How a Queens Kid turns 39.
Walking the perimeter of Manhattan and how fishing pushed me to vegetarianism.
This elder millennial is aging. I can see it in the gray hairs I pluck from my eyebrows, my most beloved feature for the amount of compliments they elicit. I can feel it in the brain fog the morning after one—JUST ONE—extra cold Botanist martini with a twist. I am physically fitter than I was in my twenties, but despite being able to set our bills to automatic payment, I am more stressed (qué la que hay, saving for college).
Nevertheless, I am not one to be pessimistic for the sake of being relatable. Misery loves company, sure, but I don’t want to swim in that sludge all day. I have a good life, and I am not going to act like I don’t. With my vieja-induced soapboxing out of the way, here’s how I celebrated my birthday:
The card my loving husband graces me with on my birthday
Sauntering Alone
There is an endurance hike that Shorewalkers puts on every May called The Great Saunter.® It is a 32-mile walk around the perimeter of Manhattan, done by 2,500 people each year. Last week, a few days before my birthday, I decided to do it alone. I have never sauntered before (at least not in this sense), but I wanted to do something physically challenging that didn’t involve my usual pastime of running. No music, no phone except to occasionally check Google Maps and take a work call, and no company. I took the ferry from Astoria to 34th Street and walked and walked and walked.
Arriving at the Shorakapok Preserve in Inwood Hill Park was such a delight. I hadn't researched the route in depth so much of what I saw was brand new to me. Many city dwellers don't often explore beyond their routes to school, home, work. We’re limited by time and resources and parents too busy to take us, so I had never visited this part of Manhattan. Some highlights from my walk:
Flags being raised at the United Nations, each with its own officer
An emergency organ transfer truck racing down the Upper East Side
The overjoyed tail wagging of a blonde pittie-mix from animal control being walked by a volunteer
The delicious smells on Broadway between 175 and 177th
Climbing the Polo Ground steps (aka Bushman Steps)
What didn’t surprise me, but saddened me, the amount of food swamps all over Manhattan, one of the wealthiest places on earth. The other thing that we all know, but is stark to see in one long walk, is the limited canopy cover in these communities. We need to continue demanding better.
Unhooked
All I wanted for my birthday this year was to go fishing. I had never gone and more so, I wanted to feel what it was like to catch and kill my own food. I wanted to see how I felt after the very intentional, powerful act of taking another being’s life. If I was okay with it, the next step was going to be a hunting trip with friends in PA who are homesteaders and hunt to curb the deer population and feed their families.
Funnily enough, I had been flirting with vegetarianism for months before this trip. A combination of a new role working in food justice, still coming to grips with my father’s death in 2022 from Type-2 diabetes and Alicia Kennedy’s, No Meat Required sent me down an investigative rabbit hole of our food system. It is a simple fact, meat production is unsustainable, greatly contributing to increases in greenhouse gas emissions. But try telling people who are hungry that, or who are farmers whose families have been herding sheep for centuries, or who only take what they need when they go ice-fishing. I don’t represent those groups. I have an abundance of choice and access when it comes to my food and animal proteins do not have to be on my menu. But I had never fished and here we were pulling up striped bass. I am not going to lie; it was a thrill but less because of the promise of food and more because I was with friends on the water. The first mate on the boat, a fellow Nuyorican, shared his stories with me about fishing. His father taught him and this is how they connected with one another and with the earth, never taking more than they needed and could share with other family. He spoke about fishing Red Snapper in Puerto Rico and taking his eldest child hunting and the smell that comes from disemboweling a deer. Burnt latex if you must know. I enjoyed his passion and was not about to be the boat killjoy.
Aging, killing, filleting, sharing. The day brought about a complicated response. I was happy to have had the experience and immediately bought a food preserver—something I had been wanting to do for a while—and vacuum-sealed the fillets. Over the course of the weekend, I emptied my freezer, saving one fillet for my husband. When he makes the fish, I may have a bite, just to honor what I killed, I guess, but I won’t be scheduling that hunting trip anytime soon.
Meat was not a staple in my house growing up. At the time, it was expensive—pernils saved for entertaining, fish for Good Friday. I know I will struggle with the idea of saying no to offered food when I visit my aunt or mother; it’s just not what we do. When I brought the fish over to my mom, I told her I was thinking about reducing or removing animal proteins entirely from my diet. I expected to be made fun of. “I think that’s good,” she said. “We only had meat de vez en cuando when after getting paid for doing laundry, Mami, would buy the four of us chicken wings and we’d eat them with white rice.” De vez en cuando—she knows just what to say.
Happy belated birthday! That saunter around manhattan sounds incredible. I’m originally from hell’s kitchen (nuyorican también) and have lived all over nyc, but have never fully experienced it without distraction.
“De vez en cuando” is precisely it. Happy birthday! I join you at 39 next month.