All posts by Helen C

Travels

Here Is New York

“On any person who desires such queer prizes, New York will bestow the gift of loneliness and the gift of privacy.” – E.B. White, “Here Is New York” (1948)

I’ve just spent the weekend in New York City. Dave had other commitments so I went down with a friend and had roughly two days of intense city atmosphere. It reminded me a little of who I am and where I’ve been.

Once upon a time, I was a happy loner. Today after two marriages of some duration, I am in the near constant company of my spouse. Although I love and cherish him, in some ways I’ve feared I had lost the ability to be on my own.

I can hardly claim to have been completely on my own this weekend, much of the trip was with a very capable former New Yorker, but I did have a taste of how I used to be and I’m relieved that I do still have the inner resources required to get by.

Philosophy

The end of the world as we know it

It has been the end of the world as we know it nearly my whole life.

The economic news has been unsettling the past few weeks. I don’t know what’s going to happen and I worry about the future as much as anyone.

When I was a kid my parents did a pretty good job of filtering out the worst of the evening news so I lived through the Vietnam war era without it registering much, but I remember the rest of the 70s as one long decade of inflation, oil crisis and anxiety, capped by the taking of American hostages in Iran.

I lived in Europe in the 80s and people I worked with were actively worried that Reagan was going to do something to get us all blown up. During a particularly tense conflict with Libya, my friends and I had a pact to meet at a certain restaurant for one last good spaghetti carbonara if it appeared the end was nigh.

The 90s started out rocky. The large company I worked for at the start of the decade was gone by 1996 and although I landed on my feet, my confidence in the corporate life was irrevocably shaken.

By 2002 the “safe” corporation I worked for was also floundering and as one of a handful of telecommuters, I lost that job. They are struggling to this day so I’m pretty sure their problems are more related to general mismanagement than anything I was doing. Now that I’ve been a small business owner for a few years, I wonder how any large corporation can do it. Well, they need access to credit, I guess, and that’s why we are currently reaching the end of the world.

I have a Post-It note on the wall next to my desk that reads “Don’t Panic!” — a quote from the book “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams. I glance at it throughout the day and remind myself to stay calm and that whatever happens next, the sun will still shine and we will find our way through it all. I have a lot of faith that we will grow stronger as a community as a result of these times.