Posts tagged #Life in New York

In The Rearview Mirror 2020 pt. 3

Flashback Friday

The Light at the End of the Tunnel

Third Quarter of 2020 and now everything seemed so much easier. We started to see a glimpse of what the new normal would be. We knew we were moving in August, and started packing already in June. I went back to work, and that was weird. Weird, but it also gave me a glimpse into how our life would be once we moved. Calm, and away from the busy city. Life in the countryside also meant we were now close to various mountains. The Catskills, and also the Mount Washington State Forest, and tons and tons of other parks and forests. By July the Covid case count had also dropped, a lot. Both in the city and elsewhere in the state.

July

I went back to work July 1st, and that was an interesting experience. Interesting because I had not gone to work since March 16th. More than 3 months. I started walking across Manhattan every day again, and there were definitely less people out, but possibly more drugs? I say that because I started seeing the same two people shooting up in broad daylight as I walked by back from work. I got my gateway test, the covid19 test, on my birthday. In order to get back to work everyone had to take a Covid test within 14 days. In this way all potential asymptomatic people would get caught. Since then I have done 3 more random tests. All negative. Columbia University must have such a large pool of data now, which is great. We had some social distanced BBQ on the roof terrace again with our friend, the last few ones before we would leave the city. I, believe it or not, can still miss our life in the city. Well, mostly pre-pandemic life. Who would have thought that? I get a longing for the city when I see the beautiful sunset photos from the roof top terrace. At the end of July I went across GW bridge for the last time. In the evening we had a social distanced picnic to celebrate our friend who defended his PhD thesis. And just like that July was over.

August

August 1st we loaded the kitty cats in the car and drove north. It felt weird and scary at the same time. Also this was the first time we hired people to move our stuff. After moving cross country one too many times we were tired of doing all that work ourselves. So we found ourselves in a mostly empty car, plus the kitty cats. And that if anything felt very weird. We adjusted fast to life on the country side. Things are the same here as in the city when it comes to masks of course, but there are fewer people. And of course fewer people where we are because we don’t really have any neighbors. The back side is that we have to drive everywhere, to the store etc. But we quickly started to adjust to that too. Here we go to the grocery store every second week, about the same as in the city during the pandemic. We don’t have to drive to get into nature though, which is one of the major reasons we wanted to make the move so early. Here we walk out the door and walk out on the trails. That is magical. We biked to Millbrook one day, and another day we went to Wassaic and biked the Harlem Valley Rail Trail to Millerton and back. We invested in a BBQ the first day we went to the store after moving, and one of our move in gifts was a baking steel and a wooden and steel pizza peel. At the end of August we also went on a hike to Minnewaska State Park.

September

If March felt like an eternity it was nothing like September, but in a good way. We had landed at our new location, figured out where to get groceries and I had finished a whole month of long commute (140 miles per day). On top of this the number of Covid cases had been so low for so long by now, and we felt we had some more freedom. Masks were always, and are always a part of our life now of course, but the places we choose to visit and what we choose to do is always driven by the case count. In September we also took a short vacation. All in all September was filled with good food, drinks and hikes. We went to Wassaic Lantern Inn, a place we’ve been to several times by now. It’s easy to go to places now when social distancing is less of a problem. We also went to countless antique stores, there are so many around here. We went to the Catskills to hike, did a rail trail bike excursion from Hopewell Junction to Poughkeepsie and back. We booked tickets to go to Storm King, which is this fantastic place where art and landscaping merges. We went to McEnroe Farm which is a farmstand but they also have food for take out and nice local cider. We also managed to go to the beach in Conneticut and got some fresh oyster. At the end of the month we went to Poughkeepsie for a social distanced drink.

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In the rearview mirror 2019:

In The Rearview Mirror 2019 pt. 4

In The Rearview Mirror 2019 pt. 3

In The Rearview Mirror 2019 pt. 2

In The Rearview Mirror 2019 pt. 1

In The Rearview Mirror 2020 pt. 2

På Svenska

Flashback Friday

This too Shall Pass

Second Quarter of 2020 started off with a low. Calls for healthcare workers and refrigerator trucks piling up. Big city life is a bit hard when everyone are struggling around you. Life is put on hold. We were lucky enough to stay healthy, and be able to work remotely and still get paid. Many others in our neighborhood were probably not as lucky. The second quarter was the time when we started donating to various organizations. Mostly black owned but also to the public radio. If there was ever a time when public radio was important, 2020 was the year. 2020 when a virus, a pandemic entered the world, something that had been predicted to happen sooner rather than later. The most frustrating part is that the Obama administration had practiced for this, monthly, during several years. They handed over the pandemic response playbook (the Playbook for Early Response to High-Consequence Emerging Infectious Disease Threats and Biological Incidents) to the Trump administration when the transition happened. No one knows what happened to it, but we all sure as hell know it wasn’t opened, EVER.

