Lunch with Kuya Nelson.

"Oh Ian, it's so good to hear your voice."

In most cases, I try not to anticipate how much somebody might miss me; I'm very good at indulging in that stuff. Other times I just get taken by surprise. Kuya* Nelson is someone that for a long time has been in my life, but I still didn't expect him to say that. Suddenly, in the cold resonating stone walls of the New York Public Library, I'm compelled to reply with a warm chuckle of spontaneous relief "it's so great to hear your voice too."

He's decided to treat me to anywhere I want go. Mrs. Rodriguez probably knows better than most how dangerous it is to hand me a blank check -- once in elementary school she gave me a $20 bill to take over to the snack shop during one of Alex Rodriguez's baseball games, and I greedily splurged on $17 worth of junk food. I had the worst feeling in my stomach later that day; it's one of my most prized childhood regrets.

I take us to Eisenberg's -- fairly priced and delightfully local. While we're walking he asks me what I enjoying doing most here, and with a gesture to everything around us I answer "this." I probably spend most of my day "going to" and "coming from," and after I've done that I tell him my second favorite thing to do is "sit and watch," mostly in the park. I can imagine most articulate residents here would say the same; after all, they're doing it with me.

"You know everybody back home still talks about you. Even though they hate for you to be so far away, they still feel connected with all your blog posts and stuff"

he tells frankly over some pastrami sandwiches and dish of pickle spears, and for the first time in a profound way...I miss home. I guess I just got into the idea of community here really easily. Large-scale, expansively conscious, metropolitan community, is something that's always sounded so exciting to me, and continues to be. That's why I don't get tired of walking, why I don't get bored sitting, why I never run out of things to see -- you ever notice how pretty much anything can become something you "just gotta see" when a lot of other people are seeing it? Well let me tell you, there are a lot of people in Manhattan. But my time with Kuya Nelson reminded me of something I hadn't realized I missed so much: that small-scale cooped-up kind of community. That suburban, microcosmic, I-noticed-you-were-missing kind of community. I also realized just how much time nowadays I spend doing my own thing.

I'm really starting to notice that God picked Kuya Nelson for a specific reason. I don't think we've ever spent time like this before so I was initially nervous about it, yet he so easily divulges his war stories with me, and when I bear my own soul to him, he knows just how to point me back to Christ. These are the kinds of exchanges mature, godly men need to be having with men of the next generation. Afterwards, he drives me back to Times Square where I have my acting class, and as we trade rushed goodbyes at a red light, he hugs me, musses my hair up a bit and tells me he loves me. That and he hands me some cash that he gives me permission to use on anything I want. "Wow," I think to myself, quickly restraining my lavish imagination and resolving to put it towards that parking ticket I got last month. PTL.



*kuya means "older brother" in Tagalog, term of respect