Scenes from New York: A Travel Diary

Monday, 2 August

I have been assured that there will be Morning Prayer in Good Shepherd Chapel at 9:00.

There is, but only because I've shown up with my Daily Office Book in my overfilled briefcase and say it by myself. I almost forget to turn east for the creed, but no one is there to see it but God, who already knows I'm a bit scatter-brained.

****

At home I have a stained-glass Saint Anselm presiding over my work. At General Seminary I have John Henry Hobart, founder of the seminary. He would be glad that I said Morning Prayer, but he would wonder where everyone else was.

A bit of Episcopal Church trivia I know for some reason: he hated that portrait.

*****

By noon I've made some decent progress, so I ask the cheerful woman at the front desk whether there's anywhere close, good, and cheap for lunch. "Well, there's La Bergamote. It's close and good, though not especially cheap."

The Croque Monsieur is excellent. It is not especially cheap.

*****

This, I believe, is the point at which I note that if Scotland had just been a little quicker to relax travel restrictions on incoming Americans, I'd probably be in Edinburgh now. I wouldn't be any more productive, and I'd probably have John Knox or some equally grumpy Reformation figure staring at me instead of the delightful Bishop Hobart, but I could get a pretty decent sandwich, crisps, and a drink for £3.

*****

My hotel has a very inviting outdoor space, and the weather is extremely pleasant, so I've spent a great deal of time out there, watching the dogs go by (I would estimate that 60% of the population of Chelsea is guys walking their dogs), reading frivolous things, and wondering why it is that mosquitos find me so irresistible.

Tuesday, 3 August

I'm heading out for the morning and a woman is waiting for the elevator too. When it arrives I open the door for her and ask whether she's comfortable sharing the elevator with me (it's pretty small). She is, and we have a pleasant conversation on the short ride down to the lobby about these small courtesies, the joys of seeing people's faces again, and the present uncertainties.

*****

Solitary Morning Prayer again. I consider doing a bit of improvising on Kedron ("New every morning is the love our wakening and uprising prove") as a sort of postlude but decide that I'm unlikely to be able to do so even to my own satisfaction, and I didn't come all this way to noodle incompetently in C minor when I need to chronicle the fall of the angels and the redemption of humanity by no later than a week from tomorrow.

*****

A crew of twenty or so people enter the library. It emerges that they will be filming a scene there. After they leave, the library staff are annoyed that no one had told them about this. They don't know when the filming will be done, and it will mean closing the library for a day or two. I quietly hope that it won't be early next week, though I've also been having second thoughts about whether my ten-day stay in New York was too ambitious. We shall see.

*****

By the end of the second day I'm on pace to finish chapter 5 on Friday. Whether this pace is actually sustainable is a good question, though there definitely is something effective about going somewhere just to write. The next challenge is to figure out how to drag myself to the gym mid-afternoon when the writing is done. Redeem the time!

****

Back to La Bergamote for dinner. Since I had had a big slice of sausage and pepperoni pizza for lunch (delivered to the front entrance of the seminary so that I didn't have to check out and check back in), I temperately ordered the Summer Salade: "Roasted Corn, Grilled Asparagus, Strawberries, Mint Purée & Ricotta Salata." It made me question the gastronomic wisdom of the distinguished food critic Homer Simpson.


*****

Wednesday, 4 August, 8:00 am

It's another lovely day, but I'm having breakfast inside this morning, because my legs are absolutely covered with mosquito bites and I'm not interested in cultivating more itching. I will shortly be undertaking the daunting 45-second commute to General and continuing my explanation of how St Paul is totally, totally, talking to the angels as well when he asks the Corinthians "What do you have that you did not receive?"

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