We did most of the usual tourist activities. We rode the subway to the World Trade site and that was a sobering experience. Although I never personally viewed the Towers, much like the site of the Murrah building in Oklahoma City, a sense of hushed holiness was everywhere. This is sacred ground and no signs need to be posted to point it out. The energy shift in the hundreds of other tourist was palpable.

We went to Battery Park and after seeing the five hour waiting line for the water taxi, decided to wave to the leading lady of the harbor, Lady Liberty in all her green glory, from the shore. It was an interesting perspective of her I’d never seen before.

We walked north from the harbor area, through the financial district, down Wall Street and turned north to find China Town, Little Italy and Soho, which is so named because it is an area south of Houston Street. We walked and walked and then walked farther. The distance didn’t register with me because I was engrossed in the moment, the many faces coming toward me, the air rushing over me in the wind tunnel of lower Manhattan, the shops, the gum on the sidewalk, the sprawling smell of ethnic foods, their aromas all blending together in a lip smacking crescendo, being prepared in tiny little restaurant kitchens across the web of the city. We even stumbled upon the filming of a Burger King commercial. When you see poor Burger King running down the streets of NYC with two policemen on his tail, just remember, I was there! We even found out one can get to Yankee Stadium via Queens…it just takes a lot longer. We had a pretty big laugh over that, but we made it to the Bronx and found a “Clemens” t-shirt for my son-in-law with daylight to spare.

(photo courtesy geocities.com)

The highlight of the trip, if there can be only one, was seeing “Wicked” on Broadway. The show is based on the book, Wicked, the Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. The show opens with Glinda the Good in her bubble over Munchkin Land, declaring that the Wicked Witch of the West is, indeed, dead. All the Munchkins cheer but one, who asks Glinda if it is true that the dead witch was actually her friend. That’s the shift in perspective, the twist, the hook that changes the way we saw everything.

In the interest of time and space, the story goes back in time to the school years of both Glinda and Elphaba, nicknamed Elphie. Elphie becomes the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda becomes Glinda the Good. Elphie is green. You’ll have to see the show to find out how that happens, but I was struck by the idea that there was more than one green leading lady in NYC. Yes, that’s right, Liberty and Elphaba, green and cast in the role of a lifetime. And though they be separated by the years between 1886 and 1939, the message of freedom, possibility and transformation are simply profound mirrors of the possibility that exists for us all always.

Elpheba, meet Lady Liberty…she upstaged you by 53 years, but you share more than your greenness. You share your vision of hope and courage, your beauty and wisdom. It was nice to meet you both in New York. I am green with envy!

Have either of you ever taken the subway to Yankee Stadium via Queens?

Elphaba and Oz

You’re out of the woods
You’re out of the dark
You’re out of the night
Step into the sun, step into the light
Keep straight ahead
For the most glorious place
On the Face of the Earth
Or the sky

Hold onto your breath
Hold onto your heart
Hold onto your hope
March up to the gate
And bid it open

Lady Liberty and America

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”