Noel in New York City in the Rain

My friend, Noel, moved to Florida about twenty years ago. We have been friends since we were both twelve years old so I felt her move bitterly. We have seen each other, of course, throughout the years, but it was always with our spouses. She and her husband are up here on LI for two weeks and came to dinner last Sunday. On the spur of the moment, I asked her if she would like to take the Hampton Jitney into NYC with me on Tuesday. She hadn’t been to the city in years and she said yes.
It poured the entire day. It rained so hard my umbrella barely shielded me and it was so constant my rubberized rain slicker leaked at the seams. Often I could barely see for the water on my glasses. We shopped a bit and met some really rude salespeople and some really nice ones. We had lunch in a hotel restaurant that overlooks Central Park and visited the Museum of Modern Design at Columbus Circle where one piece of “art” turned out to be a pile of a thousand or more mouse skeletons!
I had the best day. I was just so comfortable, so in my element, as it were. There were no pretenses, no urgency, no need for approval, no need to be entertaining. We were both quite naturally on the same page. We ordered the same things at lunch, we giggled and grimaced at the same “art” pieces, and we helped each other see the biggest puddles to avoid.
The day before I had worked for hours on my website for Help Healing Happen. I couldn’t seem to find the words to be persuasive, convey the urgency, or insure that people would continue to read, nonetheless donate. I went to bed that night exhausted and frustrated.
Today I am going to revisit that project and I’m going to treat it like a day in the city in the rain with an old friend. I am going to assume that the site visitor and I are on the same spiritual page and that if everything is not as perfect as it could be, we can maneuver around the puddles and find our way to our common goal. Maybe if I quit trying so hard, trying too hard, a spirit of companionship rooted in common values will take over the way it did yesterday in the city, in the rain, with my dear friend, Noel.