Meeting Destiny

On a beautiful fall weekend one year before the dreadful Pandemic, I flew to New York City to see my jazz icon, Pat Metheny. The last time I saw Metheny was onstage at the Bottom Line jazz club in NYC with his infamous group, PMG, during the late ‘80s.

I met my sister-friend, Steph, and we had a beautiful girl’s night out, listening to “grown folks” music, laughing, reminiscing about days of the past, and hopeful regarding days of the future.

The night ended much too soon, and the next day I prepared to return to Florida.

“Lin, we can take a train and then a bus to La Guardia Airport, instead of paying all of that money for a cab. You down? The bus also stops at Columbia’s campus.”

My response was a no-brainer. The math made sense, and we would have an opportunity to visit our beloved alma mater, where we met over three decades ago as social work graduate students.

We descended the stairs of the New York City subway station and got off at the 116th Street stop. A flood of memories hit me as we reemerged into the light. The massive steps of Low Library. The Alumni Center. The infamous Butler Library, where I studied into the wee hours many mornings, determined to get accepted into medical school after I decided that I no longer wanted to be a social worker.