New York - today was a good day

For a few years now I've thought that any day that I can see the Manhattan skyline is a good day. Today was a good day.

I have had a love/hate relationship with New York City for several years. As a kid in the 70s I was just scared of the place. It was dirty and violent from what I could tell on TV. As an adult I didn't enjoy doing business there mostly because I encountered so much of the stereotypical New York abrasiveness. It made for some really unpleasant dealings. But I really loved going there with the band and playing the CMJ music festival and being able to play on air at WNET. The people I worked with on musical things were fantastic and it's in that world that the city came alive for me. I'll never forget lugging a trumpet and accordion and a suitcase through the subways to get to from Queens to midtown to play, or dinner with the band in Brooklyn, or getting to ground zero in October of 2001.

Fortunately the bad memories are several years removed now and fading and there are many more good times to remember. 

I only saw the city in passing through JFK on my way to Istanbul. On my return I will fly through Paris and not return to New York. And just a week after that it's time to leave the US, perhaps for a very long time. So today was farewell to New York. One day I hope to visit again.