Saved by an atrium

Never Done: Sat in the atrium near Bryant Park (when everything else fell through)

It looks like something that has been hanging over my head for almost three years is about to hurdle to a wrap. We finally got the closing document for my mom's estate, and our accountant suggested that if we could do everything it would take to close it by March 31, that would be a really good thing, because otherwise it will stay open for another year. "Settle an estate" is actually on my Never Done list -- although I've been slogging the hard work of it since 2008. I can hardly imagine the sense of closure I will have when it is done, and I suspect that I will enter a new phase of mourning when it is -- because I think that in some ways, having do crunch numbers and submit documents and meet with lawyers and deal with probate court and maintain Excel spreadsheets and reconcile accounts all serves to shove emotions down. I think when I am free from the bureaucracy, I might feel some deeper grief.

So on top of my regular work deadlines, I have a bunch of stuff to do now. First thing I have to do is find $273 -- the difference between my accounting and the bank's. Now, I am not a very precise numbers person, who when I balanced the checkbook and reconciled the spreadsheet, and found that after 3 years, we had a difference of $273, I was elated and proud and declared it a success. Until I had a little email correspondent with my accountant (who is wonderful and kind and whom I've known for a very long time) in which he wrote, "That will be close enough for today's conversation." To which I replied, "You're not going to let me off the $273 hook, are you?" To which he replied, "That's what we accountants are like." And then he added a smiley face emoticon.

So I spent a bunch of time doing forensic accounting, searching old emails, and all my accounting -- my spreadsheet, the bank statements, etc for records of a $273 deposit. So far I found an email from last July where I had already noted that we were off by $273, and that the previous August, we were even Steven. So then I went through the bank statements between those months, and the only thing I found might be a total red herring. One day in April 2010, when a particular check cleared, it left a balance ending in $273.00. (I hope this isn't too boring to read.) I asked Josh, who minored in mathematics, if this meant anything mathematically -- because on the one hand, it feels completely coincidental. It seems the chances are potentially high that after three years a balance might land on $273.00. On the other hand, it occurred during my 10-month period, and it there is just something about that .00 that makes me think something is relevant here. Josh's answer was very interesting. He said he thinks it does mean something worth paying attention to in my search -- not mathematically, but spiritually.

More on that later, when hopefully I can write an entire post in which I have settled and closed the estate, but I had to dash away from my accounting to go to mid-town for a therapy appointment with my brand new therapist. I was running late because I had to get off and change F trains twice (once it was re-routed to Queens, and the next time it was also re-routed to Queens.) When I got out, I had a message on my machine that she was expecting me an hour earlier. When I called her, it became clear that we had had a true misunderstanding. I was sure we had scheduled for 5, and she was sure we had scheduled for 4. Each of us remembered the same part of the conversation that led us to our separate conclusions. I was just a few blocks away, and it wasn't yet 5, but she wasn't able to see me. I had so much to do back at work, and yet there I was on the streets of Manhattan with an hour and a half before my next meeting. I started out quite crushed, but then decided to use the time to find something I had never done. I was near Bryant Park, so I decided to go ice skating there, which I have always wanted to do. So I walked over, but skating season is over -- the rink was partially disassembled. I wandered into the Center for International Photography, but I've been there before, so I wandered back out. I ended up simply noticing an atrium I had never been in, going inside, sitting down and watching the guys play speed chess.

After everything I needed to get done, and everything I hoped to get done, it felt tiny. All I did was go into an atrium. But the truth is, I needed to stop, slow down, and feel what I needed to feel, and the truth is, an atrium is a good place to do that. There were green vines everywhere, and little tables to sit at, and it was warm but not hot, and it gave me the space I needed to deal with my disappointment and frustration before heading back out into the bustle.