New York Stories

I pass a Krispy Kreme “factory” on my way to work every day. When I was passing in the dark cold this morning, that fried dough smell reminded me of my first trip to New York.

New York was an amazing adventure my first morning there. We took the red eye in, getting to JFK first thing in the morning, and then jumping on the subway into downtown. Biff and I walked everywhere.

We walked to the Empire State Building, and to the Met, and through Central Park, and down to Greenwich Village, which of course we fell in love with.

Nearly everyone who moves out west from the East Coast complains that there are no diners; that and not being on the East Coast. I could divert into a whole other rant here, but I will control myself. We partook of the East Coast tradition of lunch in a diner (a lot of not great food) and cup after cup of that wonder that is diner coffee. Diner coffee is an element of its own, a thing that provides its own definition of warmth and earthiness.

Another mandate from people who learned that we were going to New York was to “get a Krispy Kreme donut, they’re amazing!” We found one near where the World Trade towers once stood.

Whatever, they’re donuts. I’m not a huge donut fan and Krispy Kreme certainly did not change me of that. (Top Pot here in Seattle though might just turn me around…)

But that smell just reminded me of cruising through the wonder that is New York City, again thrilled at having a partner with whom I can travel well with, smiling like a goon all the time. That cold, that coffee, that just thrilled to be there feeling when drinking a beer in a Village bar with my honey, that fear and desire of standing beneath the towers and wanting to spin like Timothy Speed Levitch.