April

April came with a slap in the face. The emergency call for health care workers because too many people came to the hospitals at once. There wasn’t enough capacity, not enough capacity of healthcare workers, space, and space for the dead. The realization of that horrible thought came when we took a walk to Randall’s Island and saw all the refrigerator trucks on stand by to be sent to various hospitals around the city. A morgue on wheels, how bizarre that we in this day and age can face such a travesty from a tiny little virus. We continued to stay inside and did the best of the situation. We ordered nice beers, and food and I started (like many others) my own little sourdough adventure. We took weekly walks to various parks, mostly Central Park and Riverside Park. It was a bit eerie to meet the spring in this way. The parks were mostly empty, now that so few tourist are around. Most people did their best to keep 6 feet apart, and in reality it was mostly around the reservoir in Central Park that this became hard. We also got to spend some time on our friends/neighbors roof terrace. But even with all this I think the end of April and early May was a low point for both of us.

May

End of April early May, the lowest point of this pandemic for us. It was the empty city, the troubled neighborhood, the sadness of all lives lost, the graduation celebration that never happened for so many students. The death numbers we were fed with day in and day out, the radio had started to play a relaxation/meditation minute every day around noon by now. It was needed, for everyone, to take a deep breath. But May was also the month it started to get hot, hot enough to enjoy long bike rides through a mostly empty NYC. We biked to the cloisters, and past the little red lighthouse that I’ve wanted to see for so long. And all that time at home meant more baking, and cleaning and a lot of good quality beers from local breweries that delivered for free.

June

George Floyd was murdered on May 25th, and this was like the final straw to get people riled up. I don’t know if it would have gotten as much attention had the pandemic not been a fact, but the pandemic was real and this was just another brick in the wall of black lives being taken from this earth by us white people. We, like many other New Yorker’s debated weather or not to participate in the protests, and eventually decided that we should, with masks of course. We were not seeing anyone else anyway, and hardly left our apartment as it was. It felt good, good to be participating in something so large. In the midst of all this we got access to a garden plot, and that was one of our best moments during June. Red Rooster is owned by Marcus Samuelsson who grew up in Sweden, and so we ordered a midsummer basket on Juneteenth and celebrated both holidays in Central Park. There were more protest all around the US, and the world, for Black Lives. We went for another bike ride, this time a very long one that took us south on Manhattan to the very point where life in NYC as we see it today started. Then we headed over to Brooklyn and finally came home 25 miles later. June was an intense month, and it was also the month we finalized our move to Millbrook. A move that would happen already in August. We definitely took advantage of that excitement all of June and July, before the move was a reality.

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In the rearview mirror 2018:

Flashback Friday, Rearview Mirror, Life in New York

In The Rearview Mirror 2018 pt. 4

Flashback Friday, Rearview Mirror, Life in New York

In The Rearview Mirror 2018 pt. 3

Flashback Friday, Rearview Mirror, Life in New York

In The Rearview Mirror 2018 pt. 2

Flashback Friday, Rearview Mirror, Life in New York

Flashback Friday, Rearview Mirror

In The Rearview Mirror 2018 pt. 1

Flashback Friday, Rearview Mirror

Where the fairies are dancing

På Svenska

The fairies are dancing in the field

My mom always used to say: -The fairies are dancing in the field, back then when we were driving towards the summer house and passed the fields with the large pines surrounding them. There and then we used to see them late in the evening and during those endless summer nights. Here I see them while I’m drinking a small cup of coffee in the morning. When I get to the car to drive to work I can see them across the road. On my days off I can walk over there and see them up close, and greet the morning.

Here I am able to watch as nature prepares itself for yet another day. It’s as if you have the front row seat to a show that’s just about to start. I see a deer staring at me before he runs towards the forest. Right there he stops, he hesitates and he look to the right as if he is listening. There are wild animals around here, coyotes, black bears and bobcats. I just saw some scat, from a coyote or maybe the bobcat, I am pretty sure I saw some bear scat too, fresh. Is that what the deer is hesitating about? Within a couple of seconds he is long gone into the forest and I am left alone hesitating myself. I always do that when animals seem frightened by something else, other than me.

A mama black bear has been spotted right here with two cubs, right where my favorite creek is. I still go there, and early in the morning I always think that now, right now I’m gonna run in to her. But it never happens and it probably never will. But you still walk around ready for just about everything and anything.

By the bridge I see two beavers, and so many birds, birds I don’t know the name of yet. The first time we went here we saw a great blue heron, two beavers, a muskrat, a large and probably pretty old snapping turtle, and later that week we saw a snake swimming in the creek. I have never seen a snake swim in a creek before.

It’s something magical about this spot, I don’t know exactly what makes it so special. Maybe the fact that you never know what you will see here? Either way, this is the reason we moved here. The ability to walk out the front door and into this. Into the wild, and never know what will appear around the corner.