Traveling through times

Dad and I had a seriously unexpected adventure in New York City. We had gone in with nothing much planned and not much time to do it—a decent combination. There are billions of things to do in NYC and we kind of wanted to do them all, or, failing that, not to do any of them. One of the things I mentioned as we were kicking around ideas for the day was a visit past the new New York Times building which I had seen in stages as it was being built. I thought it might be interesting to see the building, and I thought, from something I had read at the construction site a couple of years ago, that there might be a gallery of cool photographs taken over the course of the project. For some reason, when we got out of Penn Station with not even 3 hours to play around, we took one look at the grey and chilly day and headed for the NYT.

It is a lovely building. We found it and went in and took pictures in the typical tourist way. And as we were being tourists, real live employees, just going about their work day, walked in and out of the gates. I realized that I am somewhat star-struck about those who work there, and I wondered which of these men and women in slacks and shirtsleeves had written words that I had read, or would write—maybe this afternoon—words that would be circulated around the world and end up in the New Zealand Herald’s Sunday World news section. As I admired these strangers, Dad mentioned that he had read in his alumni magazine recently that his first love was an editor at the Times. “See if she’s really here, Dad!” I said.

“I don’t even know her last name,” he answered.

I, who have some experience helping people (ok, mostly Naomi) do things they don’t want to do, suggested that he could just try the last name he knew for her. Shockingly, that tactic worked (who knew it worked better for your parents than your children?). He talked to the guard, and came over in about 20 seconds, too fast, I figured, to have gotten real information.

“I have her extension number,” he said in disbelief (I had figured wrong). “Now what do I do?”

“You dial it, Dad,” I told him.

“What if she answers?”

I laughed, “You tell her who you are!”

He looked anxious, but again, unlike Naomi, just picked up the phone and dialed. Instantly he began to talk—so fast I wasn’t sure whether he was leaving a message or not. “Hello Jody, this is Jim Garvey from 100 years ago and believe it or not, I’m in the lobby downstairs from you.” [a pause] “Ok, then, you’re sure?” [another quick pause] “Ok.” And then he put down the phone and turned to the guard. “She says it’s on the 3^rd floor,” he told the security guard, who was already making out Visitor badges for us. Dad looked at me wide eyed, and we walked through the entry gates like we belonged there.

The elevator door opened onto a corridor empty except for the pretty woman standing to meet us. She and Dad smiled at each other and hugged, and I stood wondering what to do with the woman who was my father’s first serious girlfriend (Dear Miss Manners…). Shake her hand? Plus she was an editor at the finest newspaper in the world. Perhaps a kind of a curtsy would be best? But no, she’s incredibly warm, and I was hugging her before I had gotten all the way through the mix of options in my head. Dad was clearly running through all of the possibilities in his head, too. What does one say to a woman you haven’t seen in 40 years. “How have things been?” seems a little casual; “Tell me everything that’s happened since we last met,” seems a little insincere.

She was completely cool about it, as though ex-boyfriends show up all the time to say hello. She showed us her desk and gave us a tour of the new building. She talked about the move from the old building and the culture change, she wondered what Dad did and where I was from. And there was something supremely surreal about it, this polite gentle woman with this gracious tall man walking through the most famous newsroom in the world. They knew nothing about one another and had to go slowly, as though they were total strangers, as they pieced together stories about where they were now and where they had been for the last four decades. We sat down in the new café at the top of the building and drank coffee as they dealt out small pieces of their lives to one another. Tell me about all your siblings? How many children do you have? How long did you live in Holland? How did you come to work at the Times?

And then it was time to go and catch our train. We stood at the elevator, and we were back again to those pesky etiquette questions. What do you say to someone you haven’t seen for 40 years after you’ve suddenly reconnected and now are leaving? Hope to see you again soon? Let’s stay in better touch? Hope the next 40 are really good for you too? So we stood awkwardly in the corridor, trying to get as much of the story out as we could, and then we said goodbye.

On the sidewalk afterwards, we were both a little dazed. Each of us was replaying time and imagining different lives we could have led. What would it have been like if they had stayed together? Who would I be? And what if they had never met? Or if they had dated for another two years before breaking up (I was born in those two years). And we were transported back to a time in life which is behind us both—a time when you first decide who to make your life with, to have children with. The time when you decide, is this love The Love? I married my college love; Dad didn’t speak to his for 40 years. The weight of years and of choices piled behind us is inescapable even on my 37 year-old shoulders; it must be heavier still on Dad’s.

We walked back to Penn Station in companionable silence, each of us running through the tiny lines of choices that lead to big rivers of difference in our lives. We had had conversations over the course of the last two days about the things we fret about and about why those things are often so unworthy of our energy because they come to nothing in the end. Seeing Jody was a reminder that sometimes it works in the other direction, too. Sometimes choices have an unexpected heft. Dad hugged me goodbye before his train, and I watched him get caught up in the crush of people heading for New Jersey Transit on track 13. And now I’m on a train, too, headed north, back to a place I used to live and love, a university that changed my life, and friends whom I thought I might grow old with. My life speeds up like the leafless trees blurring outside my window. I would never go back and unpick the threads of my life, and I don’t think Dad would either. As he told Jody with a gentle joy, “Life has been very good to me,” and so it has. But the narrative of our lives is not clear as we live it forwards, and I saw today that it’s not clear as we look back on it and try to explain it, either. Words and memories layer together and blur, and all we really have is this moment, cold hands on a keyboard, glossy lake mirroring winter-bare trees.

(pictures today obvious except for Dad walking on the property of Teddy Roosevelt's house during a magical day yesterday)