You know New York, You need New York...

...you know you need unique New York...

So goes one of my favorite tongue twister warm-ups when I teach acting.

Seven years ago, I had the excellent fortune of teaching at an amazing school on Manhattan's Upper East Side. I was assigned a banged-up group of juniors with a terrible reputation for being difficult, unruly, and just generally annoying. Not only did I have the joy of teaching all of these juniors Brit Lit, I also had to teach them Speech. Plus I had a junior advisory group. I couldn't escape.

I forged through the year, determined to keep my head above water, and forced myself to like them. But a funny thing happened on the way to June...I fell in love with them. They just barged on in to my heart and made themselves at home. I came to know each of them, quirks and all, and just enjoy them immensely. Together, we marched through "Macbeth," built houses in Kentucky, West Virginia and Belize, served together in Camden, laughed together in the Commons, and cried together on retreats. I also managed to guilt many of them into taking a risk and performing onstage for the first time. And by the time graduation came two years later, they chose to dedicate their yearbook to me--still one of the greatest honors I have EVER received as a teacher.

So when an invitation to their 5-year reunion appeared in the mail, NR and I decided to return to the Big Apple--our first time back there together in several years. We booked our Bolt Bus tickets, left the kids with the grandparents, and scored a stay with a Jesuit friend of ours who lives around the corner from Carnegie Hall.

He urged us to walk up to the reunion. "Thirty blocks!?" I balked and whined, hoping for a taxi. But my frugal beloved pointed out what a nice night it was, so off we went.

And it was nice. Our favorite part was strolling through the Mall in Central Park--a place we had never gone. In fact, we realized how many "New York" things we had never done in the NINE years we worked up there. State of Liberty, Shake Shack, skating in Wollman Rink...oh, we did our share of touristy stuff during our JV years, but it petered out once we started working for real. Because, honestly, who wanted to wander through the Met when you had a stack of papers to grade in your tote bag? Who wanted to ride the swans when we had grocery shopping to do?

So it was a real treat to just savor and enjoy a city that has meant so much to us.

As we wandered through the Mall together--no tote bags or kids in tow, no chores hanging over our heads--we passed by several wedding parties having their picture taken. As we approach our ninth anniversary, it was a beautiful reminder of all we've been through together...and where it all began.