Rainey Blogs on Some Days

On Wednesday, I sat down next to a woman in the Starbucks at 78 th and Lexington facing the window looking out. The Manhattan Starbucks are all so crowded that you have to sit next to someone. I took the one seat that was left at the window, grateful to get a seat because earlier in the week I had spent one lunch period squatting down leaning against a wall in another Starbucks, waiting for a seat while my feet fell asleep and tingled like crazy. The woman was feverishly journaling in a notebook, exactly the thing I had also intended to do during my lunch hour there too. I journal on a black steno pad that I carry around with me most of the time. I was wearing UPS browns, taking a break from training a new helper on how to deliver packages. Since it is New York, no one seemed to think it strange that a UPS guy was journaling on his steno pad. I can't remember ever seeing a man journaling anywhere , let alone a man wearing a UPS uniform as I was. But everyone just pretty much leav...

What can you write when the first thing you see out of your window on a Monday morning is an expanse of seas surrounded by an orange hue breaking through the dawn darkness? When your hear the water’s rhythmic waves wash up on the shore and slide back down into the ocean, drowning out all but the sound of birds flying nearby? My last memory before going to bed last night was seeing the Caribbean moon light up the night sky and ocean in the distance, and now I see the Caribbean sun peeking trough the clouds to announce the day. This is where we are for our 25th anniversary, an inclusio to this first quarter century that began on another little island halfway around the world called Okinawa and ends on another little island called Jamaica. I cannot help but think about our first year of marriage when I hear the sound of the ocean. After arriving in Jamaica and picking up our luggage, my first impression of Jamaica is that they are not a purpose-driven people. They have not read the Seve...