Unapologetically #Awesome: Our Global Village
#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @RisheGee
What a FABULOUS, AMAZING, AWESOME, insert superlative here, day!
Lucky I signed Jen’s permission slip way back in the day because this is it, children, New York is going to be pretty fabulouskies within the near future.
In a town populated with thousands, there are many who wander the island, alone. It’s a known fact that everyone runs to New York City to be alone, among the myriads. It’s a rare phenomenon, unique to this city that I now call home, and I’ve been a casualty of it myself in recent weeks. Meeting people constantly but wondering which of them I can actually call on to hang out when the going gets tough. Forging closer relationships with family and finding myself missing that casual social camaraderie that was always at my fingertips back home, and during the European adventure.
Today wasn’t supposed to be a big day, but I had some plans I anticipating a fair bit. I was meeting up with J, a brand ambassador and guerrilla marketer I’d met while we worked together at the US Open tennis; and then to perhaps head to my friend P’s cocktail party in midtown in celebration of the Jewish festival of Sukkot.
Turns out in a city full of strangers, New York has it’s own way of springing surprises on you…
J and I caught up for coffee near the Columbia University area. I have no friends at Columbia – or so I thought. I had clearly forgotten my friend A, a fellow Aussie spending a few months here doing some study with a bit of volunteering on the side. He had mentioned his work at the Jewish centre at Columbia, but that didn’t stop me from being shocked out of my mind when J and I casually bumped into him cycling a Sukkah on wheels around the Columbia campus this afternoon!
We hung out, we chilled, and then it was time for J to go. No worries, I had a drinks date with my other ex-pat Aussie, D, an Upper West Side native and former classmate. We had drinks with D’s friend, also known as the lovely lady who donated her gorgeous Ikea furniture to me the other day, and I embarked on the trainride downtown to head to P’s cocktail party.
Not so fast, little lady – says the universe. Because as I head down into the subway, I bump into the gorgeous R, a lady I have known for several years who once spent some pre-college time studying in Australia and I have since encountered here and there on most of my trips to New York City. Oh, the Jewish universe. So tiny and so bloody beautiful.
It’s not over yet, though. P’s party downtown is gorgeous – twinkling lights under the stars in Bryant Park, and I’m trying to switch on the Ms Fabulous within me by talking to strangers the way I do. All of a sudden out of the corner of my eye, a guy approaches.
Hell to the you have got to be kidding no.
It is none other than Mr J, a New Yorker I had encountered precisely one month ago, in a YOUTH HOSTEL IN SWITZERLAND. Mr J was attending an event put on by P’s organisation for the first time ever – and I just happened to be there.
J and I catch up and I meet up with his lovely Israeli friends. P introduces me to some more amazing people, and I head back to Brooklyn for drinks with my cousin S, who is in town with her husband Y for a short visit. I find an Australian beer on the list – Cooper’s, who wouldathunk it? – and start talking to the guy on my left – who informs me he is none other than P’s husbands brother. Yup. No kidding here.
Oh, little tiny Jewish New York universe. Today I love you so.
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