My trip to New York City was, I think, a mistake. Obligation and expectation trips are almost always a mistake. I didn’t have time right now for a real trip to see Robin, there is just too much going on in my life and I am struggling to keep up with all of it. I felt guilty that I hadn’t seen Robin in several months, and Emma was very graciously urging me to come down to Brooklyn.

So I did, and the Fates punished me all day long. I had plans to take an 8:10 train out of Albany and a 3:40 train out of Penn Station. I had read that the rail service in and out of New York is a nightmare right now, and this was not fake news, it is quite true.

My train – usually a lovely two-and-a-half hour ride down the Hudson River, broke down twice, and when we got to Yonkers, we had to get out (the pa system didn’t work, so my car only figured this out at the last minute and scrambled to get on the rescue train. We ended up in Grand Central Terminal, not  Penn Station. The station was jammed with tens of thousands of people, most of them foreign tourists scrambling to figure out where they were and how to get there.

The subways to Brooklyn were all delayed and I had a large bag of toys and things. I found a taxi line outside and waited through a series of belligerent arguments between drivers who didn’t like the destinations and refused to take people – much screaming and cursing but eventually got a cab (I was about to call Uber) and we headed out into a monumental traffic jam around the Hudson River Parkway and then the Brooklyn Bridge.

The cab driver was a nice and competent man, but he had an awful story to tell, the kind I hear ever time  I come to New York. He came 25 years ago and put all of his family’s money into a taxi medallion – close to a million dollars. It is not worthless and he may have to declare bankruptcy (this, he says,  because of Uber) and find new work.

His landlord has just evicted him from the Brooklyn apartment building where he and his wife and their children have lived for two decades – the building is being sold to a developer, his old neighborhood, which he loved, gentrifying. He has no idea where he can go to live, he can’t afford to go anywhere in the city, and he is traumatized by the war on refugees and immigrants.

It is absolutely true what my first newspaper boss told me: there is really only one story in the world, the rich screw the poor.

His story was piercing, it was of dreams broken, it  broke my heart to hear it. We invite people like him to our country, exploit them in every possible way,  and them tell them to get out, they are no longer welcome

It was a hot and sticky day in New York City and we got lost looking for Emma’s apartment building, I got there nearly 90 minutes later. I saw Robin briefly, we went out to lunch – we had a very good time, and then I took the subway to Penn Station, which was so crowded with travelers I couldn’t get to my gate. The train departure had been moved up 25 minutes and I almost missed it, and then it was delayed another 30 minutes.

I had never seen Penn Station so crowded or confused, it was pretty close to mayhem, I stood in line while man with a flowing beard and sandals screamed at me that he was not guilty of shooting at the President, and would never admit to it. As my fellow passengers in line edged away, he demanded to know if I believed in  his innocence. I said I did, and he thundered off.

The good spots. Emma has been supervising some of Sports Illustrated’s coverage of the NFL flap and we had a good talk about race, culture, politics and sports in America. She had lots of good inside information and perspective (I have no interest in football, but I was fascinated by the cultural and racial elements of the conflict.)

I think Robin vaguely knew me, and gave me lots of smiles and looks. I didn’t want to hold her, sit seemed forced.

He doesn’t really know and I don’t want to be grabbing her if it would make her uncomfortable.  We just needed more time for that. It is not something that can be rushed or forced.

She loved my hat and tried for a long time to wear it. It was good to see her, she is evolving into and curious and very genial person. Smart, too. Emma is a wonderful mother, and I loved seeing her as well.

I spent about two hours with them and I knew I had to get back, the whole experience felt chaotic. The truth is, I am phobic about staying too long when I visit Robin. Jay and Emma are busy and tired, and I don’t want to be hanging around tying everybody down.

My train was, of course, delayed again at Penn Station, and was nearly overrun by hundreds of people trying to get to Albany and North. The lines were so long I didn’t dare to get real food, so I grabbed a hot pretzel and wolfed it down for dinner. I kept thinking of Maria’s  descriptions of the train stations in Indian, it felt pretty close to that.

The train ride had its own troubles, but enough.  Some people had to sit on the floor near the doorways.

I was just setting into Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks when my headphones stopped working. I figure out something – lint or dust had clogged the headphone port and it wouldn’t play. The man next to me snored like diesel engine. I asked Maria to bring a pin and she did, and I cleaned it out, but too late for the ride.

When we finally got to Albany – the trip had begun about 15 hours earlier, the quiet station there was overwhelmed with people stranded by late or cancelled t rains. Every train station I saw Sunday was an absolute nightmare. Infrastructure instead of football?

I was lucky to get home. She had to park a long ways away, a rare occurrence at that station. Seeing Maria waiting for me in the station waiting room was a very beautiful sight. She brought fresh raspberries and strawberries from the Farmer’s Market. We missed one another, as we always do. The world feels off balance sometimes without her near me.

We often do things alone or with other people, but there is really nothing quite like doing things with her.

So it was great to see Emma and Robin, I got a few sweet photos of her.  (My new art lens came through),  sometimes you just have to listen to the voices within, not without. Guilt trips never work. Real trips take time and thought.

The truth is, one day visits to Brooklyn just don’t work.

Next time, I’ll go with Maria, and we will find a place to stay in Brooklyn and spent a day or two helping out, spending more time with Robin, and hitting some museums.

But it will be a good while before that happens. Robin is evolving into a warm and special human being.

Glad to be home and soon to be sleeping.