Avery and Kris­ten are homesick

Home from Scot­land! Lots to tell about that, but first I must unbur­den myself and say that both Avery and I have had attacks of home­sick­ness these last few days. For Avery it was the last of three rid­ing lessons dur­ing our hol­i­day up north. The best pos­si­ble les­son, at Lass­wad (because once a “lass” “wad­ed” across the swollen riv­er to save the oth­er side of the vil­lage!) Sta­bles, but the asso­ci­a­tions with her old life in New York, rid­ing real­ly well three times a week, were too strong and the poor lit­tle thing broke down. “I miss it, I miss it…” As for me, in the space of two days I got no few­er than four emails from Tribeca events: a kick­off din­ner for the Tribeca Film Fes­ti­val, ear­ly meet­ings for Taste of Tribeca, the Spring Auc­tion at PS 234, and a nice email with a fun­ny video made by sev­er­al of Avery’s old cohorts in fourth grade. The sight of scruffy adorable Clark, Zohar, Spencer and Miles jump­ing about with a huge T‑bone steak (don’t ask) in Cen­tral Park was just too much.

Added to that, with John in Tokyo and Avery at Anna’s house for the night, I decid­ed to go all nos­tal­gic and vis­it Nobu Lon­don for the first time. It was just exact­ly like our old haunt in Tribeca, Next Door Nobu. Toro with caviar, yel­low­tail tuna with jalapeno and cilantro, spicy tuna roll, all washed down with a fab­u­lous Mat­suhisa mar­ti­ni, com­plete with float­ing slices of baby cucum­ber. I felt so sad! Work­ing my way through the lux­u­ri­ous and oh-so-famil­iar meal, look­ing up at the sushi chef, a twin of his com­pa­tri­ot on Hud­son Street in my old stomp­ing ground. It just is a les­son that no mat­ter how hap­py you are with your new life, there comes a time when you are forced to think about what you’ve left behind. Because of course in New York we’re not strangers at Nobu, and in New York Avery is rid­ing with kids who were at her birth­day par­ty, not peo­ple she’s nev­er seen before and will nev­er see again. It does­n’t mean it isn’t love­ly to live here, and that I do not val­ue all the excite­ment, the new­ness, the hap­pi­ness of our life here. But it’s very hard to remem­ber our old friends, famil­iar places, the famil­iar shape of a life you did­n’t have to build, it was just THERE.

Things will seem sun­nier when John gets back on Sat­ur­day evening. I think we’ll be just about on the same sched­ule as he, com­ing back from Sheffield and the jump­ing cham­pi­onships. Then yet anoth­er new sta­ble on Sun­day, in our nev­er-end­ing search for the right barn, the right instruc­tor, the right pony. This time it’s to be Wim­ble­don Vil­lage Sta­bles, as far out as you can get on the dis­trict line under­ground. Wish us luck. We miss you all.