Tweet-up In New York

Brakes squeal; the train lumbers to a slow, and then a stop. I emerge as though from a daze of buttercups and leafy maples into a thick rush of people on the platform, and then am pushed and jostled up the stairs to the main concourse of Grand Central Station. Here is the starry dome above me, the crush of weekend travelers, the boom of adventurous voices, the excitement of being in one of the most exciting cities in the world, and it all makes me pause in anticipation and take a deep breath.

It is one o’clock on a Saturday afternoon in New York City. I am here to meet a dozen or so people I have never met before, but who I consider close, personal friends. Friends or followers or followees? There’s a fine line in this brave new world of social media.

My cell phone crows; Michael Balkind calls me: he wonders where to meet. This is the first voice contact I’ve had with any of my tweets. Rather exciting. He is calling from Westchester and is heading into the city with his wife; I tell him I’ll call as soon as I encounter the rest and confirm our dinner meeting place.

I head towards the place where we agreed to meet – a coffee shop on Seventh Avenue. And there they are: I recognize Claude Bouchard immediately, in spite of the fact he is not wearing a bandana or sunglasses. Claude is getting close to having 100,000 followers, and considering the fact that we both got serious about twitter around the same time, and I’m still at around 3,000, he’s got something worth knowing. Maybe people follow him because he’s just so jolly and friendly – or maybe it’s because he writes fine crime mystery novels. Joanne Chase, who drove with him from Montreal, is also immediately recognizable. She is one of those people who looks like she does in photographs: somehow a camera is able to capture her loveliness, her friendliness, her grounded solidity, her kindness. Kathy DeCosmo is there as well – Kathy is the ringmaster extraordinaire of this gathering. In addition to creating mysterious handmade roses (roses that feature faces of 50^th anniversary lovers, newly weds, babies, and even book covers and authors in their petals), she is a remarkable social media guru. She is there with her husband, Louis, perfectly described by Claude as ‘a gentleman and a scholar,’ who quickly becomes as close friends as the rest of us already are through twitter.

Su Polo joins us last; an old friend from NYC with whom I started the Weekly Saturn Poetry Series fourteen years ago. It is great to see her again and because she lives in the city, she soon becomes our midtown freelance tour guide, especially when someone required something specific: like sunglasses or a bathroom.

We head up towards Central Park, which brims with people on this warm spring afternoon. We all are already good friends, laughing and talking, as though we have known each other forever. We take pictures of the turtles in the lake, and pause to rest in the shade of a sycamore, and take a bathroom break at FAO Schwartz. The Plaza looms overhead; the summer afternoon heads towards evening.

Eventually, we head back down towards Fifth Avenue, where near Rockefeller Center we meet up with Peter Damian Bellis and his beautiful wife, Tracy. This encounter is an enormous treat – not just because he’s the author of a terrific novel – The Conjureman –  that may even win a Pulitzer, but because he and Tracy are interesting, interested, lively, fun, and they own a Bed & Breakfast in rural Pennsylvania! Everyone’s lives just seem extraordinary to me! How people end up where they are, and where they come from – their hopes and dreams – and how they met…

Well, the next stop is an Italian restaurant in the theater district. The Saturday evening crowds in Times Square are intense, but Michael Balkind and his wife, lovely Greer, meet us there, which is makes up for the long walk. Michael is another writer – the author of sports thrillers. What makes him tick? What is he really like? Where and how did he meet Greer? We all look forward to finding out. And not long afterwards Claudia and Steve Jackson, who have flown up from Florida for this Tweetup, join us as well. They own and operate Telemachus Press, which in addition to lots of other wonderful things, happens to be my marvelous, stupendous, glorious publishing house. So, we are all together at last, and with the added plus a glass of chianti, now I am happier than any of my happiness tweets could have imagined.

What a wonderful dinner – even though there are twelve of us, and the table is long and the restaurant noisy, our conversations continue to hold sway and create a wonderful social gathering. Best of all, we are celebrating Joanne’s 50th birthday – she said later that it was the best birthday she’d ever had! Afterwards, none of us want to part, so we head down to the Mug Lounge in the East Village – some by Jeep, some by van, and some by subway. The subway folks arrive first, by the way, reminding me what an excellent mode of transportation that is in Manhattan. What fun we had.

We while the night away, resting against cozy pillows and lounging on couches, with good music, good conversation, good friends who are continually getting better.

It is hard to part – I am staying with a friend in the West Village, and as I walk there along St. Mark’s Place in the middle of the night, I feel imbued by a glow that is indescribable.

There are many other people who could have been with us and would have become as strongly a part of the group as we all felt – the beauty of this adventure was that it was 100% inclusive of anyone who cared to join us. Next time, I hope more will, although for a beginning, it felt perfect.

We’re thinking about our next meetup already – should it be in Montreal, or at the Bellis’s B&B in Pennsylvania, or should we all go down to the Florida Keys?

Maybe one day everyone will meet here, in the Berkshires. It doesn’t much matter where, as long as it happens soon.