Segue

Well, that was a short-lived project: learning the taijiquan sword form and writing about the learning. I got through a few weeks and realized it was not going to be possible to devote the time needed while simultaneously preparing to leave the country to go to Ukraine. I had to keep eyes on the prize, which gave me cause to reaffirm for the thousandth time over the last fourteen months what the prize is. It is, simply, to devote the rest of my life to helping Ukraine rebuild and join the European Union and NATO. Just that. Everything else had to give way, except for my dear friend’s 70th birthday which was June 30. I think I told a few folks that I’d have been gone already were it not for that milestone, but honestly, that last month before the birthday party was so hectic with dispensing with the remainder of my worldly goods that I probably could not have left the country any sooner.

So I’m writing this two and a half weeks into my farewell tour of the USA. I left Colorado on July 1 and my first stop was eastern South Dakota where I visited with an aunt and cousins. Then I bade adieu to friends in Florida and South Carolina. After that, I knocked some things off the bucket list by visiting the Holocaust Museum, the Museum of African American History and Culture, and the Museum of the American Indian, all in Washington DC, all deeply moving. I checked off another bucket list item when I visited the 9/11 Memorial in New York City.

I’ve been carrying around a rock, a nice heft, fits in my palm. It was given to me back in February by a little Ukrainian refugee boy, five years old, named Nazar. He and his mom had left Ukraine in the early months of the war, necessarily leaving dad behind in Kyiv. Nazar and his mom eventually settled in my town and I learned of his plight from a friend who taught kindergarten at the school he was attending, knowing no English. Since I was learning Ukrainian, it seemed a natural fit for Nazar and me to start working with each other. It was our second or third meeting when he proudly announced that he had a gift for me: a rock from the yard of his new home. I was touched, of course. I adore rocks; they’re very meaningful to me. Over the ensuing months, I decided to write “Nazar’s rock” on the rock in Ukrainian and photograph it in various locales on my farewell tour of the US and western Europe. I hope to deliver the rock to Nazar’s dad. If, as his mom indicated a few weeks ago might be a possibility, dad has joined the army, I might need some help tracking him down. Why am I doing this? Multiple reasons: helping a little boy connect with his dad in a war zone, helping keep the plight of Ukraine in people’s awareness by micro-blogging about the rock’s journey, helping me add form and substance to an as yet amorphous undertaking. I’m not yet connected with an NGO doing work in Ukraine. Until that comes to pass, delivering #NazarsRock to his dad in Ukraine does very nicely as a mission. You can follow me on Mastodon: @djembro@universeodon.com

So after visiting the 9/11 Memorial, I brought Nazar’s rock to Central Park, because I really needed the comfort of Nature. A good friend told me about the North Woods, which I’m chagrined to say I never knew about during the seven years I lived on the upper east side. It was enchanting.

The next day I went to my old neighborhood around 74th Street between First and York in Manhattan. The building still stands. The street is considerably spruced up from what it was 35 years ago and the foundation for a new condominium high-rise is being poured on the corner at York. None of the merchants I knew on First or York remain.

And then came a rainy Sunday. I tried to change my reservation for the ferry to the Statue of Liberty to the next day, but that was impossible and I toyed with the idea of not showing up and just buying another ticket for Monday, forecast to be sunny, but my curiosity got the better of me. What would a visit to the statue be like in pouring rain? Well, as you’ll see in my Mastodon post for that day (https://universeodon.com/@djembro/110726301892503605), the rain worked perfectly for my reflections on the statue, what liberty around the world confronts today and how nonetheless Lady Liberty remains a enduring symbol of hope.

My last day, Monday, was spent walking to and along the High Line, a mile-long linear park installed on top of a repurposed elevated train track; spending an hour and a half in the Museum of Modern Art, and then meeting a friend at Lincoln Center. The friend meetup was crazy serendipitous because we met in Costa Rica of all places. When I learned she lived in NYC, I offered that I’d be stopping there some time in July, but then I went and totally forgot to put a reminder in my itinerary to reach out to her. I received her out-of-the-blue email on my last day in town, enough time for a lovely chat over iced tea in a nice cafe.

So now here I am, on Tuesday, in pretty Mystic, CT, having visited my mom in a memory care center and said farewell after a fashion. She doesn’t know who I am so I pretended to be a colleague of my long-dead father and we had a remarkably touching conversation.

And that’s my segue from trying to write about learning the taijiquan sword form and its wider implications to now writing about everything I’m learning as I wend my way to Ukraine. Thanks for your company.