New York May June 2010

Straight from snowy Sunshine into the arms of a frozen New York, supposedly avoiding the Sydney autumn and winter but shockingly cold!

We arrived and Trinity and India went straight to Blue school. We had found a wonderful (Australian) babysitter for our entire stay - the sweet Sophie. The school term had only three and half weeks until the US spring break. We took advantage of one of the school excursions and went to the Poets house in Battery Park, lower Manhattan. 50,000 books of poetry to read and photo copy free of charge, open to the public. There was a kids room with questions to trigger poem writing for kids. Trinity wrote her first poem:

We dance, we sing, we play all day
Then the bell rings for a school day
And then what happens?
And then what happens?
We have a dream and what is in that dream?
A sloth eating her lunch at school
Then we wake up and all is quiet
We think our dream is really a flight

Trinity Rock, 28 May 2010

The girls took flights of fancy and roamed Soho and Tribeca in princess outfits. The art in the streets always amazes me. Such a vibrant city with the street sometimes being the best canvas for artists trying to break through.

Thankfully the city warmed up pretty quickly. In fact it was pretty extreme as weather changes go. The next week we hit 30 Celsius most days and so we journeyed to water fountains in local parks to cool off. This seems to be the NYC way - minimal public pools, and lots of water fountains in most parks.

David and I took a couple of breaks from the girls to enjoy the delights of New York. We went to an off Broadway show 'Our town' which was wonderful and heart wrenching. We also got to see the reprisal of 'Hair' which was surprisingly great. Again an incredibly moving show, with David reliving learning drums to the soundtrack with the drummer onstage after the show.

Because of David's crazy travel schedule the girls and I got to hang out together and go site seeing. We visited Chelsea markets for ice cream then the Highline for a green diversion.We also found a grooving carousel that had just opened up in the same area, on the Hudson river near the west village. We ate dinner on the Frying pan, an old boat that had been salvaged and strapped together with two others, and a perfect summer evening for a beer watching the sunset.

The girls took the time to write some more poems.

The Highline
Tell me what thoughts?
A train on the Highline
Grass amongst the threads
A bee hums
The wind blows a scarf
The railing like keys of a piano
Dancing a song on the rails
Trinity Rock 30 May 2010

Mum
I want to go over the waves
to our house, to get home
and bring her into the sea
and climb the rocks with her

India Rock 30 May 2010

Because our annual leadership retreat was shortly, I was hard at work preparing during the week. Weekends were a different matter. The girls and I hitched a ride with Ashley and family, Blue school staff member out to Storm King. It is an enormous sculpture park in up state New York. We drove along the Hudson valley for an hour, looking for bears, and deer on the way with no success. It was an end of year event for a Blue School sub group called paintings and picnics. The temperature was around 35 Celsius as we walked around the grassy park and then trammed around the grounds pasts amazing sculptures and installations.

Because of the end of the school year, there were school art shows and weird and wonderful events, including an end of year play (left, Trinity as a tiger), as well birthday parties being squeezed in before everybody breaks for holidays.

My favourite was the 'happening' that involved the students and parents making a spider web in a class room and then role playing flies (parents) and spiders (kids). The Blue school is also moving over the spring break to a new building and the children took time to imagine what the new school should be like (see above right for the suggested design in progress).

We also got the chance to catch up with my old friends Marni and Jess, with a rooftop BBQ on our last weekend. Trinity found a firm friend in Leo from Germany (second from the bottom on slippery dip, with India at the very top, with photo credit to Marni Hine). Marni is about to move to Australia late in the year so one of my NYC friends will no longer be there! Luckily she is planning to spend some time in Bondi.

Here is India grooving on the carousel.