An unexpected retreat

When you think of favorite getaway destinations, NYC probably isn’t the first place that comes to mind.

As someone who works in a very mind-body-oriented wellness niche, I used to believe the places I should experience as most restorative were beaches, mountains, or quiet little villages in the Italian countryside where slow living reigns supreme.

Somewhere... not filled with people rushing around, car fumes, and the noisy honking of reckless drivers.

Somewhere in nature.

Maybe some meditation, lazing around in a linen dress, and swinging by a sun-drenched local market to pick up some fresh plums.

But for me, I feel most alive - and most me - when I’m in NYC.

It’s where I feel most creative. Where ideas pour out of me and I slip into “the flow.”

It’s like part of my brain gets unlocked.

It’s a bit of a paradox, I suppose… that the place I feel most in touch with myself and blissfully alone is the very place where I’m surrounded by a million strangers.

Well, not all strangers... I always stay at the same hotel (which also has apartments in the building), so I know the doorman, the front desk staff, the guy who runs the mailroom (who once had to deal with 140 pounds of Epsom salt I accidentally shipped there instead of my home in Ohio - whoops), and the older gentleman on the third floor with a Westie named Kelly and a Scottie named Bonnie. I always knock on his door to say hello to my favorite furry friends in the city. The breathwork instructor at my favorite spa. The waiters at my favorite restaurant.

It all feels... deliciously familiar.

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I’ve been coming to NYC since I was young. I used to be a dancer and had countless dance-related events and auditions here, so the Upper West Side became a kind of home away from home. It’s my go-to “weekend trip” destination - just an 80 min flight from where I live.

There’s the dance studio where I’ve taken countless classes.
My favorite local market.
The cozy brunch spot tucked beside my hotel.
My favorite rock to sit on in Central Park.
The best iced coffee in the city (which I religiously drink even in the dead of winter).

The oddly comforting and reliable soundscape of the city - the sirens, the honking, the subway whizzing by beneath the sidewalk.

The buzz of caffeine-fueled commutes.
The energy of possibility. Of ideas. Of larger-than-life dreams and ambitions.

Some people loathe NYC. They hate the hustle and want to escape to the countryside. To live a slower life.

And for a long time, I thought I had to do that too. Even though I live in a suburb of a medium-sized city - not NYC - I believed I couldn’t truly live a soft, slow, nourishing life unless I quit everything and moved to a cottage or farmhouse, spent my days picking herbs in a flouncy sundress, and made all my meals from scratch.

But maybe you don’t need to be in a bucolic, instagram-worthy location to appreciate the little things? To live fully in the present moment?

What if you can live a “slow” life anywhere?

What if it’s not about farm animals or the sound of the wind rustling the leaves or the gentle lap of the ocean... but about fully appreciating the present moment wherever you might be?

Maybe people-watching on the subway is just as meditative as sitting beside a waterfall.
Maybe the mundane act of waiting in line to get the best chocolate chip cookie in the city is its own kind of holy.

Maybe stillness is not always quiet.

There’s something sacred about sitting in a theatre - fully present with hundreds of strangers, your phone off for three hours, immersed in the world the performers and musicians have created.
That hushed silence right before the curtain rises?

Maybe that’s what mindfulness really feels like.

Or maybe it’s the secret joy of discovering a new, hole-in-the-wall cafe.

Or walking through the city unnoticed, surrounded by the beautiful frenzy of a million lives colliding and unfolding all at once. So many unknown stories.

I find the most refreshing stillness in the midst of all the action.

The inner silence amid the backdrop of all the noise.

The paradox of being blissfully alone while also surrounded by an absolute frenzy.

The comforting rhythm of people going about their days in their headphone-isolated worlds without giving me a second glance.

Finding the stillness not despite the noise, but because of it.

I’m actually writing this from the Rose Reading Room at the New York Public Library. After hearing so many people talk about how great it is to write from here, I had to check it out for myself. I even put off writing this piece until I returned to NYC, because it felt only right to write this while I was actually here.

It’s amazing how quiet it is here, in contrast to the chaos just outside the walls.

It feels sacred, somehow.

A room full of people reading, writing, researching - in complete solitude, yet surrounded by strangers.

A girl just sat down across from me and dropped three books on the table: Bog Bodies, Bodies in the Bog, and Bodies from the Bog. Naturally, I Googled it. Turns out bog bodies are mummified cadavers preserved in peat.

You really do learn something new every day.

I’m not even sure I’d want to live here full-time - although part of me definitely flirts with that idea every time I visit.

But I know this: when I need a reset, this is where I want to be.

My favorite kind of “wellness retreat.”

A retreat that offers its own unique kind of meditation.

I might not be taking early morning hikes or chanting in a forest - but it’s my version of sacred.

Whether it’s checking out a buzzy new restaurant, people-watching in Central Park, or being completely enraptured in a dark theater - so fully present that I forget, just for a moment, that I’m supposed to be “healing” and “working on improving myself.”

It doesn’t look like what I thought healing would look like.

But maybe that’s the whole point.

Maybe “healing” doesn’t always happen in quiet, serene places.

Maybe it happens in motion - in the noticing, the messiness, and the aliveness of it all.

Stay curious,

Abigail