from the big apple, with love

August 2, 2006
10:00 am
Rockefeller Plaza Dean & Deluca
50th & 5th, NYC

Dearest Shivaun,

Sorry.

I didn’t mean to ignore you. Somehow in between the printing and mailing of my reply, life over took and ran me over. July has been such a cruel month. I’m reeling over my uncle’s death, my father’s baby brother, by liver cancer. My cousin on my mom’s side just got married and she was walked down the aisle by her brother but closing in on the altar, by her dad, my mom’s eldest brother, who is also ailing of lung cancer. They both just got diagnosed this year. But, the sudden loss of Tito Jenny, devastated me. I’ve barely even come to grips with the fact that I might not be able to see two dear faces next year when I come home.

I’ve run away to New York to be alone. I need to be. I’ve done nothing but wallow last month that I feel like a hypocrite for all the soapbox preaching I typed unto my previous (unmailed) letter. Solace in the the gritty concrete arms of a lover and his urine perfume -- the city of my dreams. My Big Apple.

As everyone braces for the hottest day of the year, I shall commiserate with the voices inside my head over a defiantly hot cup of Felicity’s coffee and Javier’s spinach and cheddar muffin, both overpriced. I’ve already taken snapshot of Al Roker. I think I might have been seen on camera. My fifteen minutes on the Today Show: I slowly and surely am transforming into a Yank. Saw skinny Campbell Brown crossing the street. Now, where in the Rock is Matt Lauer?

I’m going to light a candle across the street at St Patrick’s then, walk three or four blocks to the 6 train station heading Uptown and the Bronx to 86th Street, and walk a couple more blocks to the Museum Mile near Central Park. I shall escape the brutal UVs of summer holed in the Guggenheim and then the Met. I am going to be in my quasi-intellectual elements and feel like I’ve come home and surely along the way, I am going to wish you, or one of my sisters, or my mom & dad are there to share the experience with-- just somebody whose hand I can grasp as I get overwhelmed by all that magnifiicent art.

I’ll be sending you a postcard from one of the museums. Please come and visit me one day. Miss you.

BTW, I’m glad Italia won, but I was rooting for a third world country, maybe Ghana cause they'd beaten the US. Nobody really cares about “soccer” in this country. I used to not care much about the sport but I tend to rebel against the inclination of whatever majority I’m amongst. Thank you for making sports poetic instead of an overrated celebration of dim-witted jocks by the hoi poloi.


Love,

cjb