Today we’re saying a bittersweet goodbye to New York, New York. It’s strange, because I feel like I’ve been talking about leaving New York forever and now we’re actually doing it. Everything we need to head south is packed up and ready to go, the house is spruced up, painted, cleaned {oh, Lord, did we clean}, the cats have already been flown to the in-laws, and it’s just me and the husband, ready to hit the road.
My cadets always tell me that happiness is West Point in the rearview mirror, and back when I was a cadet, I would have agreed with them. This time, things were completely different. This time, I actually felt like I could appreciate the significance of the place and what we were doing there.
Some amazing people walked in the halls where I’ve been walking, either sitting in the classrooms or teaching behind the desk, and I know there were some amazing people sitting in my classroom. Future CEOs, generals, senators, a few potential heads of state among our exchange cadets, maybe a future president. Hopefully all of whom find a way to serve. Just to be a little piece of that is amazing. The faculty from many universities can say the same thing, but it’s just different to be a professor at West Point.
Let’s just say that for these brilliant minds, these all-state athletes, these team captains, these charismatic kids, to put their hand up and swear an oath to fight our country’s battles, knowing that they’re sacrificing the good life they could have had elsewhere, that Harvard education, that football scholarship, whatever else…it takes a special kind of crazy they call courage. I’m still amazed they let me in to be a cadet, and even more amazed that they let me back in to teach. If they let me come back and teach some more after I go get my doctorate, I’ll be turning cartwheels, but I’ll be flabbergasted, too.
Receiving my end of tour award
Leaving West Point itself isn’t the only hard part, although the friends we’ve made there have been tremendous. Leaving New York itself, the whirling hive of activity and art and cuisine and life that it is, is hard. There’s just so much everything in New York that you could never, ever be bored, and you could never, ever hope to do it all.
I did give it a good shot, though – I want to momentarily revisit my New York Bucket List. There are a lot of things I had in mind to do back in January, and it was an ambitious list. To start with, there are a number of things I didn’t knock off the list, but believe me, those are staying on my list for next time! Those are:
- The carriage ride in Central Park,
- Going to the Central Park Zoo,
- Touring Ellis Island,
- Hitting NYC Fashion Week {damn rainstorms!},
- Touring a historic home,
- Visiting the Botanical Gardens,
- Visiting the Hamptons,
- Visiting the Museum of Modern Art,
- Visiting Coney Island,
- Eating a pastry outside Tiffany’s,
- Grimaldi’s Pizzaria,
- Seeing a show at the Lincoln Center,
- Biking the Bronx River Parkway,
- Climbing the new gym at the Palisades, and
- Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum.
But we did manage to do a lot of things! Here are all the things we did manage to accomplish:
- Two more Broadway plays,
- Touring Central Park and Belvedere Castle,
- Seeing the USS Intrepid and the Enterprise Shuttle,
- Skiing,
- Visiting the Bronx Zoo,
- The New York Motorcycle Show,
- The International Auto Show,
- Wine tasting in the Finger Lakes,
- Visiting the Guggenheim and the Metropolitan Museum of Art,
- Eating a cupcake at the famous Magnolia Bakery,
- Hiking part of the Appalachian trail – several times, and
- Taking a walkabout day in SoHo.
There are zillions of other things we did that didn’t even make it on the list because we didn’t know about them yet, like visiting the Chalet of Canandaigua, going on great dates arranged by How About We for Couples, taking visiting friends on historical tours of West Point, cooking and photography, and so much more, and there are zillions more things out there yet to discover. I’m hoping we get a chance to get out there and do them.
For now, we’re headed south, so the next time I post on here {which will probably be the next Sunday Currently}, I’ll be talking to you from beautiful Virginia. I’m missing New York already, and I’m probably going to get a little bit sappy at the state line, but I’m excited for all the adventures to come!
Hope everyone’s having a lovely weekend, and talk to you soon!
