Home is Where the Heart Is

And my heart, even after months away, is in NYC!

I'm back in my apartment this morning, and so ends my adventure and this blog.

I'd rate the overall experience at about a 70% success, so I'll give it a passing grade.  I have my book about the Hogan family firmly on its foundations and ready to put up the sheetrock. I've traveled to Maryland, Phoenix, North Carolina, and Africa.  I feel refreshed and ready to return to work.  I've pointed my career in a new, more suitable and exciting direction...even if I am not chosen for the BNYM position in training, I'll continue to look in this field.

I look around my apartment after having been here an hour, and it is home again.  So, when you're home is where your heart is, and you're as lucky as I am in my life, you really can go home again.

XO to readers who have followed and shared my adventure, and here's hoping we meet again soon.

Mary

The Embassy Suites

I love this city.  Anyone who knows me knows when I say that, I'm talking about New York.  I'm in the Embassy Suites downtown in Battery Park City near the World Financial Center.  As the name implies, the room is a suite that's probably bigger than my apartment.  The 5th floor walkway near my room faces the Hudson, and the activity outside is inspiring.  I've noticed this in past years...I am much more apt to exercise here because there are so many more people doing it.  In fairness to the Vineyard, it was just coming into its prime when I left, but there's something special about a walking city that makes you want to be part of it.  When I first moved to NYC 8 1/2 years ago, I wanted to get involved in the city.  I feel that again very strongly now.  It concerns me that I wasn't able to get involved with people on Martha's Vineyard, so we'll see.

There was a walk this morning on the Promenade along the Hudson for research on Liver disease.  I wonder if that's a way to get involved.  There are tons of walks in the city.  If I get involved in even 25% of them, I'd be walking all the time, and I'd be involved and meet people.  That's what I'm thinking of, anyway.

No More Waiting!

Well, I guess I didn't have to wait very long!  I now know when my next interview stage will take place (6/16), and tomorrow I go back to New York!

I rented a car today hoping to get as many last-minute photos as I could.  Unfortunately, the weather didn't cooperate (what else is new?!).  I didn't let the fact that it poured all day stop me from driving around and taking a few photos between the raindrops.  I finally get it.  On my last full day on the Vineyard, I understand why people think it's beautiful.  At this time of they year, it's gorgeous.  The rolling meadows and stone walls of West Tisbury and Chilmark remind me of Ireland.  The boats in Menemsha filled the harbor, and all the fresh seafood restaurants were open.  I'm glad I had today to say good-bye to the Island.

The Waiting Game

Garden Gate and Azaleas 

(taken with my cell phone on my walk into town this morning)

I don't have any news about my prospective new job since my phone interview with a manager in Texas last Friday.  The next step in the process was to have the "finalists" (apparently me and 2 others) meet in New York and then separately design and deliver a mock training session.  Though I have no idea what the parameters of design might be, I've done some general prep work.  I sent a thank you to the manager on Friday and a follow up to the HR rep on Monday, but nothing yet.  Now it's just a matter of waiting to hear.

It's June 4th and I leave the Vineyard on Monday, 6/8.  It's been rainy this morning, but I have hopes that it will clear.  I'm almost finished packing, and now I am waiting on my landlady to stop by and decide if she wants to buy any of the items I'm planning on donating to the local thrift shop.  It's all good stuff...I just don't want to mess with, or pay for, shipping it home.

Home!  What a strange word that is.  It will take a little getting used to being home, or will it?  No, I suspect the moment I walk in it will be home again.  After a very interesting 8 months away, back home in my little Upper West Side nest.  Excellent!

Oak Bluffs Cottages

Today was another pretty day.  Breezy and a little cool, but certainly beautiful by almost any standards.  I've finished sorting through those items I'll take back with me to New York, and those I'll either donate or sell here.

I'm trying to take photos of Martha's Vineyard now that it's so much prettier and stores are open. I took the #13 bus to Oak Bluffs to photograph the Methodist Camp cottages.

Back on 14th Street

One of the loneliest places to be is out of hearing range of something that has sound.  It must be hell to be deaf.

I was sitting out on my front lawn tonight for the first time this season.  It was 8:30 but still light enough to see.  Looking through my cottage window, I saw the television playing but couldn't hear the sound.  Immediately I was 15 and back in our front yard on 14th Street in Cottonwood.  We had an old telephone pole lying on the ground near the street, and when you sat there, you could see the drive-in.  Many, many nights I sat there and watched movies; watched the images flicker soundlessly on the screen.  So many of my schoolmates were actually inside the drive-in, laughing, loving, hearing from the speaker in the car window. Back then, I didn't feel I had the power to change things in my life.  Tonight, I stood up and walked inside leaving the lonely adirondack chair alone in the growing darkness.  I walked inside, to the light and sound, as any normal person would do.

So THIS is a Beach Community...

I've been living on Martha's Vineyard for 7 1/2 months, and today is the first day that it actually feels like a beach community.  There are tourists (some, but not lots), mopeds, power boats, sail boats, ice cream stores, and fudge.  What a transformation.  The weather is gorgeous for a change, and I spent several hours walking around Vineyard Haven photographing it.  I sat out on the dock near the Black Dog, and a guy sailing past waved to me.  Someone riding a bike past me on the way home said hello.  These are unusual events!  I suppose those who vacation on the Vineyard think everyone here is so friendly!  I'm pretty sure, though, that both people who spoke to me were visitors.  The black lab was doing his run back and forth on the beach in front of The Black Dog Tavern.  He must be the most photographed dog in New England!  You have to laugh at him, though, because he runs back and forth, then digs in the sand, then jumps in the water and starts digging there.  Now that's a creature who's happy to be alive.  :-)

My last day here will be 6/7...I leave on 6/8 unless I get a call for my next interview step with BNY Mellon.  If that comes before 6/8, I'll leave then.  My landlady is interested in buying some of the things I want to leave behind, so I think we'll be able to work something out.