, she’s not. I carry the map with a pen attached. My wife fills the backpack with everything we (I) might need. We have a lot of fun, together.
One day, we were walking around Little Italy and Chinatown, when she remembered a conversation we shared with a very nice man who sat in our row on the airplane to NYC. He gave us many recommendations and suggested Coney Island, too, although he admitted that it was probably too far for us to go. Suddenly, Lisa said, “Let’s do it. Let’s go to Coney Island.” “It’s too far,” I said, “how will we get there?” In short order, my subway map was opened to reveal the “D Train” to Coney Island, and we were on our way. Nearly 40 minutes later, through a tunnel of neighborhoods and various names of stops we read aloud to each other, we finally arrived at Coney Island.
Hand-in-hand, we followed the throngs of people out of the subway to the corner of the street. There it was, Nathan’s Hot Dogs, the midway, and the rides. We didn’t eat or play or ride. Instead, we made our way to the Boardwalk. What a view. It looked like there were hundreds of thousands of people on the beach, along the boardwalk, and down the pier. We looked up, down and all around. We saw some things no one should ever be exposed to, but that’s New York. We sat on the pier and watched the people. Young couples walked to the end of the pier and back, fathers and daughters threw lines into the water and pulled up fish and crab, and thousands of people lined the beach and played in the water. We sat and pointed, we took pictures of the sites and each other, and we marveled at how far we had really come.
When it was time to head back to Manhattan, we stopped to reload our MetroCard. Somehow, the two of us couldn’t manage the automatic machine. Imagining we were in Houston, we asked the Metro attendant for help. Apparently, we didn’t stick it in the right place for it to work, but the attendant made that clear to us. Back on the “D Train” we listened to a young family just returning from the beach. Sand covered the floor where they sat. Their kids were bouncing on their parents’ laps and squealing with delight. A young man across from us listened to his ipod, like many other riders, and ignored everything around him. We read aloud the stops along the way and barely jumped up in time to exit at Bryant Street station.
Back at the hotel, we marveled many times at the adventure we took to Coney Island. We’ll probably never visit there again, but we can always say that we did it together, stretched our boundaries (or at least mine), and rode the subway through a part of New York that hardly expected David and Lisa to board the train that day. The man who sat on the plane with us to NYC was right. It was a long way to go, but now we know we could have gone even farther.
On my first Shabbat with you since returning from vacation, I look forward to hearing your stories and about your adventures. How far did you go? How far did you stretch yourself this summer?
From my family to yours, Shabbat Shalom.
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