--I HAVE BEEN QUIETLY STANDING IN THE SHADE

…Walked Highline Park, which I didn’t know existed.  It’s a mile long, fairly narrow strip of land, stretching a mile, southward through Chelsea and ending at the Meat Packing District.  What’s really cool about it, that the park trails an old railroad that was suspended above the city three stories high.

It’s definitely a site to see. 

I’d say 85 percent of the crowd there was either German, French, Dutch, Swedish or Italian.  Felt like being inside the Tower of Babel, and I mean that in the best way.

 …Saw the Freedom Towers, 104 stories high, and the other two still under construction.

The two pools--encapsulating the areas where the Twin Towers were destroyed during 9/11—are finished and fairly dazzling, with sheer marble cliffs that then fall into on more cliffs, giving one the sense of infinity.  Along the upper bannisters are the names of all those who lost their life in the tower that day.

The actual memorial opens late next month.

 …Had dinner last night in Chelsea with a great guy, fellow writer, Bud Smith, who did this review of ,  “The Dark Sunshine” at Good Reads:

http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/923645830

 …Here are some things I like for the rest of the week in the world’s greatest city:

“Hey listen to me, when someone brings you happiness, you’ve got to do everything you can to keep it around.”  Charlie Volk

-“We’re all just walking each other home.”  Ram Dass

 -“In every person who comes near you look for what is good and strong; honor that; try to imitate it, and your faults will drop off like dead leaves when their time comes.”  John Ruskin

-“Writing poetry should be a journey, and journeys are full of changed plans and self-doubt and beauty and sometimes a blister or two.”  Ray Dungy

-“I am out with lanterns, looking for myself.”  Emily Dickinson

-“Take a lover who looks at you like you are magic.”  Frida Kahlo

-“The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation, but your thoughts about it.  Be aware of the thoughts you are thinking.”  Eckhart Tolle

  

-“You can have anything you want -- if you want it badly enough. You can be anything you want to be, do anything you set out to accomplish if you hold to that desire with singleness of purpose.”  Abraham Lincoln