the capabilities of moonstone

"What sort of stone is that?"  His knees had been irritatingly close to mine, his seat perpendicular to the one where I sat, book in hand, headphones in.  Through Yo La Tengo, I heard him speak to me.

I told him I thought it was moonstone, though I'm not really sure.  I've gotten compliments on this ring before, a large silver ring on the middle finger of my right hand.  During a trip to the Wellfleet flea market during the first summer I went to Cape Cod with Kevin and his family, I mentioned I'd been on the hunt for a new ring to Kevin and twenty minutes later and twenty dollars poorer, the ring was mine.  I've worn it pretty much every day since.  A few years ago, I decided maybe I needed to change "my look" up a bit and rotate through some other jewelry.  Kevin noticed I wasn't wearing the ring he'd given me within an hour and back on my finger it went.  To be honest, I felt strange not wearing it.  Even though he gave me a much shinier ring a year ago, I still love to wear the oversized one on my right hand.

But I digress; back to this morning.  The gentleman complimented my ring and then asked what capabilities and benefits the moonstone had.  I am not up on my crystals so I laughed ignorantly and told him I've been feeling good since I've been wearing it but that I didn't know the specifics.  "Men don't wear moonstone, right?" was his next question.  I shrugged in response.

Of course, I had to look up the properties of moonstone when I got to my desk.  I clicked on the first search result and found myself on www.crystalvaults.com.

Legendary as the Traveler's Stone, Moonstone is especially protective of those who travel by night or upon the water when the moon is shining. Frequent travelers should keep one in the glove compartment... Moonstone opens the heart to nurturing qualities as well as assisting in the acceptance of love. It is an excellent crystal for first or new love.

Go figure.

The man on the train pulled an amethyst out of his pocket and when I told him it was my birthstone, he thought for a moment and said, "Aquarius?"  The amethyst is good for the upper chakras, apparently, and he finds that he brings him calm.  We agreed that it was probably New York City that made us so stressed out all the time.  "The city is full of positive ions, but negative ions are the ones we need," he told me.  That's why he lives near the beach.  More relaxing, better energy, cleaner air.  I agreed that I've always felt more calm when I'm close to bodies of water.  It took me years to define the peace that permeates me when I wake up close to the sea.  My running routes always took me along the East River, and I always stop to stretch at the lake in Prospect Park.  Something about the water makes me still.

He asked if I was from New York originally and when I told him I came from Ireland, he looked at me thoughtfully.  "You should go to Coney Island, you really should.  It would be cold but it's a wonderful place."

When the train arrived at Jay Street, he wished me a good day and stepped onto the platform.  I've been thinking about Coney Island ever since.

then and now.

Eight years ago, I spent ten days backpacking-without-a-backpack in Europe.  I sent juicy newsy emails to a list of family and friends every few days.  I am very glad to have those, and the replies, in the archives.  It reminds me of a simpler time, before social media became the filter through which we experience life.

I started in Amsterdam, where I stayed in a Christian women's hostel and met a group of four girls from York.  I visited museums and strolled the canals during the day, and ventured out at night with my new friends to gawk at the red light district and drink warm Heineken.  I almost fainted in public after spending too long watching from the sidelines at a coffee shop.  I visited the Anne Frank Huis and was very moved, most of all at the display of international editions of her diary.  I ate at a vegetarian restaurant one night and felt really self-righteous, even then.  I remember the moment of realization that serving fries in a paper cone with a dollop of mayo made more sense to me than bloody ketchup ever would.

The train to Belgium was fast and clean.  Antwerp was underwhelming, but I chalked it up to the miserable weather.  I feigned great interest in Belgian beers when my hostel-mate, Anders, asked me to find a bar called the Kulminator with him.  He was from Idaho and I remember finding each other on Myspace before we said our goodbyes.  He is probably the first guy I ever drank a beer with who grew a beard for fun.  We went to another bar called The Eleventh Commandment, decorated almost completely with religious statues.  The bar was an altar and the booths were old pews.  I shopped in H&M and ate a waffle every day.  The waffles were amazing.

In Bruges (before the movie came out), I stayed at a hostel where beers cost 1 euro at happy hour and the smell of cigarette smoke wafted into my dorm room all night long.  I celebrated Fourth of July with two Americans from Tennessee, one of whom, according to social media, has since put on weight and become a father.  I climbed the belltower in the main square and far below, an orchestra played near the square's fountain.  I remember calling my mum that afternoon with the music in the background.  The sky was very blue.  Also, more waffles.

My last stop on the solo tour was Brussels.  I hung out with some Californians and developed a weirdly intense two-day crush on one of them who had a tattoo across his chest that said BLESSED, like Lil Wayne.  I didn't know who Lil Wayne was but went with it.  He kind of looked like Russell Brand (??)  We drank premade sangria that we bought at a corner shop and the guys rolled their own cigarettes.  The next day, I ate moules frites at a table outside a restaurant in a little alley, where tourists walking by looked at the empty seat across from me with confusion and pity.  It was great.  The main square of the city was impressive even though the rest of it, at times, felt like Philadelphia.

When my ten days came to an end, I boarded a train from Brussels across the border to Lille in France, and then onward to Angers.  My family met me at the train station and I felt strangely relieved to be reunited with them.  It felt like longer than ten days.

In two weeks, I'll be back in France with my sisters and my parents.  It will be the first time I have been back there with my entire family since that summer.  This time around, instead of eating fries with mayo and drinking with strangers in the preceding days, I'll be tying up loose ends at the office in preparation for a new job and making arrangements for our plants to get watered and the cat to be fed while we are away.  Those ten days in 2007 feel like just yesterday, so I guess I've done a lot of growing up in the meantime... but I could definitely still go for a waffle.