Mia it’s difficult to believe you’re not here anymore. I’m drinking a coffee as I write this – something you loved, just as both you and I loved New York City. Like so many young adventurous women before us and no doubt after us, you were endlessly inspired by – by what? It’s hard to put a finger on it. It’s the promise and pull, the layers of history breathing out of the streets, the mix of cultures colliding and growing through each other, the scruffy, complex beauty, the endless things to do, to see, to enthuse and talk about, the plans to make, the coffee to drink, the experiences to share. You embraced it all.
It wasn’t very long ago I met you, in November 2007 when I moved here. Since then we shared precious times walking, talking, laughing. Listening to Adam play his guitar in the upstairs of the Living Room on Ludlow street. Getting a coffee from Abraço on 7th Street and then another one from Ninth Street Expresso (thank you for letting me know there’s one in Chelsea Market which lures me in now on my walk to work…every time I have a coffee there will remind me of you), then sitting in a wintery sunshine in the community garden across the road, chatting about international affairs and affairs of the heart. Eating risottos on Bleeker Street, then four of us girls dancing to Arabic music in the middle of a club-full of gay men where your friend was belly dancing. Lying on a rug with a picnic at the Earth Day Festival in Central Park. Planning to check out an exhibition at the New Museum but deciding just to ramble instead, browsing in Lower East Side shops. In one you tried on a green silk top. It looked fabulous of course, you loved beautiful things and always looked beautiful in them.
I will carry all these memories and more around the city with me. Your strength is an inspiration Mia.
From Annabel xxxxx
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