It rained last night but it might as well have not as it is just as humid today as it has been for the past few weeks. I’ve been introduced to a wonderful Australian, who is a well known writer and has lived in New York for over 20 years now. She arrived here when she was 46 with her husband and children and she said she spent the first year crying all the time, she was so homesick. She’s now made arrangements for me to join an Australian women’s club that she co-founded with another woman – I had to write my bio to send to the other members as they are apparently very careful about whom they involve in these monthly dinners. It seems it’s a real assortment of women and I’m looking forward to having a group whom I can connect with regularly and get to know in the time ahead.
Work has been very busy – already I’ve led a strategy day with my staff and presented our draft strategic plan for the next 3 years to the rest of the staff during a two day planning session. I’ve been involved in countless meetings and the founder of Women’s World Banking has had me to dinner and given me her own ideas on priorities. Everything here is fast paced and expectations are high.
I’m lucky that I will have the opportunity to attend some great conferences in the time ahead including a United Nations women’s conference in Canada in October, representing our President who will be in Europe, and a Girls and Education conference in New York next month. I’ve also been doing a lot of work in my role as Board Member, Women’s Funding Network — and I have to speak at an online forum tomorrow to some of the managers and directors at Eileen Fisher across the US tomorrow about programs that support women and leadership.
My new writer friend also introduced me to her second cousin – he is more like a nephew as he is in his 30s, together with his partner/fiance as they are soon to be married it seems. They are both in finance and some of their work is linked to mine and so, after I went to the Farmers’ Market in Union Square on Saturday morning, we spent time talking about finance systems in New York and then they took me walking around SoHo and to TriBeca – we had a lovely time.
In the afternoon I had a lovely long meandering walk with Josh for several hours until the rain brought us back to his place. We were tired so we ordered Indian food and read the weekend papers and watched the news – everything seems pretty grim here at the moment, starting with the economy and the US dollar!
Today I’m supposed to be going to an anti-gravity yoga class where we fly through the air – should be fun!
It is Sunday here and it’s hard not to feel sad for the end of the weekend. I always get excited on Friday because there is a wonderful sense of anticipation for all the ‘hanging out’ time I can enjoy, both with Josh and alone. I went over to Josh’s place late Friday afternoon and after we ate, we meandered through Washington Park where a man was playing a grand piano that he’d wheeled in. It was like a contemporary Monet painting — a wash of yellow flowers behind the piano player and a purple building providing further framing, with dots of people sitting on benches all around listening and talking and playing with their children. To the side, the delicious spray of the fountain where little kids and big kids were squealing with delight as they skipped and skidded through the water. The trees around the park were lit with that special late afternoon light and truly it felt like the magic hour had arrived.