A Saturday New York story
As I get ready for another trip to New York, something that's become almost a routine, my mind drifts back to a time not too long ago. Actually, it feels like a lifetime, but on a calendar it was only seven years ago.
I was about to turn 39 and I'd been a fervent promoter of a novel by Gregory Maguire called Wicked since the late '90s. If you were anywhere in my sphere back then, you'd have heard me hollering about that novel. I still holler about it if you catch me in a nostalgic moment.
Wicked is an achievement in American fiction and it remains an amazing read. If you've never read it, forget your preconceptions and pick up a copy. You'll never look at history the same way.
Anyhow, seven years in the past any person became my cherished novel right into a Broadway musical that changed into then suffering to maintain the doorways open. I changed into beyond intrigued by using the idea of it and I hadn't been in New York in nearly 15 years. So to commemorate my thirty ninth, my brilliant buddy Kevin Smith and I flew to New York for a weekend. We'd see the show, hold out along with his buddy Janine and spend a whole day jogging around New York.
Despite the juggernaut Wicked have become finally, Kevin and I noticed it with its original solid in a half empty Gershwin Theater. We sat feet away inside the 5th row of the orchestra while Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel sang this:
I don't forget sitting in that theater at some point of that range and getting choked up due to the fact that tune became approximately me and Kevin. It turned into greater than me and Kevin of path. It became about all people I've ever acknowledged but it stopped with Kevin Smith.
Kevin Smith is a expensive, expensive friend. His is quality and most stable friendship I've ever fashioned in my lifestyles. When we have been in New York that weekend we have been additionally buddies in St. Pete. Back in St. Pete, Kevin taught me extra than I suppose he will ever realize. Among many other things, he taught me how to stay a life with out disgrace and he taught me how to snort. Kevin's willingness to percentage a cup of espresso and sparkling cinnamon rolls taught me how to be a neighbor. His mythical rice and beans taught me the way to be welcome visitor.
Through our numerous highs and lows he is constantly been there to convey me lower back to earth when I'm flying too excessive and he is usually been around to catch me after I crash and burn. I'd in no way be in the position I am nowadays without his regular challenges and encouragement. More than all of us else, Kevin ready me for the matters I actually have in the front of me now.
In the remaining seven years, New York's emerge as what I like to name my home far from home faraway from home and Kevin's moved directly to greener pastures in New Orleans. But whenever I discover myself on Madison Avenue I locate myself thinking about Kevin Smith and that weekend way back when and I thank him for the role he is played in my existence.
Kevin, now not to be a cliche, however due to the fact I recognise you, I had been modified for the better and for right.