Syracuse Univ. & DAC Dance

Monday evening in New York ended up having some odd coincidences, which inspired my donation for the day….more in a minute.

I left Pennsylvania at 5:25pm and crossed into Waverly, NY. Within half a mile I could tell this would be a good town for walking, so we parked by the community park and got out for a good 3.5 mile walk around town. We got into the neighborhoods adjoining town and it was a welcome change to see looooong almost-flat streets after all the Pennsylvania hills. That’s probably why I ended up on a long walk! Then we walked by the small farmer’s market in the park but all I got was a green pepper for 35 cents!

I was wanting to head to the Finger Lakes region at some point, and because I drove into NY at Waverly, all I had to do was head north a bit so I started off. I made a short stop in Van Etten to get another 1.1 miles of walking in before it got too dark. As far as walking for the day, I finished my 4.3 miles in PA and did the first 4.6 in NY – almost 9 miles for the day! I’ll finish up the other 3.4 Monday miles in NY before heading to state #3 – nice to have a little flexibility with both miles and donations on “state transition” days!

I was planning to stop for the night in Ithaca but it was crowded and motels were full. Don’t know if something special was going on, or if it’s always like that. So I decided to continue heading north through the pretty falling darkness. I was thinking a lot about the studios as I was driving since today was the first day of classes at Dance Arts of Chelsea, and it was strange not to be to welcome everyone back to another year of classes. I was thinking of the dancers, and families, and instructors…including Faith, a lovely 16 yr old dancer, who took her own life exactly 3 weeks ago, and was now missing her first day of dance class. Shortly after that, I passed a sign for Syracuse University and that made me think of my brother Dave, who attended Syracuse for one semester – brother Dave took his own life 13 years ago. Faith and Dave are the only people I’ve known who have ended their own lives. I ended up stopping at a motel that’s not too far from Syracuse, and when I got on the computer I saw a bunch of Facebook messages saying Monday Sept. 10 was Suicide Awareness Day. And I had just been thinking about both Faith (because of the first day of dance) and Dave (because of the proximity of Syracuse U). I wasn’t going to make a donation today (was going to do the Monday NY donation next Monday because nothing had presented itself in the few short hours I’d been in the state) but after the Faith/Dave/Suicide Awareness Day coincidences, I knew what I had to do! The national office for The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention happens to be in New York (another coincidence) so my $56 donation – along with a short note in memory of both Dave and Faith – was written out last night and will be mailed this morning. Always remembering….