Week 52
January 2, 2017
The Final Trip
Train In/Out: Fairfield, CT
Miles walked: 6.3
Camera: Olympus OM-D E-M1 with m.Zuiko 12-40mm PRO
Nothing says Magic Mondays like a cold rain! LOL It was the final trip to the city for the project. I decided it would be nice to be on the water and kind of go around Manhattan, so I made my way to the East River Ferry and took that all the way down to Wall Street. For $4 bucks, you go under the Williamsburg, Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridge and end up by South Street Seaport. From there, I ventured along the water to Battery Park and walked up to Brookfield Place and The Occulus. The weather was awful so not a lot of photos to share.
Onward.
The last train in.
This was the very first image on the 52 Magic Mondays blog. First train in. :) Clearly I was feeling much more artsy a year ago.
Wanted to get my last slice of Corp-Rat pizza! This place ended up being my "favorite" although I use the term loosely. I had many great slices of pizza during my 52 weeks. I think I just really like that they never fixed the "corporat" sign and their Sicilian pizza has great sauce.
If you look carefully, above Serena's face you can see a Walgreen's "W" and above that you can see the Times Square Ball. It's not all that spectacular in person, certainly not something I'm willing to stand around in the cold wearing a diaper for 12 hours to see fall.
Remnants of New Year's Eve confetti! I liked this shot a lot.
You can see the pole and the 2017 sign. The ball is tucked behind the "We Do Power" sign. How lame.
And now it's time to shop for an umbrella. My husband joined me on this last trip and he had checked the weather in the morning, said it was supposed to clear up around 11am. #accuweatherfail It went from a sprinkle to full on rain within the first hour. So now we both own $5 NYC umbrellas.
Ta da!
Never did get a psychic reading during my 52 weeks.
One last peek at my Magic Window!
And now I'm ready to reveal the best secret location to charge your Tesla...
One hour Amazon delivery? OMG I had no idea this existed.
Snuck in a last reflection selfie!
The only piece of pie I've ever had in NYC. A tad sweet, they drizzled honey on the plate, but damn worth the calories. We were pretty wet and cold at this point and had about 30 minutes to kill until the ferry. This did the trick! My husband had ice cream. I don't judge. LOL
We chatted with the muscian while we waited for the ferry. I had never seen the heater gadget he had setup on his propane tank. Loved the little girl who was cautious as she warmed her hands.
She was alone on the ferry, nice camera in hand. She would go out on the deck to take photos as we went along. Had to wonder what her journey was...just a day trip? Or a 52 week project? You just never know what other people are up to. :)
The weather was dismal so I did not get any decent photos on the ferry. Here we are making our way along the shore towards Battery Park. They use this area for the helicopter tours.
The building ahead is the Governor's Island Ferry Waiting Room. Another place I never did make it to was Governor's Island. It's more of a weekend place for locals.
The merry-go-round in Battery Park.
It was a good day to visit the Unknown Soldier monument since I could get reflections in the sidewalk. Couldn't decide which one was my favorite so I'm including a few.
The skating rink outside of Brookfield Place.
Inside Brookfield Place. They have these lanterns up during the holidays. I remember visiting in the summer, expecting to see them, but they were not up. They change colors.
One of my favorite photos of the year was taken here back when it was still under construction. This tunnel connects Brookfield Place to The Occulus and Fulton Station.
Here is my picture from April. It's funny because I didn't even try to reproduce where I was standing today versus April, yet the picture from today and this one are pretty darn similar! What a coincidence. ;)
Inside The Occulus. They had special lighting setup for the holidays. These changed colors, too. No more committing to a color with decorative lighting! Don't like the blue...wait 20 seconds and it will be something else.
A purse I really need to own.
And that's a wrap on the most transformational year of my life. I will be talking about the project and all that I learned this week at the women's networking group, Authentic Connections, that I co-facilitate in Shelton, CT. I've been making some notes as to what I want to say. It's difficult to sum up a project like this. So much of it was slow and steady personal growth stuff. Probably boring to most people. I did try to share a lot of myself in the blog, partially because I enjoy hearing about other people's growth journeys so maybe one person out there will find something of value in mine, and because I didn't want to forget some of the big (and small) things that happened throughout the year.
If I had to sum up what I gained, and lost, this year I would list the following...
What I Gained
Confidence
Forgiveness
Perspective
Patience
Self Love
What I Experienced
Unconditional Love (the really big kind, like what people talk about when they have Near Death Experiences, pretty amazing)
That meditation for me involves walking with a camera.
Truly knowing myself/higher-self as the creator of my entire life.
That there is much more to life than meets the eye.
What I Lost
Fear
Attachment
I'm sure there's more I could list, those are the first things that come to mind. I plan to write some kind of book about this journey, again, more to help me process the year and integrate more of who I truly am after this work. But maybe it will help someone else.
Thanks to everyone who looked at one photo or all of them, read one sentence or all of them. We are all connected. Doesn't always look, feel or seem that way sometimes, especially on our darkest of days, but we are all one. I appreciate all of you, your kind words, your praise, your criticism, your encouraging words.
Some people ask me, "so what's next?". And to that I will say that right now, I'm not sure. I'm giving myself a bit of time to get used to not going to New York on Mondays. Of course there's a feeling of loss there and I think I will need to grieve a bit that this part of my journey is over. I'm setting up a home photography studio for Mirrorless Reflections! Something that I started a year ago but apparently I needed to wander NYC for 52 weeks before I felt ready to really dive in to studio work including portraits and product photography. I want to write the 52 Magic Mondays book. And I'm thinking about 12 Windy Wednesdays in Chicago as a photography project...
What I do know is that what is next will reveal itself to me, I just need to watch for the signs and synchronicities. I have a couple of more 52 Magic Mondays pages to post - one wasn't really a Magic Monday but I did something, without fear, that I could never have done a year ago. And I also got a private tour of Google NYC...just need to get my act together and post those photos.
Until the next adventure...
xo,
MC
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