On Track. (And Not.)

An abridged version.

New York City, New York – The humid air is heavy like my lids.

In fairness, it’s nearly midnight and it took us more than five hours to get out of Manhattan. Next, we take Berlin.

We spent the morning casually strolling down the High Line, where exhausted train tracks stitch together a series of gardens in the elevated park. It provides a new vantage to the city: vistas framed by tall grasses sashaying in the whisper of a breeze.

The sun, however, continued to bear down, casting long shadows over artworks dotting the path.

A hard turn across lower Manhattan, where we passed brunching actor, Josh Charles, and onto the Brooklyn Bridge – once the world’s largest suspension bridge. Today, it was filled with runners raising money for juvenile diabetes.

Festival fare.

Up through Chinatown, which has spread into Little Italy. We had, of course, picked the hottest fall day on record to amble through a street festival – the 91st annual Feast of San Gennaro – on Mulberry Street, which was awash in colour and the aromas of onions, peppers and sausages snapping on the grill. Other vendors had cannoli the size of my forearm.

I couldn’t even count the steps I sewed into the city's streets today. Thankfully, my pedometer did: more than 35-thousand.

Back up Broadway to gather our bags, and on to Grand Central Station to catch our shuttle once we grabbed a fun Cambodian sandwich at Num Pang.

Alas, two hours into our trip, we had gone just three blocks, surrounded by blinking lights and blaring horns – it was as if Studio 54 had taken to Manhattan’s streets. The tunnel was blocked, siphoning traffic toward the 57th street bridge. Several panicked passengers leapt off, fearful of missing their planes.

They immediately discovered subways also weren't running.

Complicating matters further, our driver decided to get into a battle of wills with an SUV. Their tires were locked in a stalemate, his studded rims hopelessly wound into hers. We wouldn’t be going anywhere until a new shuttle arrived. Finally, five hours after our initial departure: John F. Kennedy International Airport.

It’s the one time I’ve ever been happy to be told I have a multiple-hour flight delay.

Still, we won't get home until 5:30 a.m.

The workday looms far closer than I’d prefer.

No Words.

Times, Squared.

The times, they are a-changin'.

New York City, New York – The colours shimmer, even with eyes shuttered. They blink in spasms, blending with guttural hurls from below.

Falling asleep, the light show is reminiscent of shelling over Normandy.

At all hours, angry New Yorkers carry out conversations over car-horn blasts, but it’s the jackhammers that finally split my sleep with finality. It’s good to have an urban rooster. We have been staying at the Night Hotel Times Square – close enough to tan by the light of giant television screens, but far enough to still be able to get in the front door.

I feel so alive, despite not normally liking cities.

Flat light.

Filled by a fancy breakfast on the patio at Sarabeth’s overlooking Central Park, we dive back into the crowd, which flows like a school of fish: always moving and stuck together until one gets confused. A young lady in black nylons, micro shorts and a derby hat flashes a smile and hands us a paper fan emblazoned with graphics announcing the musical, Chicago. It will be useful in the 32-degree heat.

A roar rises from the other end of the square. Like a bowl of colourful, plump jujubes, it seems sports fans don very different costumes. It's Saturday morning and a set for ESPN’s College GameDay has attracted raucous football fans who stab signs into the air and chant on demand for the cameras.

A wave of cheers, and another commercial break.

We opted to line up for discount Broadway tickets as a kaleidoscope of light cascaded over the streets. While we had no plan for what to see, the fan was prescient. Half-price tickets: sixth row at the Ambassador Theater.

Just another benefit of attending one of the longest-running shows in Broadway history.

State of Mind.

Same spot, different shot.

New York City, New York – The balloon pops – the gunshots – are silent now.

But, they still reflect off the concrete like dull hammers in my mind.

It has been more than 20 years since I last visited the Empire State Building. Twenty years since an aggrieved Palestinian teacher stood beside me in a tan trench coat – short, dark hairs bristling at the nape of his neck – and opened fire into the crowd on the 86th floor, leaving a young Danish musician doubled over, fatally shot.

Others fell around him, seriously wounded.

He then put a bullet into his own head as I lay below: the slow melt of a crimson puddle at my feet in those seconds-that-felt-like-minutes has stained my memory – likely forever. Time had stopped.

For some, literally.

Twenty years to return to this place, where life was a fleeting flash for some, fortune for others. Where falling, rising and falling again held the key to future stories and the ability to make memories anew. The key to return, even after 20 years.

Same spot, then.

Where one photo is all I had to distance me from nightmares. Or clutch me to its bosom. Rest in peace, Christoffer Burmeister, who did not have that opportunity.

I had, presciently, become nauseous moments before the shooting began. The feeling returned as I took a tentative first step onto the windy deck, unsure if memory lurked around the corner, now filled by unknowing visitors.

It did, but was gentle with me.

The blood is now scrubbed away, but the memory permanent. Oddly, the spot the shooter fell still appears to be traced by an abundance of sand. Even 20 years later, the deck seems to haunt me. But I am free.

Add to this day the hollow shells of melted fire trucks and ambulances stuck between twisted steel rising like gnarled fingers at the 9/11 memorial and museum, and a visit to Ellis Island, and it has been a really heavy day.

But one to remember.

In a positive light.

Plead the Fifth.

In-spired.

New York City, NY – Morning was born early.

Mourning will come later.

The day’s grey may have been caused by clouds, or by concrete buildings reflected in the tinted sunglasses of security detail perched on every corner. Despite furtive glances, officers’ bird-like neck gestures don’t appear to make them inconspicuous.

The United Nations is in session and roads are gridlocked by long lines of NYPD cars, bikes and tow trucks framing similar convoys of blacked-out luxury vehicles. An African General in dress whites stands in contrast, a gleam of medals bursting from his ample chest.

Much like when we were in Washington D.C., Turkish security has decided to physically attack protestors. Somehow, impunity in the U.S.A.

Isn't that what travel is about?

Given heightened security, sights like the Empire State Building and Statue of Liberty are apparently closed to visitors, so we wandered through Times Square, Grace’s eyes lighting up like the screens themselves. Her excitement as a first-time visitor was as easy to read.

Tracing a journey through the Art Deco line art of Rockefeller Center, we visited Saks Fifth Avenue and wound our way around Central Park. The Strawberry Fields memorial for John Lennon continues to carry with it a pall, despite a never-ending line of visitors jumping onto it for photographs.

The 30-degree heat grows hazy, yet still serves as a magnet to activity as runners blend into those sporting cardboard boxes from Waffles and Dinges sitting on park benches hyphenating the park. Bicycle touts compete for business with horse carriages as pigeons flock into buckets of feed placed before some nonplussed mares.

Around the corner, carnival music pumps from the 145-year-old carousel.

Suddenly, the day has some colour.